DOI Heft:
No. 161 (August, 1906)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0265
Studio-Talk
Messrs. Maurice and Edward Detmold are
known for the originality of their decorative
illustrations, paintings, and etchings. We have
pleasure in reproducing some of their later designs.
Their concentration upon detail goes a step further
than pre-Raphaelitism. Undoubtedly though per-
haps unconsciously influenced by early German art,
and especially perhaps by Albert Diirer, they
emphasise the decorative motive which underlies
and is expressed in the detail of nature. The
arrangement of pattern in a bird’s wing, the
decorative armour of a fish’s scales, are treated
minutely and sympathetically by the artists, but
their mastery in this direction has not betrayed
them into a sacrifice of movement. In the coloured
illustration by Maurice Detmold the minnows
convey a sense of swift movement, but the most
minute and patient study has been given to arrive
at an exact imitation of the characteristics of these
small fishes. Readers will perhaps be familiar with
the novel illustrations which Messrs. Detmold
made for Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”; in the
drawing no pains were spared to realise the atmo-
sphere of the stories and to arrive at truth of detail
and circumstance. The colour schemes were
effectively stamped with the artists’ originality.
Edward and Maurice Detmold work together so
much that one is scarcely able to discuss their
achievements separately. In the former artist’s
etchings of A Cock and Taurus, which we repro-
duce, some of the essential qualities of the etched
line have been surrendered and the effect of fine
engraved work obtained instead. Extremely in-
teresting results have, however, in the case of Mr.
Detmold, justified this usage of the needle.
At the Dutch Gallery Mr. Charles Ricketts has
been showing an exhibition of his paintings. Years
ago in his woodcuts Mr. Ricketts showed himself a
master of sympathetic form, revealing, through a
highly subjective convention of decorative line-
work, an unusual sense of beauty, and expressing
that element of strangeness in beauty which, in
Walter Pater’s opinion, was the inmost secret of
romantic art. In his oil paintings he seems to
concern himself with another set of ideas, to be
influenced by other masters. It is hard to detect
in these paintings some essential characteristics by
“OFF TO THE FISHING GROUNDS”
244
BY EDWARD DETMOLD
Messrs. Maurice and Edward Detmold are
known for the originality of their decorative
illustrations, paintings, and etchings. We have
pleasure in reproducing some of their later designs.
Their concentration upon detail goes a step further
than pre-Raphaelitism. Undoubtedly though per-
haps unconsciously influenced by early German art,
and especially perhaps by Albert Diirer, they
emphasise the decorative motive which underlies
and is expressed in the detail of nature. The
arrangement of pattern in a bird’s wing, the
decorative armour of a fish’s scales, are treated
minutely and sympathetically by the artists, but
their mastery in this direction has not betrayed
them into a sacrifice of movement. In the coloured
illustration by Maurice Detmold the minnows
convey a sense of swift movement, but the most
minute and patient study has been given to arrive
at an exact imitation of the characteristics of these
small fishes. Readers will perhaps be familiar with
the novel illustrations which Messrs. Detmold
made for Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book”; in the
drawing no pains were spared to realise the atmo-
sphere of the stories and to arrive at truth of detail
and circumstance. The colour schemes were
effectively stamped with the artists’ originality.
Edward and Maurice Detmold work together so
much that one is scarcely able to discuss their
achievements separately. In the former artist’s
etchings of A Cock and Taurus, which we repro-
duce, some of the essential qualities of the etched
line have been surrendered and the effect of fine
engraved work obtained instead. Extremely in-
teresting results have, however, in the case of Mr.
Detmold, justified this usage of the needle.
At the Dutch Gallery Mr. Charles Ricketts has
been showing an exhibition of his paintings. Years
ago in his woodcuts Mr. Ricketts showed himself a
master of sympathetic form, revealing, through a
highly subjective convention of decorative line-
work, an unusual sense of beauty, and expressing
that element of strangeness in beauty which, in
Walter Pater’s opinion, was the inmost secret of
romantic art. In his oil paintings he seems to
concern himself with another set of ideas, to be
influenced by other masters. It is hard to detect
in these paintings some essential characteristics by
“OFF TO THE FISHING GROUNDS”
244
BY EDWARD DETMOLD