DOI issue:
Nr. 182 (May 1908)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20777#0341
Studio-Talk
“HOAR frost” BY GEORGE HOUSTON
notwithstanding. There is a disposition to believe
that the artist considers this his crowning achieve-
ment ; in decorative quality it might be pronounced
unsurpassable.
Hoar Frost, the most important contribution by
George Houston, is instinct with that open-airness
that characterises the work of an artist whose studio
is the mountain side, the country lane, the wide
upland, and wheresoe’er the search and inspiration
of subject lead him. In Hoar Frost there is the
chill, bare blight of winter in stern reality ; there
is no going behind Nature with Houston, no
Whistlerian theory of Nature’s limitations ; Houston
paints what he sees, what he knows, leaving the
imaginary to those with insight less keen; and if the
foreground be less definite than some critics would
have it, it was a trick of the hoar frost, of which
the artist was fully cognisant. But it is not the
first time a Houston has suffered by juxtaposition
with inharmonious canvases ; to place it next to
a remarkable Brownlie Docharty, wherein the
exuberance of autumnal tints in a charming
322
woodland scene is presented with a lavish hand,
is not the best association for a picture that reveals
the dearth of colour left by a winter day.
Taking some of the other notable pictures,
mention should be made of A Dream of Coming
Summer, by R. Macaulay Stevenson, R.S.W., a
genuinely decorative treatment of an enchanting
theme. At the proper distance, where the lilac
patches in foreground lose some of the accentua-
tion, the picture composes into poetic beauty,
recalling the charm of Whistler and the delicacy
of Melville. The full fruition of Nature’s colour-
harmony is seen in The Eve of Midsummer, by
J. H. Lorimer, R.S.A., a fantasy of rare but
unequal merit, the masterly treatment of foliage
and flower, of architecture and evening sky, being
somewhat discounted by the insistent forms of a
group of white dancing maidens, a distracting
element in a scene suggestive of intense repose.
The Woodman and the Reapers, by William Mac-
Bride, is another of those delightful harmonies oi
indeterminate colour this artist has led one to
“HOAR frost” BY GEORGE HOUSTON
notwithstanding. There is a disposition to believe
that the artist considers this his crowning achieve-
ment ; in decorative quality it might be pronounced
unsurpassable.
Hoar Frost, the most important contribution by
George Houston, is instinct with that open-airness
that characterises the work of an artist whose studio
is the mountain side, the country lane, the wide
upland, and wheresoe’er the search and inspiration
of subject lead him. In Hoar Frost there is the
chill, bare blight of winter in stern reality ; there
is no going behind Nature with Houston, no
Whistlerian theory of Nature’s limitations ; Houston
paints what he sees, what he knows, leaving the
imaginary to those with insight less keen; and if the
foreground be less definite than some critics would
have it, it was a trick of the hoar frost, of which
the artist was fully cognisant. But it is not the
first time a Houston has suffered by juxtaposition
with inharmonious canvases ; to place it next to
a remarkable Brownlie Docharty, wherein the
exuberance of autumnal tints in a charming
322
woodland scene is presented with a lavish hand,
is not the best association for a picture that reveals
the dearth of colour left by a winter day.
Taking some of the other notable pictures,
mention should be made of A Dream of Coming
Summer, by R. Macaulay Stevenson, R.S.W., a
genuinely decorative treatment of an enchanting
theme. At the proper distance, where the lilac
patches in foreground lose some of the accentua-
tion, the picture composes into poetic beauty,
recalling the charm of Whistler and the delicacy
of Melville. The full fruition of Nature’s colour-
harmony is seen in The Eve of Midsummer, by
J. H. Lorimer, R.S.A., a fantasy of rare but
unequal merit, the masterly treatment of foliage
and flower, of architecture and evening sky, being
somewhat discounted by the insistent forms of a
group of white dancing maidens, a distracting
element in a scene suggestive of intense repose.
The Woodman and the Reapers, by William Mac-
Bride, is another of those delightful harmonies oi
indeterminate colour this artist has led one to