DOI Heft:
Nr. 192 (March 1909)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: Robert W. Allan's recent paintings and drawings
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20966#0112
Robert IV. Allan, R.W.S.
was painted? For this atmospheric colour truth
is truth to the mood of the moment and the hour.
Hence our delight in such craft as Mr. Allan’s
has its origin at the source of our delight in nature,
for art and nature are so inextricably bound
together as sources of pleasurable emotion that we
appraise what has been done in art by this con-
stant, almost sub conscious reference to our love
of nature.
Few landscape painters of to-day have kept so
close a hold of the purely objective side of their
subjects as Mr. Allan, and at the same time painted
so subjectively. His pictures are at all times the
interpretation, not merely of a scene, but of the
particular nature of his regard for that scene at
the moment. Mr. Allan appeals to me personally
as a sea painter, but he is far from being that
only ; and to others he may appeal more forcibly
by his landscapes. He certainly is alive to impres-
sive inland scenes. The picture Evening, which
we reproduce (page 95), interprets the hour with
feeling. A constant variety of subjects is chosen
in this art, for the painter’s vision is alert and has
not become enslaved to one kind of scene only,
nor his heart to only one kind of mood.
This variety of subject and inspiration makes
one feel, as do so many other things about this
work, the virility of Mr. Allan’s artistic nature, its
energy and confidence. His record as a water-
colourist is great enough for a painter known
only as a water colourist; it is, as it were, a
second reputation which has grown up side by side
with his reputation as an oil painter. And in
water-colour his position is unique. Vice-President
of the old Water-colour Society, it is difficult to
think who could hold the post with greater fitness.
For he is a pure water-colourist, a lover of the
medium of the water as well as the colour which
gives the character to this medium. Whilst water-
colour painting in England suffered a temporary
though not a short eclipse; whilst certain societies
exhibited for years works which, though termed
water-colours, might as well have been executed in
any other medium for all that they expressed the
charm of water-colour, Mr. Allan sustained its true
tradition, which is to see colour carried over the
paper in a vehicle of water, strong or merely
stained, as desired, but always pre-eminently ex-
pressing the artist’s pleasure in controlling this
floating, accidental and delicate means of attaining
an effect.
During all the dark time of eclipse, Mr. Allan
went on painting in water-colours in a way that
was derived from its first and natural use. The
painter Melville, after he had seen some of Air,
Allan’s work, painted as one who had received a
90
was painted? For this atmospheric colour truth
is truth to the mood of the moment and the hour.
Hence our delight in such craft as Mr. Allan’s
has its origin at the source of our delight in nature,
for art and nature are so inextricably bound
together as sources of pleasurable emotion that we
appraise what has been done in art by this con-
stant, almost sub conscious reference to our love
of nature.
Few landscape painters of to-day have kept so
close a hold of the purely objective side of their
subjects as Mr. Allan, and at the same time painted
so subjectively. His pictures are at all times the
interpretation, not merely of a scene, but of the
particular nature of his regard for that scene at
the moment. Mr. Allan appeals to me personally
as a sea painter, but he is far from being that
only ; and to others he may appeal more forcibly
by his landscapes. He certainly is alive to impres-
sive inland scenes. The picture Evening, which
we reproduce (page 95), interprets the hour with
feeling. A constant variety of subjects is chosen
in this art, for the painter’s vision is alert and has
not become enslaved to one kind of scene only,
nor his heart to only one kind of mood.
This variety of subject and inspiration makes
one feel, as do so many other things about this
work, the virility of Mr. Allan’s artistic nature, its
energy and confidence. His record as a water-
colourist is great enough for a painter known
only as a water colourist; it is, as it were, a
second reputation which has grown up side by side
with his reputation as an oil painter. And in
water-colour his position is unique. Vice-President
of the old Water-colour Society, it is difficult to
think who could hold the post with greater fitness.
For he is a pure water-colourist, a lover of the
medium of the water as well as the colour which
gives the character to this medium. Whilst water-
colour painting in England suffered a temporary
though not a short eclipse; whilst certain societies
exhibited for years works which, though termed
water-colours, might as well have been executed in
any other medium for all that they expressed the
charm of water-colour, Mr. Allan sustained its true
tradition, which is to see colour carried over the
paper in a vehicle of water, strong or merely
stained, as desired, but always pre-eminently ex-
pressing the artist’s pleasure in controlling this
floating, accidental and delicate means of attaining
an effect.
During all the dark time of eclipse, Mr. Allan
went on painting in water-colours in a way that
was derived from its first and natural use. The
painter Melville, after he had seen some of Air,
Allan’s work, painted as one who had received a
90