DOI issue:
Nr. 207 (June 1910)
DOI article:The international Society's tenth exhibition
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20970#0046
The International Society s Exhibition
perfectly intelligible. His that outer world any
claims which entitle it to ask for even more than
the perfect reconciliation of touch and vision
which seems to make these canvases a final word
in a certain kind of painting ?
The same question arises in connection with a
picture by Mr. Orpen in the galleries, called Living
the Life of the West, which in method effects an
elaborate compromise between some very academic
and some very unacademic qualities. It is one
of those miraculous productions which place Mr.
Orpen among the most accomplished artists of to-
day, but there is to be found in this picture, as in
the work of the French painters just referred to, no
apparent reason for its being painted at all beyond
that of the technical problem it encounters. Such
paintings do not seem to put on record something
which the artist had a passionate wish to say, and
missing this in any picture we wonder what can be
supposed to take its place
as a motif for creation.
The International, no
less than the Academy,
has now a tradition, as
we are reminded every
year. Of the great artists
who have created and
maintained it, there is no
need to distinguish here
those who are living and
those who are dead, when
for the purposes of this
exhibition they are all
living in their art—such
artists we mean as Manet,
Fantin-Latour, Sisley, J.
L. Forain, Monet, Rodin.
From English contem-
porary painters there was
nothing this year which
created a sensation,
though Mr. D. Y. Cam-
eron, in The Marble
Quarry, has made a really
impressive picture out of
a theme which, to all
but a few, perhaps, would
yield little inspiration.
Mr. Charles Shannon, too,
advanced with another
stride upon a phase of
beauty known only to
himself; but for the rest
we find ourselves bound
to say that there seemed to be few signs of pro-
gress and too much repetition of the same motifs
handled in the same ways as of yore. The Vice-
President has made innovations, and perhaps Mr.
Strang is the one painter we would wish had not
done so. The Conder Room of Mr. Nicholson
hardly established a place for him in this show such
as he has formerly held. It is a subject of delicate
transitions of colour; in character it must be called
an “ intimate” subject, but there is no intimacy in
the technique to correspond. There is an inter-
relation between subject and style in every problem,
which an artist can take up, and to fail in making
the treatment express this is very seldom a fault
of this painter. His portrait of Lady Pearson is,
however, a canvas which does his powers much
greater justice, and is in many ways to be re-
garded as a fine work. Mr. James Pryde has
a dramatic sense, and is often tempted to scenes
(‘ INTERIOR, 30 OLD BURLINGTON STREET” BY J. E. BLANCHE
24
perfectly intelligible. His that outer world any
claims which entitle it to ask for even more than
the perfect reconciliation of touch and vision
which seems to make these canvases a final word
in a certain kind of painting ?
The same question arises in connection with a
picture by Mr. Orpen in the galleries, called Living
the Life of the West, which in method effects an
elaborate compromise between some very academic
and some very unacademic qualities. It is one
of those miraculous productions which place Mr.
Orpen among the most accomplished artists of to-
day, but there is to be found in this picture, as in
the work of the French painters just referred to, no
apparent reason for its being painted at all beyond
that of the technical problem it encounters. Such
paintings do not seem to put on record something
which the artist had a passionate wish to say, and
missing this in any picture we wonder what can be
supposed to take its place
as a motif for creation.
The International, no
less than the Academy,
has now a tradition, as
we are reminded every
year. Of the great artists
who have created and
maintained it, there is no
need to distinguish here
those who are living and
those who are dead, when
for the purposes of this
exhibition they are all
living in their art—such
artists we mean as Manet,
Fantin-Latour, Sisley, J.
L. Forain, Monet, Rodin.
From English contem-
porary painters there was
nothing this year which
created a sensation,
though Mr. D. Y. Cam-
eron, in The Marble
Quarry, has made a really
impressive picture out of
a theme which, to all
but a few, perhaps, would
yield little inspiration.
Mr. Charles Shannon, too,
advanced with another
stride upon a phase of
beauty known only to
himself; but for the rest
we find ourselves bound
to say that there seemed to be few signs of pro-
gress and too much repetition of the same motifs
handled in the same ways as of yore. The Vice-
President has made innovations, and perhaps Mr.
Strang is the one painter we would wish had not
done so. The Conder Room of Mr. Nicholson
hardly established a place for him in this show such
as he has formerly held. It is a subject of delicate
transitions of colour; in character it must be called
an “ intimate” subject, but there is no intimacy in
the technique to correspond. There is an inter-
relation between subject and style in every problem,
which an artist can take up, and to fail in making
the treatment express this is very seldom a fault
of this painter. His portrait of Lady Pearson is,
however, a canvas which does his powers much
greater justice, and is in many ways to be re-
garded as a fine work. Mr. James Pryde has
a dramatic sense, and is often tempted to scenes
(‘ INTERIOR, 30 OLD BURLINGTON STREET” BY J. E. BLANCHE
24