DOI Heft:
No. 203 (February, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Baker, C. H. Collins: The paintings of Prof. Henry Tonks
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20969#0026
THE STUDIO
The paintings of prof.
HENRY TONES. BY C. IT
COLLINS BAKER.
From remote times the annals of art have been
spattered with dissensions. Always, I suspect,
what they called Classicists opposed what were
known as Romantics or Impressionists. How hot
these discussions were in the Mas d’Azil grottoes
I cannot say, but we may be fairly sure that the
quicksilver was at its highest when David, and
after him Ingres, bitterly faced Watteau’s influence
and Delacroix. In those days no sort of com-
promise or fusion was possible; pharisaical and
narrow, Ingres until his death was militant. What,
we might speculate, would be his attitude towards
an art based upon his punctilious
regard for le dessein and expressed
in a rich impressionism ?
Mr. Henry Tonks, Assistant Pro-
fessor of drawing in the first school
of draughtsmanship in England,
principally acknowledges that Ingres
has been for him a sort of goal, and
none aware of his draughtsmanship
can doubt his classicism in this
respect. On the other hand The
Strolling Players and The Bird
Cage, as yet his chief works, are
distinct landmarks in the impres-
sionism of Renoir or Degas. Thus
he affords us the spectacle of what
I must not be misinterpreted in
calling the finest academic tradition
consorting with, and indispensable
to, an impressionist’s point of view.
In these two pictures of 1907
and ’8 we see in the full flower
what in the bud characterized his
earliest paintings; his outlook has
practically remained the same. To
explain this we merely must recall
that he became professionally a
painter when his views on life were
fairly set; and in wondeiing, as we
may, that his work bears no trace
of the untrained draughtsmanship
usual in those who take up art com-
paratively late, we must remember self portrait
XLIX. No. 203.—February, 1910.
that his earlier profession was surgical. For in this
he had reached a conspicuous proficiency: he had
been house surgeon, demonstrator of Anatomy,
and finally F.R.C.S., before he was thirty. The
equipment, then, which this special scientific know-
ledge of anatomy gave for his new profession we
can easily understand and hardly over-estimate.
Bom in 1862, Mr. Tonks, long before he was a
painter, was deeply influenced by the graceful
romance of Walker, and Millais’ eminent ability to
portray the elegance and charm of ladyhood.
How deep these influences were we may assess
by the fact that they are with him yet, reinforced
by that of the French dix-huitieme masters.
From Clifton College, Mr. Tonks entered the
hospitals, there to win and quit a position of high
BY HENRY TONKS
3
The paintings of prof.
HENRY TONES. BY C. IT
COLLINS BAKER.
From remote times the annals of art have been
spattered with dissensions. Always, I suspect,
what they called Classicists opposed what were
known as Romantics or Impressionists. How hot
these discussions were in the Mas d’Azil grottoes
I cannot say, but we may be fairly sure that the
quicksilver was at its highest when David, and
after him Ingres, bitterly faced Watteau’s influence
and Delacroix. In those days no sort of com-
promise or fusion was possible; pharisaical and
narrow, Ingres until his death was militant. What,
we might speculate, would be his attitude towards
an art based upon his punctilious
regard for le dessein and expressed
in a rich impressionism ?
Mr. Henry Tonks, Assistant Pro-
fessor of drawing in the first school
of draughtsmanship in England,
principally acknowledges that Ingres
has been for him a sort of goal, and
none aware of his draughtsmanship
can doubt his classicism in this
respect. On the other hand The
Strolling Players and The Bird
Cage, as yet his chief works, are
distinct landmarks in the impres-
sionism of Renoir or Degas. Thus
he affords us the spectacle of what
I must not be misinterpreted in
calling the finest academic tradition
consorting with, and indispensable
to, an impressionist’s point of view.
In these two pictures of 1907
and ’8 we see in the full flower
what in the bud characterized his
earliest paintings; his outlook has
practically remained the same. To
explain this we merely must recall
that he became professionally a
painter when his views on life were
fairly set; and in wondeiing, as we
may, that his work bears no trace
of the untrained draughtsmanship
usual in those who take up art com-
paratively late, we must remember self portrait
XLIX. No. 203.—February, 1910.
that his earlier profession was surgical. For in this
he had reached a conspicuous proficiency: he had
been house surgeon, demonstrator of Anatomy,
and finally F.R.C.S., before he was thirty. The
equipment, then, which this special scientific know-
ledge of anatomy gave for his new profession we
can easily understand and hardly over-estimate.
Bom in 1862, Mr. Tonks, long before he was a
painter, was deeply influenced by the graceful
romance of Walker, and Millais’ eminent ability to
portray the elegance and charm of ladyhood.
How deep these influences were we may assess
by the fact that they are with him yet, reinforced
by that of the French dix-huitieme masters.
From Clifton College, Mr. Tonks entered the
hospitals, there to win and quit a position of high
BY HENRY TONKS
3