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#0040
Recent JVork by Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.
understood, and even his design for a poster is realities. He has not hedged himself round with
more a decorative abstraction than a precise repre- hard-and-fast rules, and he does not follow any
sentation of facts. He has not ignored in them rigid artistic prescription. His landscapes are
the sentiment of the motive with which he has simplified undoubtedly, but only by the elimination
been called upon lo deal, but he has used this of trivialities which obscure the decorative meaning
sentiment only to give the necessary atmosphere of the subject. His figure compositions have a
to his work. Here again he has been principally monumental dignity, but they are made up of
interested in the distribution of his colour spaces, human beings, not of statues or lay figures, which
in the rhythmical adjustment of his lines, and in the conform only to some constructional preconception
placing of each accessory detail where it will best of his own. Nature guides him surely in the whole
amplify the general decorative impression that he of his production, but he chooses from what she
intends to convey. The sentiment affects un- offers no more and no less than he feels is neces-
doubtedly the character of his decoration — it sary for the filling out of the pictorial scheme upon
accounts for the formality of such a design as that which he has decided.
for the frieze in which labour is symbolised by Indeed, both as a draughtsman and as a painter
smoking factory chimneys, just as it inspires the he is impressive especially on account of the robust
sumptuousness of effect in his Fruits of Industry naturalism upon which the whole of his decorative
panel—but it never causes him to fcrget that he work is founded. What an amount of acute study
has to solve a problem of design in the work he he bestows upon the details of his paintings and
has undertaken, and to arrive at a result which etchings can be judged by examination of the
will excite in the people to whom it is presented a preliminary drawings which he executes before he
deep aesthetic feeling rather than a personal and puts his composition into its final form. The
superficial emotion. crayon sketch for the etching, Unloading Biicks,
Yet it must be noted that with all this strict con- Ghent, is an excellent example of his preparatory
sistency in his pursuit of decorative ideals he has work, a remarkable note of movement and action
never made the mistake of conventionalising either and a delightful piece of fluent draughtsmanship,
his outlook upon nature or his rendering of natural Not less convincing is the series of masterly studies
'THE BRIDGE, VALENTRE" (ETCHING)
18
BY FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.
understood, and even his design for a poster is realities. He has not hedged himself round with
more a decorative abstraction than a precise repre- hard-and-fast rules, and he does not follow any
sentation of facts. He has not ignored in them rigid artistic prescription. His landscapes are
the sentiment of the motive with which he has simplified undoubtedly, but only by the elimination
been called upon lo deal, but he has used this of trivialities which obscure the decorative meaning
sentiment only to give the necessary atmosphere of the subject. His figure compositions have a
to his work. Here again he has been principally monumental dignity, but they are made up of
interested in the distribution of his colour spaces, human beings, not of statues or lay figures, which
in the rhythmical adjustment of his lines, and in the conform only to some constructional preconception
placing of each accessory detail where it will best of his own. Nature guides him surely in the whole
amplify the general decorative impression that he of his production, but he chooses from what she
intends to convey. The sentiment affects un- offers no more and no less than he feels is neces-
doubtedly the character of his decoration — it sary for the filling out of the pictorial scheme upon
accounts for the formality of such a design as that which he has decided.
for the frieze in which labour is symbolised by Indeed, both as a draughtsman and as a painter
smoking factory chimneys, just as it inspires the he is impressive especially on account of the robust
sumptuousness of effect in his Fruits of Industry naturalism upon which the whole of his decorative
panel—but it never causes him to fcrget that he work is founded. What an amount of acute study
has to solve a problem of design in the work he he bestows upon the details of his paintings and
has undertaken, and to arrive at a result which etchings can be judged by examination of the
will excite in the people to whom it is presented a preliminary drawings which he executes before he
deep aesthetic feeling rather than a personal and puts his composition into its final form. The
superficial emotion. crayon sketch for the etching, Unloading Biicks,
Yet it must be noted that with all this strict con- Ghent, is an excellent example of his preparatory
sistency in his pursuit of decorative ideals he has work, a remarkable note of movement and action
never made the mistake of conventionalising either and a delightful piece of fluent draughtsmanship,
his outlook upon nature or his rendering of natural Not less convincing is the series of masterly studies
'THE BRIDGE, VALENTRE" (ETCHING)
18
BY FRANK BRANGWYN, A.R.A.