DOI issue:
Nr. 214 (January 1911)
DOI article:Manson, James Bolivar: The paintings of Alexander Jamieson
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20971#0303
Alexander Jamieson
■■■
“ CO UR ROYALE, VERSAILLES”
The Palace of Versailles, so beautifully formal,
so stately in its proportions, so rich in decorative
fancy and device, with its exquisite entourage of
leafy avenues, sparkling fountains and spacious
parks, has afforded the artist themes and subjects
for many of his best pictures ; he has made its
motives peculiarly his own; in rendering them his
mbtier (which has a touch of the artificial) has dis-
covered its fullest expression. Here, colour and
light create effects of extraordinary, varied, and
jewel-like beauty in a setting which is a piquant
and charming commingling of the natural and
the artificial.
Early last year Jamieson made a tour through
Spain. The journey was too brief and too hurried
to result in the production of much more than
vivid sketches, brilliant impressions of intense
light—light seen under aspects and in degrees of
strength and quality new to him. Further excellent
results of his journey are obvious in the work
which he has recently done in Versailles. In
these later pictures the rendering of intense light
and of atmosphere suffused with sunlight is quite
remarkably fine.
Of Alexander Jamieson’s many achievements in
the art of mural decora-
tion, it must suffice, owing
to the exigencies of space,
to mention the most im-
portant, and that is, his
work executed in Bridge-
water House. Here he
had the difficult task of
painting twelve spandrels
for the great hall, a task
which he has completed
with striking success. The
essential condition of
mural decoration is that
it shall form an integral
part of the wall itself, re-
maining in precisely the
same plane as the wall,
not, as is too frequently
the case, standing out
apparently some distance
in front of the wall-plane
and thus destroying all
feeling of rest and unity.
He has fulfilled this con-
dition with exactitude.
His decorations most ad-
mirably suit and are in
unity with their surround-
ings. To achieve this result he has painted single
figures in grey tones of various colour, on a dull
black back-ground, in itself a touch of inspira-
tion. A complete article might well be written
on Jamieson’s oil sketches alone. They bear
some resemblance to the sketches for which
Gaston La Touche is so famous; but though not
finer in colour, they are frequently broader in
treatment and larger in effect than those of the
French master.
Alexander Jamieson’s work is well known in
London, where it has been shown in the Inter-
national Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers
(which he joined in 1904), the new English Art
Club, the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, and
at the Goupil Gallery in Regent Street. His work
has been sent near and far—from Glasgow to Paris,
from Venice to Berlin, Munich, Diisseldorf,
Helsingfors, and to Chili.
Quite apart from the distinction of its achieve-
ment, his work has the initial value of being the
sincere result of his own experience and impressions
of life. He is indifferent to tradition, and his work
has never been a rkhauffe of old masters with a
modern flavouring. J. B, M.
BY ALEXANDER JAMIESON
■■■
“ CO UR ROYALE, VERSAILLES”
The Palace of Versailles, so beautifully formal,
so stately in its proportions, so rich in decorative
fancy and device, with its exquisite entourage of
leafy avenues, sparkling fountains and spacious
parks, has afforded the artist themes and subjects
for many of his best pictures ; he has made its
motives peculiarly his own; in rendering them his
mbtier (which has a touch of the artificial) has dis-
covered its fullest expression. Here, colour and
light create effects of extraordinary, varied, and
jewel-like beauty in a setting which is a piquant
and charming commingling of the natural and
the artificial.
Early last year Jamieson made a tour through
Spain. The journey was too brief and too hurried
to result in the production of much more than
vivid sketches, brilliant impressions of intense
light—light seen under aspects and in degrees of
strength and quality new to him. Further excellent
results of his journey are obvious in the work
which he has recently done in Versailles. In
these later pictures the rendering of intense light
and of atmosphere suffused with sunlight is quite
remarkably fine.
Of Alexander Jamieson’s many achievements in
the art of mural decora-
tion, it must suffice, owing
to the exigencies of space,
to mention the most im-
portant, and that is, his
work executed in Bridge-
water House. Here he
had the difficult task of
painting twelve spandrels
for the great hall, a task
which he has completed
with striking success. The
essential condition of
mural decoration is that
it shall form an integral
part of the wall itself, re-
maining in precisely the
same plane as the wall,
not, as is too frequently
the case, standing out
apparently some distance
in front of the wall-plane
and thus destroying all
feeling of rest and unity.
He has fulfilled this con-
dition with exactitude.
His decorations most ad-
mirably suit and are in
unity with their surround-
ings. To achieve this result he has painted single
figures in grey tones of various colour, on a dull
black back-ground, in itself a touch of inspira-
tion. A complete article might well be written
on Jamieson’s oil sketches alone. They bear
some resemblance to the sketches for which
Gaston La Touche is so famous; but though not
finer in colour, they are frequently broader in
treatment and larger in effect than those of the
French master.
Alexander Jamieson’s work is well known in
London, where it has been shown in the Inter-
national Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers
(which he joined in 1904), the new English Art
Club, the Modern Society of Portrait Painters, and
at the Goupil Gallery in Regent Street. His work
has been sent near and far—from Glasgow to Paris,
from Venice to Berlin, Munich, Diisseldorf,
Helsingfors, and to Chili.
Quite apart from the distinction of its achieve-
ment, his work has the initial value of being the
sincere result of his own experience and impressions
of life. He is indifferent to tradition, and his work
has never been a rkhauffe of old masters with a
modern flavouring. J. B, M.
BY ALEXANDER JAMIESON