Studio: international art (46.1909)

Philip IVilson Steer

space decoration he tempers with his individual
sense of atmosphere and key. Sometimes in deli-
cate colour, tuned to the surroundings, sometimes
in grey monochrome he treats of picnic sports;
girls playing battledore, or idling on the shore (an
admirable excuse for his favourite scheme of pale
honey and grey); girls angling, kite flying or engaged
with the see-saw. Most beautiful of these decora-
tive panels is the sketch design, lately exhibited,
suggesting as it does the pitch Steer might fly,
with the nude as subject, and as embodying his
finest colour. Those who have seen the black-
and-white painted Rape of the Sabines in the
painter’s studio will recall the distinction of its
conventional style. It is especially interesting as
revealing, in the raw, his main motif, the large
fusion of nature in the shadows and the large
pattern traced by the lights.

As the landscapes of the early 1900’s stand to
those of the ’nineties, so to them stands his present
period. In this it is possible to see, I think, what
his most personal expression will be. The earlier
1900’s will be termed, perhaps, his transition period,
the time in which so many masters have achieved
such splendid work. The full power of sunlight
again obsessed him : in contrast with the sombre-
ness of 1898 and ’99, his palette glowed with
pigment’s fullest gamut. Naturalistic effects
succeeded deliberate decorative tonality. Dewy
Morn, shown in 1900, is important since it contains
practically a new expres-
sion. A little Park Scene
of that time, inspired
perhaps by some newly
seen Watteau, gives us in
a wholly fresh spirit the
depth, the pathos, of that
master, and foreshadows
the profounder feeling in
Steer’s work. In 1901
and 1904 were painted
The Rainbow (see The
Studio, vol. xxiv.,
p. 266) and The Storm,
pictures of extraordinary
brilliance. The latter
indeed is consummate as
rendering in perfect har-
mony the glare of sun-
light beneath a sky almost
black. Painters will ap-
preciate the mastery of
gradation to achieve this.

To that period belong
264

certain smaller canvases, more precious than the
larger worked-up pieces. Spontaneous first impres-
sions immediately registering their author’s genius,
enthusiasm, and swift selection; in quality of paint
fluently swept in, with a rare sense of smouldering
colour ; bound together by a master of design, they
are of Steer’s most vital achievement. Such pre-
eminently is the Hawes Sketch in Mr. H. Trench’s
important collection; such are, in Mr. Butler’s
possession, Haymaking and The Cotswolds. Their
scheme is of silvery greys, clear steely blues, and
in the lights a pale gold-green. The Hawes Sketch
is ominous of storm and falling night, the large
Halves picture gives us the morning’s joy ; it is a
great song of sunlight, of blowing wind and the
glorious pageant of the sky, through which sail
mighty cumulus, shadowing in strips the great
expanse of moor and fell. A more visionary note
is struck in the limitless distances, lost in the
mystery of light, of The Golden Valley, the
Severn Valley and in certain water-colours of 1901
and 1903. In his water-colours more, perhaps,
than in his oils Wilson Steer may be said to have
found a new expression, to have revealed. In them
rings a chord of intensity and passion less audible
in the oils, of which indeed stock criticism asserts
the detachment, the lack of deep inspiration.

This year’s indisputably is Steer’s highest pitch,
as yet. The Blue Sash, At The Window, and the
landscapes of the present exhibition abundantly

“CLIFFS BY THE TEME (evening)” by P. WILSON STEER