DOI Artikel:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: Some etchings by Sir Charles Holroyd
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20778#0031
Etchings by Sir Charles Holroyd
qualities which seem to him to have much aesthetic
significance, and he frankly makes the attainment
of these qualities the main purpose of his practice.
One of the chief characteristics of his etchings
is their fine sense of design. They have always a
largeness of decorative feeling which is much to
be admired for its dignified simplicity and rightness
of relation. This decorative feeling can be
appreciated not only in deliberately arranged
compositions like the Nymphs of the Sea, in which
the closest attention has been given to the pattern
of the lines and masses and to the spacing of the
various parts of the design, but also in records of
fact like the Langstrath and Cypress Trees near
Siena. Yet these are not conventionalised out of
their proper likeness to nature to make them fit in
with a formal preconception ; they have their due
measure of realism, but this realism is not one
which concerns itself with trivialities or with the
little things that are decoratively of no moment,
and it does not insist upon the statement of
uninteresting commonplaces.
Indeed, there is evident throughout the whole
of Sir Charles Holroyd’s etched work a desire to
apply the test of appropriateness in both the
selection and the treatment of the subjects he
deals with. He uses a soundly cultivated taste to
guide him in seeking for material which is in
itself interesting because it has a proper measure
of decorative suggestion, and when he has found
what appeals to him as suitable subject-matter he
makes this decorative suggestion the motive for a
balanced and well-planned design in which his
aesthetic preferences have their full scope. Such
examples as the Yalding Bridge, the Alcantara
Bridge, Toledo, and the Ladies' Guest House, from
the Monte Oliveto series, are notable as proofs that
even the choice of an essentially topographical
motive does not necessitate any abandonment of
decorative principle; like the Langstratli landscape
they are frank records of things seen, and yet they
are as surely designed as the more fanciful Flight
into Egypt, which demanded far less naturalistic
exactness.
Some of the excellent quality of all these prints
comes, however, from their vigorous directness of
execution and from the masculine firmness with
which they are drawn. Fine and expressive line,
clear without hardness, and definite without any
want of flexibility, is to be found in everything
that Sir Charles produces, and the beauty of this
line helps greatly to make convincing the artistic
intention of his work. His manner is so straight-
forward and certain, so free from hesitation or
vagueness of purpose, that it leaves nothing to be
questioned. It is impossible to have any doubts
7
qualities which seem to him to have much aesthetic
significance, and he frankly makes the attainment
of these qualities the main purpose of his practice.
One of the chief characteristics of his etchings
is their fine sense of design. They have always a
largeness of decorative feeling which is much to
be admired for its dignified simplicity and rightness
of relation. This decorative feeling can be
appreciated not only in deliberately arranged
compositions like the Nymphs of the Sea, in which
the closest attention has been given to the pattern
of the lines and masses and to the spacing of the
various parts of the design, but also in records of
fact like the Langstrath and Cypress Trees near
Siena. Yet these are not conventionalised out of
their proper likeness to nature to make them fit in
with a formal preconception ; they have their due
measure of realism, but this realism is not one
which concerns itself with trivialities or with the
little things that are decoratively of no moment,
and it does not insist upon the statement of
uninteresting commonplaces.
Indeed, there is evident throughout the whole
of Sir Charles Holroyd’s etched work a desire to
apply the test of appropriateness in both the
selection and the treatment of the subjects he
deals with. He uses a soundly cultivated taste to
guide him in seeking for material which is in
itself interesting because it has a proper measure
of decorative suggestion, and when he has found
what appeals to him as suitable subject-matter he
makes this decorative suggestion the motive for a
balanced and well-planned design in which his
aesthetic preferences have their full scope. Such
examples as the Yalding Bridge, the Alcantara
Bridge, Toledo, and the Ladies' Guest House, from
the Monte Oliveto series, are notable as proofs that
even the choice of an essentially topographical
motive does not necessitate any abandonment of
decorative principle; like the Langstratli landscape
they are frank records of things seen, and yet they
are as surely designed as the more fanciful Flight
into Egypt, which demanded far less naturalistic
exactness.
Some of the excellent quality of all these prints
comes, however, from their vigorous directness of
execution and from the masculine firmness with
which they are drawn. Fine and expressive line,
clear without hardness, and definite without any
want of flexibility, is to be found in everything
that Sir Charles produces, and the beauty of this
line helps greatly to make convincing the artistic
intention of his work. His manner is so straight-
forward and certain, so free from hesitation or
vagueness of purpose, that it leaves nothing to be
questioned. It is impossible to have any doubts
7