DOI Heft:
No. 161 (August, 1906)
DOI Artikel:The New English Art Clubs thirty-sixth exhibition
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0247
The New English Art Club's Exhibition
within. From the point of view of the painting
in the picture Mr. Steer’s reputation has established
itself beyond any too ready criticism. In the
Crystal Gazers Mr. Tonks, too, is struggling
with stammering half-reflected lights in an interior,
and evinces a Gainsborough - like pleasure in
painting the surfaces of costly materials, exploring
for the effect of shimmering light in half-asserted
local colour, as his crystal gazer explores her
future. The opulent art of Mr. Steer and Mr.
Tonks, scientific yet inheriting the grace of
Watteau, seems paradoxical as an exhibit in the
garret-like little gallery, which is more in keeping
with the Bohemian work of Mr. John. That poet
of luxury so many times refined, Mr. Conder, is
playing in Arcady this year, as his masters of the
Fetes Galarites were wont to do. We hope he will
pursue these excursions into the orchard country
he has depicted. We prefer their natural blossoms
to the atmosphere of a
stilling pot-pourri which has
oft-times affected his work.
From his delicate art of
gaiety to the sombre moods
of Mr. John is just one of
those abrupt contrasts be-
tween two strong personali-
ties which only the New
English Art Club provides.
The figures in the latter’s
The Meeting in the Lane
look out of the hectic paint
with something of the in-
decision which that paint
seems to show of how to
please—or annoy. In look-
ing at the portrait of Sir
John Brunner we are con-
scious that an artist with a
Lenbach’s command of
character expression is ex-
hibiting in the room, and
in this portrait Mr. John
gives us something which
promises a finer beauty
than that which he pursues
in gipsy faces and often
sees in so unhappy a way.
Turning from his art, open
to realities as it is, another
contrast meets one in
the delicate pedantry of
the art of Mr. McEvoy,
stuggling, not unsuccess-
226
fully, through tradition and receipt to its own
beauty. When Mr. Sargent began to exhibit
his great art at the New English Art Club the
Club received a tremendous reinforcement.
Perhaps his In Switzerland shows that almost
uncanny infallibility of vision in certain ways
which makes paint of any kind with him as an-
swerable as words in the mouth of a heaven-sent
orator. Mr. Sargent’s is the living art of an artist
who does not live when he is not painting, as the
oratory of the great Fox grew out of his constant
and persuasive conversation. His Behind the
Curtain arrives on the paper and canvas with just
that marvellous spontaneity that finds the essen-
tials of a fine painting every moment everywhere.
In Nodes Ambrosiance, which is dealt with in
something of the same mood, as regards subject,
as Mr. Sargent’s Behind the Curtain, Mr. Sickert
faces his dark scheme in the light only of know-
PORTRA1T OF THE ARTIST BY P. WILSON STEER
(Copyright reserved)
within. From the point of view of the painting
in the picture Mr. Steer’s reputation has established
itself beyond any too ready criticism. In the
Crystal Gazers Mr. Tonks, too, is struggling
with stammering half-reflected lights in an interior,
and evinces a Gainsborough - like pleasure in
painting the surfaces of costly materials, exploring
for the effect of shimmering light in half-asserted
local colour, as his crystal gazer explores her
future. The opulent art of Mr. Steer and Mr.
Tonks, scientific yet inheriting the grace of
Watteau, seems paradoxical as an exhibit in the
garret-like little gallery, which is more in keeping
with the Bohemian work of Mr. John. That poet
of luxury so many times refined, Mr. Conder, is
playing in Arcady this year, as his masters of the
Fetes Galarites were wont to do. We hope he will
pursue these excursions into the orchard country
he has depicted. We prefer their natural blossoms
to the atmosphere of a
stilling pot-pourri which has
oft-times affected his work.
From his delicate art of
gaiety to the sombre moods
of Mr. John is just one of
those abrupt contrasts be-
tween two strong personali-
ties which only the New
English Art Club provides.
The figures in the latter’s
The Meeting in the Lane
look out of the hectic paint
with something of the in-
decision which that paint
seems to show of how to
please—or annoy. In look-
ing at the portrait of Sir
John Brunner we are con-
scious that an artist with a
Lenbach’s command of
character expression is ex-
hibiting in the room, and
in this portrait Mr. John
gives us something which
promises a finer beauty
than that which he pursues
in gipsy faces and often
sees in so unhappy a way.
Turning from his art, open
to realities as it is, another
contrast meets one in
the delicate pedantry of
the art of Mr. McEvoy,
stuggling, not unsuccess-
226
fully, through tradition and receipt to its own
beauty. When Mr. Sargent began to exhibit
his great art at the New English Art Club the
Club received a tremendous reinforcement.
Perhaps his In Switzerland shows that almost
uncanny infallibility of vision in certain ways
which makes paint of any kind with him as an-
swerable as words in the mouth of a heaven-sent
orator. Mr. Sargent’s is the living art of an artist
who does not live when he is not painting, as the
oratory of the great Fox grew out of his constant
and persuasive conversation. His Behind the
Curtain arrives on the paper and canvas with just
that marvellous spontaneity that finds the essen-
tials of a fine painting every moment everywhere.
In Nodes Ambrosiance, which is dealt with in
something of the same mood, as regards subject,
as Mr. Sargent’s Behind the Curtain, Mr. Sickert
faces his dark scheme in the light only of know-
PORTRA1T OF THE ARTIST BY P. WILSON STEER
(Copyright reserved)