DOI Heft:
No. 215 (February, 1911)
DOI Artikel:West, W. K.: Some examples of recent work by Mr. Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20972#0036
Recent Work by Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.
'ST. NICHOLAS, DIXMUDE" (ETCHING) BY FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.
in the design, hardly at all in any story that the
subject may have to tell; or, at all events, if he
does take the story into account, it is only to use
it to increase the decorative significance of his
composition.
For instance, his gorgeous paintings, The Doge
of Venice going to the Lido, and The Return from
Mecca, are primarily to be considered as vivid
decorative impressions. With all their brilliant
freedom of execution, their flicker of colour, their
gleaming lights and strong shadows, and their
crowded movement, their special claim to attention
depends not so much upon their interest as pictures
of incident, as upon their vital importance as
carefully disciplined and elaborately reasoned ex-
pressions of the decorator's purpose. If their
seeming recklessness is analysed, it will be found
to be controlled by absolute discretion, and by the
most scholarly understanding of the rules by which
all great artistic effort is directed. So, too, his
renderings of scenes in the ruined city of Messina
14
—the water-colour, Life Amongst Ruins, and the
etching, Piazza San Spirito, Messina—are mar-
vellous arrangements of line and of masses of
tone — decorations essentially dramatic in their
vigour and dignity, but they are not illustrations
of what may be called the human side of a tragic
event in modern history. Figures are introduced,
but rather to complete the composition than to give
any sentimental suggestion to his representation of
the subject.
Again, in the water-colours, The Duomo, Taor-
mina ; Alcantara, and Interior of S. Caterina,
Taormina, the human interest is the merest accident
in the pictorial scheme ; the figures are woven into
the pattern made by the architectural masses, and
add notes of colour and varieties of light and shade;
but their presence does not affect in any way the
purely decorative purpose of the paintings, nor
have they any more significance in the etchings,
The Bridge, Valentre; St. Nicholas, Dixmude; The
Church of Notre Dame at JStt, and The Black
'ST. NICHOLAS, DIXMUDE" (ETCHING) BY FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.
in the design, hardly at all in any story that the
subject may have to tell; or, at all events, if he
does take the story into account, it is only to use
it to increase the decorative significance of his
composition.
For instance, his gorgeous paintings, The Doge
of Venice going to the Lido, and The Return from
Mecca, are primarily to be considered as vivid
decorative impressions. With all their brilliant
freedom of execution, their flicker of colour, their
gleaming lights and strong shadows, and their
crowded movement, their special claim to attention
depends not so much upon their interest as pictures
of incident, as upon their vital importance as
carefully disciplined and elaborately reasoned ex-
pressions of the decorator's purpose. If their
seeming recklessness is analysed, it will be found
to be controlled by absolute discretion, and by the
most scholarly understanding of the rules by which
all great artistic effort is directed. So, too, his
renderings of scenes in the ruined city of Messina
14
—the water-colour, Life Amongst Ruins, and the
etching, Piazza San Spirito, Messina—are mar-
vellous arrangements of line and of masses of
tone — decorations essentially dramatic in their
vigour and dignity, but they are not illustrations
of what may be called the human side of a tragic
event in modern history. Figures are introduced,
but rather to complete the composition than to give
any sentimental suggestion to his representation of
the subject.
Again, in the water-colours, The Duomo, Taor-
mina ; Alcantara, and Interior of S. Caterina,
Taormina, the human interest is the merest accident
in the pictorial scheme ; the figures are woven into
the pattern made by the architectural masses, and
add notes of colour and varieties of light and shade;
but their presence does not affect in any way the
purely decorative purpose of the paintings, nor
have they any more significance in the etchings,
The Bridge, Valentre; St. Nicholas, Dixmude; The
Church of Notre Dame at JStt, and The Black