DOI Heft:
Nr. 211 (October 1910)
DOI Artikel:Baker, C. H. Collins: The paintings of Mr. G. W. Lambert
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20971#0043
Mr. G. IV. Lambert's Paintings
his Chesham Street in the New English Art Club’s
Summer Exhibition, or the picture that was so
favourably hung in this year’s Academy, A Holiday
in Essex. In quality of solid tone and in a depth
of colour that is beautiful rather than pretty,
this is a fine advance on any previous work of
his. The bizarre, as far as external questions
go, has no place. The light attractively opales-
cent skies of his former groups is replaced by
one of more synthetic value; the pale shimmer-
ing colours of the other draperies, their hues of
honey and delicate mauve-violets, here are dis-
carded for an austere rich weight, in which the
tawny Lely-russet of the admirably painted dress
of the mother is the main refrain, echoed in the
deep brown chestnut of the pony. The violent
blueness of the hat, in the group of 1909, in
this piece of 1910 has toned down into the
splendid reticence of the little rider’s jersey. And
the same solidification and austerity are marked
in the design. Every line has been considered,
and every space, and an almost sculptural simplicity
attained. The heads alone lack the quality of
research and considerable vitality. For in these
groups their painter has elected that matters of
personality shall not in any way impinge upon
purely pictorial considerations, with the result that
his curiosity has not been aroused by character.
Indeed it is unusual to see in his work the expres-
sion of insight into humanity, and it is rarely,
from some isolated instance, that we suspect in
him tenderness for human sentiment.
An important series of small panels at the
present is engaging him, a wholly decorative
allegorical set intended for a room in Mr. Hardy
Wilson’s Australian house. For subjects he has
chosen abstract themes, such as might be termed
an epic of primal love and marriage, and which
afforded him scope for his strong sense of design
and his remarkable appreciation of the beauty, in
form and colour, of the nude. It is in two of
these that this feeling of tenderness especially
occurs, greatly enhancing them.
Mr. Lambert’s achievement as a line draughts-
man must here receive a word. His progress in
this respect can be gauged by comparing a drawing
“the shop
BY G. w. LAMBERT
his Chesham Street in the New English Art Club’s
Summer Exhibition, or the picture that was so
favourably hung in this year’s Academy, A Holiday
in Essex. In quality of solid tone and in a depth
of colour that is beautiful rather than pretty,
this is a fine advance on any previous work of
his. The bizarre, as far as external questions
go, has no place. The light attractively opales-
cent skies of his former groups is replaced by
one of more synthetic value; the pale shimmer-
ing colours of the other draperies, their hues of
honey and delicate mauve-violets, here are dis-
carded for an austere rich weight, in which the
tawny Lely-russet of the admirably painted dress
of the mother is the main refrain, echoed in the
deep brown chestnut of the pony. The violent
blueness of the hat, in the group of 1909, in
this piece of 1910 has toned down into the
splendid reticence of the little rider’s jersey. And
the same solidification and austerity are marked
in the design. Every line has been considered,
and every space, and an almost sculptural simplicity
attained. The heads alone lack the quality of
research and considerable vitality. For in these
groups their painter has elected that matters of
personality shall not in any way impinge upon
purely pictorial considerations, with the result that
his curiosity has not been aroused by character.
Indeed it is unusual to see in his work the expres-
sion of insight into humanity, and it is rarely,
from some isolated instance, that we suspect in
him tenderness for human sentiment.
An important series of small panels at the
present is engaging him, a wholly decorative
allegorical set intended for a room in Mr. Hardy
Wilson’s Australian house. For subjects he has
chosen abstract themes, such as might be termed
an epic of primal love and marriage, and which
afforded him scope for his strong sense of design
and his remarkable appreciation of the beauty, in
form and colour, of the nude. It is in two of
these that this feeling of tenderness especially
occurs, greatly enhancing them.
Mr. Lambert’s achievement as a line draughts-
man must here receive a word. His progress in
this respect can be gauged by comparing a drawing
“the shop
BY G. w. LAMBERT