DOI Heft:
No. 203 (February, 1910)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: Some paintings and sketches H. S. Hopwood, R. W. S.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20969#0053
H. S. Ilopwood, R.IV.S.
facility that is too contented with itself. The
worst effect of great artistic honours, such as the
letters R.A. and A.R.A., is that they sometimes
bring self content—that fatal dose, to the artist.
Perhaps for some time after this feeling of content
has betrayed an artist, his work goes merrily along
on the lease of earlier inspirations; but at last his
brilliant formula becomes like a house from which
life has imperceptibly departed. One sometimes
almost trembles to think of the temptation which
must exist for such perfect accomplishment as
Mr. Hopwood’s; of the charming time he could
have with his art if he were quite content with
the easy thing; the popularity that the exag-
geration inseparable from carelessness might
bring him. For the note of exaggeration is the
one note heard in an exhibition because it is
exciting. Truth is unexciting, because familiar,
and nothing can make it otherwise until we live
in a world of lies. It is mournful that it should
generally be the worst features of art that
advertise themselves. Mr. Hopwood has not
waited unsuccessfully for the public to come
round to him, but he has retained the high
artistic privilege ot not meeting it half way,
where infinite cash abounds.
We reproduce an early picture of Mr. Hopwood’s,
Grace after Meat, and from it we get some idea of
the stages through which his work has progressed
to its present freedom. He is now concerned with
impressionism, not with subject-painting. His art
is now one of interpretation, and of creation only
in that sense. Whatever loss of intimacy there
may be in painting that is done away from
nature, that kind of painting still has the
truths and beauties that are all its own. But
the characteristic of purely interpretative paint-
ing like Mr. Hopwood’s may sometimes seem
like sketchiness, because its process is incom-
patible with too much surface charm. Beauty of
one kind does always conflict with beauty of some
other kind in art. But, stupidly enough, one kind
of artist is too often given to denying the existence
of the other kind of artist as an artist at all.
Mr. Hopwood’s art is transparent of his en-
thusiasms, matched, to the aspect of nature to
which it responds, and of his attitude before
nature we might say that it seems adopted “ not
facility that is too contented with itself. The
worst effect of great artistic honours, such as the
letters R.A. and A.R.A., is that they sometimes
bring self content—that fatal dose, to the artist.
Perhaps for some time after this feeling of content
has betrayed an artist, his work goes merrily along
on the lease of earlier inspirations; but at last his
brilliant formula becomes like a house from which
life has imperceptibly departed. One sometimes
almost trembles to think of the temptation which
must exist for such perfect accomplishment as
Mr. Hopwood’s; of the charming time he could
have with his art if he were quite content with
the easy thing; the popularity that the exag-
geration inseparable from carelessness might
bring him. For the note of exaggeration is the
one note heard in an exhibition because it is
exciting. Truth is unexciting, because familiar,
and nothing can make it otherwise until we live
in a world of lies. It is mournful that it should
generally be the worst features of art that
advertise themselves. Mr. Hopwood has not
waited unsuccessfully for the public to come
round to him, but he has retained the high
artistic privilege ot not meeting it half way,
where infinite cash abounds.
We reproduce an early picture of Mr. Hopwood’s,
Grace after Meat, and from it we get some idea of
the stages through which his work has progressed
to its present freedom. He is now concerned with
impressionism, not with subject-painting. His art
is now one of interpretation, and of creation only
in that sense. Whatever loss of intimacy there
may be in painting that is done away from
nature, that kind of painting still has the
truths and beauties that are all its own. But
the characteristic of purely interpretative paint-
ing like Mr. Hopwood’s may sometimes seem
like sketchiness, because its process is incom-
patible with too much surface charm. Beauty of
one kind does always conflict with beauty of some
other kind in art. But, stupidly enough, one kind
of artist is too often given to denying the existence
of the other kind of artist as an artist at all.
Mr. Hopwood’s art is transparent of his en-
thusiasms, matched, to the aspect of nature to
which it responds, and of his attitude before
nature we might say that it seems adopted “ not