Studio: international art (46.1909)

Portraits in Enamel

PORTRAIT IN ENAMEL OF THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH
BY ALEXANDER FISHER

eye, a gratification of the visual faculty. Perhaps
to the enamel painter there is another addition
to this view, and that is the right use of the
material in which he works. It is the right regard
for the properties of his medium wedded to the
art qualities of the design, which makes towards
successful rendering of the subject, although the
limitations laid down by the uninitiated, who only
form their opinion from an incomplete study of
old enamels and not the life-giving experiences of
daily practice, are such as if acted upon would
stultify and wither all advancement.

Then there is the idealistic view, which I under-
stand to mean that aspect of nature wherein the
knowledge of the truth, which belongs to the real
knowledge of the laws of being rather than the
external manifestation of those laws, is expressed
together with the knowledge received through our
senses. This truth is perceived by that faculty
which rises to meet it in acute sympathy with the
characteristics of the subjects, so that for the time
being the recipient becomes the subject itself, so
to say. The laws relating to that subject and
governing it, are his. To such a one the reali-
sation of things perceived on this mental plane—
the dynamic rather than the static—is of para-
mount importance. He is standing within the
inner chamber watching with mental vision the

way in which it is dong, rather than
what is done. The subject itself is
of relatively small importance. The
arrangement of line and mass, tone and
colour, is the essential thing. This, with
adequately precise if not triumphantly
facile expressive technique, is in briefest
terms the artist’s -view par excellence.
The delineation of character, says he,
falls into place by the true understand-
ing of the structural mass whether com-
posed of rigid inflexibility or of rotund
contour. In the right appreciation of
values, in the power of balance and
contrast, in the perfect envelopment of
the whole in one conception, in the
clearness and directness of handling,
in these and other kindred respects,
this view finds its means and end.

Dissimilar in means and end as is
this view to that of the primitive por-
trait enameller, yet it is singularly in
accord in one respect, that the work
achieved should exist for itself. The
appeal was made as a delight to the

PORTRAIT IN ENAMEL OF MISS JULIA BUCKLER

BY ALEXANDER FISHER