DOI issue:
Nr. 188 (November 1908)
DOI article:Bate, Percy H.: The paintings of William Mouncey, of Kirkcudbright
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20965#0123
William Mouncey of Kirkcudbright
“ A WOODLAND GLADE ”
of colour, and sought in other ways to broaden the
scope of his art ; but in his most typical work he
shows nature as in a golden dream, as a land where
always “ the noonday quiet holds the hill.” But
all through his career he was individual and con-
sistent ; he did not flit from style to style, from
method to method, but worked steadily along the
lines that seemed to him good, with a constant
endeavour after the better, and as constant a suc-
cess, for his latest canvases were certainly his best.
Hence there was possibly a certain sameness about
his work ; but it was the sameness of true growth,
the sameness due to the remarkable maturity and
stability of his individual outlook on nature. In
this respect his art was in no way tentative, but a
settled and consistent thing—the result of personal
thought and assured convictions.
In inspiration, as in brushwork, he was an
impressionist. He went to nature for his first sug-
gestion, and sketched boldly and freely in his own
artistic shorthand. Later he wrought with care and
BY WILLIAM MOUNCEY
discrimination on his canvas, balancing light and
shade, and seeking to achieve both depth of tone
and richness of colour ; so that the ultimate result
is compact both of his primary conception and
the transfiguration of it that his memory evolved.
He did not, as a rule, seek to render the aspect of
a particular hour, the sentiment of some ecstatic
moment, though this was more within his powers
at the end of his career than at the beginning.
His pictures were rather the expression of a remem-
bered emotion. They are sublimations of the
actual, crystallisations of a painter’s dream, founded
upon his intimate knowledge of the country he
painted and his abounding love of it.
Among the many typical examples of his art
here illustrated, perhaps the one which marks the
culmination of his achievement is The Lake (p. 98).
Frankly owing something to Turner, and some-
thing perhaps to Monticelli, it is yet Mouncey
himself who here expresses his nature and his
aspirations for us. It is a sumptuous, placid, lotus-
101
“ A WOODLAND GLADE ”
of colour, and sought in other ways to broaden the
scope of his art ; but in his most typical work he
shows nature as in a golden dream, as a land where
always “ the noonday quiet holds the hill.” But
all through his career he was individual and con-
sistent ; he did not flit from style to style, from
method to method, but worked steadily along the
lines that seemed to him good, with a constant
endeavour after the better, and as constant a suc-
cess, for his latest canvases were certainly his best.
Hence there was possibly a certain sameness about
his work ; but it was the sameness of true growth,
the sameness due to the remarkable maturity and
stability of his individual outlook on nature. In
this respect his art was in no way tentative, but a
settled and consistent thing—the result of personal
thought and assured convictions.
In inspiration, as in brushwork, he was an
impressionist. He went to nature for his first sug-
gestion, and sketched boldly and freely in his own
artistic shorthand. Later he wrought with care and
BY WILLIAM MOUNCEY
discrimination on his canvas, balancing light and
shade, and seeking to achieve both depth of tone
and richness of colour ; so that the ultimate result
is compact both of his primary conception and
the transfiguration of it that his memory evolved.
He did not, as a rule, seek to render the aspect of
a particular hour, the sentiment of some ecstatic
moment, though this was more within his powers
at the end of his career than at the beginning.
His pictures were rather the expression of a remem-
bered emotion. They are sublimations of the
actual, crystallisations of a painter’s dream, founded
upon his intimate knowledge of the country he
painted and his abounding love of it.
Among the many typical examples of his art
here illustrated, perhaps the one which marks the
culmination of his achievement is The Lake (p. 98).
Frankly owing something to Turner, and some-
thing perhaps to Monticelli, it is yet Mouncey
himself who here expresses his nature and his
aspirations for us. It is a sumptuous, placid, lotus-
101