DOI Heft:
Nr. 168 (March 1907)
DOI Artikel:Williams, Leonard: A Spanish painter of today: Eliseo Meifren
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20774#0219
Eliseo Meifren, Spanish Painter
of these latter cannot be
extolled too highly. It
represents the ria of Ponte-
vedra, in Galicia. The
broad river is flowing past
us in the foreground. The
opposite bank is bordered
by a wall, above the wall
we view the city and cathe-
dral. The light from one
of the cathedral windows
casts a faint reflection on
the water, and high in
heaven a thin, small moon
is just beginning to appear.
The river is flecked with
rhythmically regular ripples;
the sky, with rhythmically
regular cloudlets.
“ PASAGES (GUIPUZCOA)”
same conditions of existence, gifted, either of them,
with a similar and homotaxic form of life. You
cannot paint a pagan figure or a group of pagan
figures in a landscape of our time, any more than
you can paint a living portrait from a corpse, or a
mediaeval warrior from a model of this very day.
By such devices as a suit of armour or an anti-
quated dress you cannot throw the landscape back,
or bring the pagans forward, twenty centuries.
Such was the error of those landscape-painters of
the past. They read the face
of nature in too leisurely a
way. The landscape-painter
has no time to lose. Modern
impressionists have caught,
and possibly have over-
strained, this secret. But,
beyond a doubt, the
strength of the impression-
ists and those akin to them
is in their swiftness ; there-
fore in their truth.
The sum of Meifren’s
work is large and varied ;
nor is it easy to select
where all is excellent.
Nevertheless I mention, as
particularly admirable, his
vivid rendering of the Cata-
lan coast at Cadaques, and
studies and pictures near
Santander or other places
of the north of Spain. One “a courtyard, pontevedra” by eliseo meifren
by eliseo meifren We often prate of com-
position, and twist a
prospect round and round to make it look what
it is not. But here, for its sobriety, the composi-
tion might be Japanese. The lines of the wrall
and river and cathedral roof are simply parallel
and horizontal. There is no straining to introduce
capricious curves or build an artificial balance to
replace the natural want of one, so that the scene
is admirably simple, and speaks to the heart from
its directness. Then, too, by way of further charm,
the hour is one that breathes the softest harmonies.
197
of these latter cannot be
extolled too highly. It
represents the ria of Ponte-
vedra, in Galicia. The
broad river is flowing past
us in the foreground. The
opposite bank is bordered
by a wall, above the wall
we view the city and cathe-
dral. The light from one
of the cathedral windows
casts a faint reflection on
the water, and high in
heaven a thin, small moon
is just beginning to appear.
The river is flecked with
rhythmically regular ripples;
the sky, with rhythmically
regular cloudlets.
“ PASAGES (GUIPUZCOA)”
same conditions of existence, gifted, either of them,
with a similar and homotaxic form of life. You
cannot paint a pagan figure or a group of pagan
figures in a landscape of our time, any more than
you can paint a living portrait from a corpse, or a
mediaeval warrior from a model of this very day.
By such devices as a suit of armour or an anti-
quated dress you cannot throw the landscape back,
or bring the pagans forward, twenty centuries.
Such was the error of those landscape-painters of
the past. They read the face
of nature in too leisurely a
way. The landscape-painter
has no time to lose. Modern
impressionists have caught,
and possibly have over-
strained, this secret. But,
beyond a doubt, the
strength of the impression-
ists and those akin to them
is in their swiftness ; there-
fore in their truth.
The sum of Meifren’s
work is large and varied ;
nor is it easy to select
where all is excellent.
Nevertheless I mention, as
particularly admirable, his
vivid rendering of the Cata-
lan coast at Cadaques, and
studies and pictures near
Santander or other places
of the north of Spain. One “a courtyard, pontevedra” by eliseo meifren
by eliseo meifren We often prate of com-
position, and twist a
prospect round and round to make it look what
it is not. But here, for its sobriety, the composi-
tion might be Japanese. The lines of the wrall
and river and cathedral roof are simply parallel
and horizontal. There is no straining to introduce
capricious curves or build an artificial balance to
replace the natural want of one, so that the scene
is admirably simple, and speaks to the heart from
its directness. Then, too, by way of further charm,
the hour is one that breathes the softest harmonies.
197