DOI issue:
Nr. 207 (June 1910)
DOI article:The royal academy exhibition, 1910
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20970#0025
THE STUDIO
>r
HE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBI-
TION, 1910.
The present exhibition of the Royal
Academy certainly proves one thing—that there are
•a very large number of people who have learned
the painter’s craft, and whose knowledge of the
mechanism of picture-making is quite consider-
able. There is in the show a great deal of paint
well laid on; there are many examples of clever
draughtsmanship, there is an appreciable amount
of agreeably managed colour arrangement; the
evidences of the efficiency of the modern art school
teaching are plentiful and, in their way, con-
vincing. Yet, with all this, the exhibition
is by no means impressive as an art display.
It lacks obviously just that note of inspira-
tion and of personal intention which is
necessary to make it interesting ; it lacks
spirit and vitality, and it suffers seriously
from paucity of ideas. Most of the con-
tributors seem to have forgotten that to
draw well and to put paint cleverly upon
canvas cannot be accepted as the sole duty
of the artist; most of them evidently do
not know what to do with the practical
knowledge they have acquired during their
student days.
As a consequence, the collection is not
particularly easy to criticise; to notice all
the works which reach a decent level of
executive accomplishment would necessi-
tate a catalogue of about four-fifths of the
exhibits, and to discuss only those which
express some really striking personal senti-
ment would mean that there would be
hardly anything to write about. The safest
way out of the difficulty will be to include
with the few dominating productions the
best of those which, without being exactly
inspired, show an acceptable degree of
artistic intelligence. After all, it would
hardly be fair to ignore honest effort which
is wanting in imaginative distinction, be-
cause this deficiency is, as often as not, the
fault of the public rather than of the artists.
It is easy to believe that there are many
men who would be quite willing and able
to allow fuller scope to their fancy if there
L. No. 207.—June, 1910.
were any perceptible popular demand for imagina-
tion in art, and it is a misfortune that these men
should be driven by a materially minded public
into the suppression of their better feelings—a
misfortune for which they deserve sympathy rather
than blame.
At the present moment, when materialism, the
worship of the commonplace and obvious, is the
prevailing influence in life, we have every reason
to be grateful to those artists who are courageous
enough to take their own way and to defy public
opinion. They make this Academy exhibition
tolerable, they pleasantly enliven its dull respect-
‘THE MADONNA OF THE PEACH TREE”
BY SIR GEORGE FRAMPTON, R.A.
3
>r
HE ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBI-
TION, 1910.
The present exhibition of the Royal
Academy certainly proves one thing—that there are
•a very large number of people who have learned
the painter’s craft, and whose knowledge of the
mechanism of picture-making is quite consider-
able. There is in the show a great deal of paint
well laid on; there are many examples of clever
draughtsmanship, there is an appreciable amount
of agreeably managed colour arrangement; the
evidences of the efficiency of the modern art school
teaching are plentiful and, in their way, con-
vincing. Yet, with all this, the exhibition
is by no means impressive as an art display.
It lacks obviously just that note of inspira-
tion and of personal intention which is
necessary to make it interesting ; it lacks
spirit and vitality, and it suffers seriously
from paucity of ideas. Most of the con-
tributors seem to have forgotten that to
draw well and to put paint cleverly upon
canvas cannot be accepted as the sole duty
of the artist; most of them evidently do
not know what to do with the practical
knowledge they have acquired during their
student days.
As a consequence, the collection is not
particularly easy to criticise; to notice all
the works which reach a decent level of
executive accomplishment would necessi-
tate a catalogue of about four-fifths of the
exhibits, and to discuss only those which
express some really striking personal senti-
ment would mean that there would be
hardly anything to write about. The safest
way out of the difficulty will be to include
with the few dominating productions the
best of those which, without being exactly
inspired, show an acceptable degree of
artistic intelligence. After all, it would
hardly be fair to ignore honest effort which
is wanting in imaginative distinction, be-
cause this deficiency is, as often as not, the
fault of the public rather than of the artists.
It is easy to believe that there are many
men who would be quite willing and able
to allow fuller scope to their fancy if there
L. No. 207.—June, 1910.
were any perceptible popular demand for imagina-
tion in art, and it is a misfortune that these men
should be driven by a materially minded public
into the suppression of their better feelings—a
misfortune for which they deserve sympathy rather
than blame.
At the present moment, when materialism, the
worship of the commonplace and obvious, is the
prevailing influence in life, we have every reason
to be grateful to those artists who are courageous
enough to take their own way and to defy public
opinion. They make this Academy exhibition
tolerable, they pleasantly enliven its dull respect-
‘THE MADONNA OF THE PEACH TREE”
BY SIR GEORGE FRAMPTON, R.A.
3