Studio: international art (40.1907)

J. Walter West, R.W.S.

pictorial pattern if he was to make his design
sufficiently effective and to save it from any hint of
weakness or incoherence.

Indeed, through the years in which he was
occupied with illustrative work of various kinds
he was steadily laying the foundation upon which
is built the chief part of his recent achievement
as a painter. He began with simply literal trans-
lations of this or that author’s word pictures into
visible black - and - white, but as his experience
widened, and his confidence in his own powers
of interpretation increased, he gave freer rein to
his fancy and introduced a more personal touch
into his illustrations. From this it was an easy
step to the original expression of the ideas aroused
in his mind by his reading, to the production of
drawings which, whatever their source of inspira-
tion, were purely his in
sentiment and manner;
and the next step, to abso-
lutely independent design,
was easier still. How well
he used his independence,
when he felt sure of him-
self, is shown—for example
—in the book-plates which
he has drawn during the
last few years. In this,
one of the daintiest and
most delicate forms of de-
sign, .he may fairly be
said to excel; he hits the
happiest possible mean be-
tween pictorial freedom
and heraldic formality,
and applies the needful
decorative conventions with
exquisite taste.

In the pictures he is
painting now we can see
the harvest that has come
to him in return for all
this sustained and serious
labour. It is a harvest
well worth the gathering,
for it springs from sound
seed carefully planted and
well tended in all the
stages of its development.

If he has changed the
manner of his art, it is sim-
ply because he has known
how and when to put to
the best use all the material “the shadow

he has gathered through years of shrewd observa-
tion. He has met his opportunities half-Way, and
as he has been prepared for them he has been
able to take the fullest advantage of them
and to profit by them amply and in the right
fashion. His pictures, it may be safely said,
would neither have commanded nor deserved the
success which they make to-day if there had not
been that long course of training to fit the artist
for his struggle with the most difficult problems of
pictorial design.

There is no exaggeration in the suggestion that
there are more than common difficulties to be
faced by the painters who choose motives such as
Mr. West has adopted, or who seek to solve the
problems that his later work presents. Pictures
which have a strong subject, or an interest apart

BY J. WALTER WEST

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