DOI issue:
No. 175 (October, 1907)
DOI article:Atkins, Henry: William Keith, landscape painter, of California
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20776#0061
William Keith of California
galleries and painters have
been of the briefest; his
studies of the elder men have
been the least part of his
inspiration, and, separated
by a continent and an ocean
from their achievement, the
voice that he has heard has
been from within.
Had Mr. Keith's work
progressed along the lines
of his early, frankly out-of-
door painting, with its cool
colour and literal rendering
of the aspects of landscape,
we should perhaps to-day
have had in him an Ameri-
can parallel of Daubigny;
"tranquillity" by william keith , ■ ,. , ,
but another element early
entered the field : tem-
by photography. The mechanical exactness of this perament asserting itself—the temperament of the
work must have had upon his drawing its influence poet and mystic. The direction of growth is
for firmness and power, just as the anatomical changed — the mood rather than the material
drawing incident to his surgical lectureship, trained presentment of nature becomes his preoccupation,
the hand of Sir Seymour Haden to that delicacy and the poet holds the brush with the painter,
and decision which have brought him an inter- Here is the key which others have found to the
national fame. chamber of mysteries, but with what a Western
It is again the story of "all precious things thrill of young romance does the door swing open
discovered late." Mr. Keith's powers, "like the to the new touch! This is his power—to render
good seed which shows no
too ready springing before
the sun be up, but fails not
afterwards," were even by
himself unsuspected in ex-
tent through long years of
effort, experiment, and that
struggle for clear expression
which every painter knows.
Little outside influence fell
upon him during the period
of development; the darkly
mellow portraits seen occa-
sionally in some shadowy
corner of his studio, recall
a residence in Diisseldorf
during the time of the
Franco-Prussian War, and
in 1883—a year spent
mainly in Munich—a swift
passage through the South
of Europe is coloured by
rich and vivid memories of
Velasquez. Other sojourn-
ings among European "a grey day" by william keith
39
galleries and painters have
been of the briefest; his
studies of the elder men have
been the least part of his
inspiration, and, separated
by a continent and an ocean
from their achievement, the
voice that he has heard has
been from within.
Had Mr. Keith's work
progressed along the lines
of his early, frankly out-of-
door painting, with its cool
colour and literal rendering
of the aspects of landscape,
we should perhaps to-day
have had in him an Ameri-
can parallel of Daubigny;
"tranquillity" by william keith , ■ ,. , ,
but another element early
entered the field : tem-
by photography. The mechanical exactness of this perament asserting itself—the temperament of the
work must have had upon his drawing its influence poet and mystic. The direction of growth is
for firmness and power, just as the anatomical changed — the mood rather than the material
drawing incident to his surgical lectureship, trained presentment of nature becomes his preoccupation,
the hand of Sir Seymour Haden to that delicacy and the poet holds the brush with the painter,
and decision which have brought him an inter- Here is the key which others have found to the
national fame. chamber of mysteries, but with what a Western
It is again the story of "all precious things thrill of young romance does the door swing open
discovered late." Mr. Keith's powers, "like the to the new touch! This is his power—to render
good seed which shows no
too ready springing before
the sun be up, but fails not
afterwards," were even by
himself unsuspected in ex-
tent through long years of
effort, experiment, and that
struggle for clear expression
which every painter knows.
Little outside influence fell
upon him during the period
of development; the darkly
mellow portraits seen occa-
sionally in some shadowy
corner of his studio, recall
a residence in Diisseldorf
during the time of the
Franco-Prussian War, and
in 1883—a year spent
mainly in Munich—a swift
passage through the South
of Europe is coloured by
rich and vivid memories of
Velasquez. Other sojourn-
ings among European "a grey day" by william keith
39