DOI issue:
Nr. 208 (July 1910)
DOI article:Leicester-Burroughs, A.: Sir William Quiller Orchardson, R. A.
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20970#0114
Sir William Quiller Orchardson, R.A.
painting, and lesser men trembled lest they had
violated these fiercely formulated laws, Orchardson
sat serene, secure upon his throne. In his work
what there was of story was so welded with the
qualities of colour, atmosphere, and execution that
they formed one harmonious whole, each seeming
the inevitable complement of the other. Yet while
the two qualities were so intimately associated,
the admirer of technique—the Gallio of literary
things in art—could worship at the shrine of the
painter almost undisturbed by the shocking fact
that the picture really “ meant something.” One
conceives of Orchardson that in the first place an
idea, a thought, a sentiment struck him with all its
manifold possibilities—with the essential fitness for
his brush—and having become convinced of the
wisdom of his choice he “wrote it down.” He pos-
sessed the faculty in the very highest degree of form-
ing his work complete in all its parts in his brain
before transferring it to canvas. He never, or very
rarely, altered a picture. He never got “into a
mess,” as painters put it. One would describe him
as an extremely rapid painter, more because of his
unerring judgment than because his output was
considerable. This certainty of his enabled him
to work in a way impossible to most men; a way,
in fact, unadvisable for the less competent to attempt.
For he would finish, if he felt disposed to do so,
some light figure in a picture which was destined
finally to contain a large and important mass of
extreme dark, leaving the space to be occupied
by that mass pure untouched canvas the while.
Another man would very surely have found that
when his dark mass had been completed the light-
toned figure would be wrong in some respect, would
need much alteration, perhaps entire re-painting-
Not so Orchardson.
When he looked at his canvas the dark was there
just where and how he meant it to be. With a
certainty that was little short of magical he could
cause it to appear in its predestined place. Other
men—and great men, too—struggle with their
pictures, altering, transposing, obliterating, and
re-painting, but he held a straight course from the
moment of his start, and winged his way with un-
swerving flight to his objective.
And here it may be interesting to quote from a
criticism written in the year 1867, and note what
“ reveller”
92
BY W. Q. ORCHARDSON R.A.
painting, and lesser men trembled lest they had
violated these fiercely formulated laws, Orchardson
sat serene, secure upon his throne. In his work
what there was of story was so welded with the
qualities of colour, atmosphere, and execution that
they formed one harmonious whole, each seeming
the inevitable complement of the other. Yet while
the two qualities were so intimately associated,
the admirer of technique—the Gallio of literary
things in art—could worship at the shrine of the
painter almost undisturbed by the shocking fact
that the picture really “ meant something.” One
conceives of Orchardson that in the first place an
idea, a thought, a sentiment struck him with all its
manifold possibilities—with the essential fitness for
his brush—and having become convinced of the
wisdom of his choice he “wrote it down.” He pos-
sessed the faculty in the very highest degree of form-
ing his work complete in all its parts in his brain
before transferring it to canvas. He never, or very
rarely, altered a picture. He never got “into a
mess,” as painters put it. One would describe him
as an extremely rapid painter, more because of his
unerring judgment than because his output was
considerable. This certainty of his enabled him
to work in a way impossible to most men; a way,
in fact, unadvisable for the less competent to attempt.
For he would finish, if he felt disposed to do so,
some light figure in a picture which was destined
finally to contain a large and important mass of
extreme dark, leaving the space to be occupied
by that mass pure untouched canvas the while.
Another man would very surely have found that
when his dark mass had been completed the light-
toned figure would be wrong in some respect, would
need much alteration, perhaps entire re-painting-
Not so Orchardson.
When he looked at his canvas the dark was there
just where and how he meant it to be. With a
certainty that was little short of magical he could
cause it to appear in its predestined place. Other
men—and great men, too—struggle with their
pictures, altering, transposing, obliterating, and
re-painting, but he held a straight course from the
moment of his start, and winged his way with un-
swerving flight to his objective.
And here it may be interesting to quote from a
criticism written in the year 1867, and note what
“ reveller”
92
BY W. Q. ORCHARDSON R.A.