Studio: international art (42.1908)

William Keith of California

with its clear, original, unmuted vibration some in Mr. Keith's studio, painting and discussing
fleeting " impression," some " moment without painting. In his theory, that a canvas before it can
date," magical and transitory, deeply felt, in the be considered complete must necessarily go through
shadow of the woods—in the fretted mirror of the a definite and prolonged number of stages and treat-
meadow stream, or in dewy morning pastures—and ments, he differed from Mr. Keith, who usually paints
the motive rather than the rest seems the clue to under a high pressure of feeling which brings all his
his place in modern art. faculties to a focus, and obliges them to work with

The first glance at any group of Mr. Keith's the greatest rapidity and concentration. Illustra-
paintings clearly indicates his attitude toward nature ting his method, Mr. Inness painted a picture,
and art. They deal with emotions aroused or watched day after day throughout its gradual
suggested by landscape under certain conditions evolution by Mr. Keith with the keenest interest,
of light and atmosphere. ■ and when the last touches had been given and the

He himself says: " Broadly speaking, there are painter turned and laid down his brush, Mr. Keith
but two schools of landscape painting: one that pronounced his verdict: "Nevertheless, the picture
has to do mainly with facts, workmanship and is absolutely the work of to-day." It was true, and
technique; the other with emotions so subtle, so admitted by Inness; the soul and essentials of the
elusive and evanescent, that they are almost work had been the contribution of the last day.
beyond mortal reach." His own point of view is And the effect was not more solid, nor its unity
purely the latter, but his work illustrates his further more complete than in Mr. Keith's swift and sure
statement, that to express the higher beauty one progress to his goal. This vivid purpose and defi-
must deeply know the elementary and fundamental nite aim are characteristic, and account for the
"facts." This is apparently what some of our speed and certainty with which his conception is
younger painters forget, and in the effort to pass embodied. Mr. Inness said later, " Not one of us
at once to what they rightly feel is the higher (including the great Frenchmen of his own date)
plane, they skip or neglect the intermediary can carry a picture so far by the first intention,
evolutionary stage. That this cannot be, the except perhaps Rousseau."

Japanese artist well knows, and the delicate With this same concentration and energy, and
and emotional suggestion of his work is the the labour of omission, must some of the older
fruit of the most gradual and thorough study of men have worked, whose incredible aggregate is
nature—so many years' drawing of leaves, so spread through the galleries of the world; not
many of insects, birds, and animals, until finally, uncertainly, but with every faculty bent upon the
with no suggestion of effort, the hand achieves realisation of the inner vision—"one thing, done
what the spirit dares. This necessary preliminary at one time—in a moment! " as Mr. Keith, with
labour and training Mr. Keith has gone through, permissible exaggeration, has expressed it.
and now in his latest and
ripest work, more and
more we find that final
touch of spirituponmatter,
that apparently almost

accidental inspiration and jJm
unpremeditated art which
are really the harmonic
and overtone of long in-
sight and labour. j

The visit of George
Inness to California in
1890 brought together two

men who had much in . - ,

common through their art,

although their methods

were radically different.

Mr. Inness came West

for health, and spent his

entire two months daily "the crown of the sierras" by william keith

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