DOI Heft:
No. 200 (November, 200)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of Edward John Gregory, R. A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20968#0110
Edward J. Gregory, R.A.
art seriously, and his name at least is known to he might at the moment be engaged, whether it
the crowd as that of an artist whom the experts was a complex composition like the Boulter's
count as of no ordinary importance. Lock, or a little note of some everyday incident in
This, however, is scarcely the position to which the life of the world about him, whether it was
his work is entitled, or the one which it is likely to a study in expression and romantic sentiment,
occupy in the near future. Vagaries of fashion, like the Eldoiado, a record of human character
or those aberrations in the public taste which are like the Castellan, or a realistic interpretation of
encouraged by the sentimentality, or the foolish nature like The Miller's Croft, he put into it all
love of novelty, afflicting too many of the com- that it needed in the way of explanatory detail;
mentators on artistic movements, may, perhaps, but this detail he kept always rightly related and
delay the full recognition of the value of his art; properly proportioned, exaggerating nothing and
but even these bad influences cannot do more slurring over nothing.
than temporarily affect the growth of that largt r How his acuteness of vision helped him to
reputation which is due to him. His real place is avoid those pitfalls which make dangerous the way
among the few great British masters, in the midst of so many men who seek to realise nature's
of that small group of artists who have in this infinite complexity, is amply evidenced in such
country established and upheld the highest paintings as his Piccadilly, or the open-air motives,
standard of pictorial crafts-
manship, and who have
given the most indisputable
evidence that they were
endowed with that excep-
tional combination of fac-
ulties without which truly
masterly accomplishment is
impossible. This endow-
ment he emphatically
possessed, and he used it
with the confidence, the
certainty, and the restraint
which mark the master in
all schools of art practice.
The foundation upon
which all the finer qualities
of his painting securely rest
can certainly be said to be
his unusual acuteness of
vision. He had in the
highest degree the power
of intimate observation,
and of understanding and
recording what he observed.
He had the capacity and
inclination to study closely
and to analyse exhaustively
the material which he
gathered from nature to use
in his artistic undertakings,
and in his management of
this material he showed a
scholarly discretion which
never failed to give distinc-
tion to his work. What-
" IN THE DUMPS BY EDWARD J. GREGORY, R.A.
ever the subject on which {The property of W. Vivian, Esq.)
art seriously, and his name at least is known to he might at the moment be engaged, whether it
the crowd as that of an artist whom the experts was a complex composition like the Boulter's
count as of no ordinary importance. Lock, or a little note of some everyday incident in
This, however, is scarcely the position to which the life of the world about him, whether it was
his work is entitled, or the one which it is likely to a study in expression and romantic sentiment,
occupy in the near future. Vagaries of fashion, like the Eldoiado, a record of human character
or those aberrations in the public taste which are like the Castellan, or a realistic interpretation of
encouraged by the sentimentality, or the foolish nature like The Miller's Croft, he put into it all
love of novelty, afflicting too many of the com- that it needed in the way of explanatory detail;
mentators on artistic movements, may, perhaps, but this detail he kept always rightly related and
delay the full recognition of the value of his art; properly proportioned, exaggerating nothing and
but even these bad influences cannot do more slurring over nothing.
than temporarily affect the growth of that largt r How his acuteness of vision helped him to
reputation which is due to him. His real place is avoid those pitfalls which make dangerous the way
among the few great British masters, in the midst of so many men who seek to realise nature's
of that small group of artists who have in this infinite complexity, is amply evidenced in such
country established and upheld the highest paintings as his Piccadilly, or the open-air motives,
standard of pictorial crafts-
manship, and who have
given the most indisputable
evidence that they were
endowed with that excep-
tional combination of fac-
ulties without which truly
masterly accomplishment is
impossible. This endow-
ment he emphatically
possessed, and he used it
with the confidence, the
certainty, and the restraint
which mark the master in
all schools of art practice.
The foundation upon
which all the finer qualities
of his painting securely rest
can certainly be said to be
his unusual acuteness of
vision. He had in the
highest degree the power
of intimate observation,
and of understanding and
recording what he observed.
He had the capacity and
inclination to study closely
and to analyse exhaustively
the material which he
gathered from nature to use
in his artistic undertakings,
and in his management of
this material he showed a
scholarly discretion which
never failed to give distinc-
tion to his work. What-
" IN THE DUMPS BY EDWARD J. GREGORY, R.A.
ever the subject on which {The property of W. Vivian, Esq.)