Studio: international art (52.1911)

Drawings and Studies of George Belcher

that particular province which can afford him trated form—a form that possesses intrinsic
opportunities for completest self-expression, beauty of delicate and subtle drawing. There
Occasionally an artist only discovers his par- is nothing cynical about his work. He is,
ticular metier somewhat late in his career, and perhaps, too robust and of too intuitive a cast
often only after restlessly working in many other of mind to depict so one-sided a view of life
directions. This may account for the variety as is compatible with mere cynicism,
of manners and frequent change of class of Humour is, of course, the saving grace of his
subject noticeable in the work of many artists, people. He presents them always in a favour-
In this respect George Belcher was fortunate, able light, though without idealisation; at least
for at the beginning he was led instinctively in he emphasises their qualities of humanity and
the direction in which he has since found him- humour, which are always tolerable and usually
self so happily at home. pleasing, if not always very worthy. They are

Unlike much work of a more ambitious for the most part, the unfortunates of this earth ;
nature (certainly with more pretensions), which but they display, almost invariably, an indomit-
assumes the name of art, George Belcher's
work possesses a distinct and direct relation-
ship to life—to contemporary life. He absorbs
the qualities that are most vital and charac-
teristic in the provinces of life to which he
is particularly drawn, and recreates them in
a concrete and enhanced form.

The manners of the people, their native
wit, their follies and foibles, their insuper-
able and often heroic humour are expressed
vividly in his drawings. Taken as a whole
his work is an epitome of middle and lower-
class life of to-day. He is never content with
a rendering of superficial characteristics and
passing fashions; he goes deeper and intui-
tively lays bare the fundaments and bed-rock
of human nature. Neither is his work con-
cerned with special character ; there is nothing
precious" in it; it is modern, national,

human. The classes of people he depicts are

genuine, natural, spontaneous, racy; they

have acquired no veneer of ultra-civilisation ;

they are rough diamonds displaying many

facets of genuine national character with a

hint of unpolished brilliancy. Nor do they

ever appear to have been specially posed:

they are unconcerned with anything outside

of themselves and their particular affairs;

quite unselfconscious, they have the air of

being caught in the act. His people are

individual as well as so distinctly typical.
Who has not met his cabbies with their

caustic cockney wit, his dirty and often gin-
drinking old women, his slatternly landladies

and seedy poets ? We have seen them all,

en passant, but they have never appeared

so vividly real until we met them in Belcher's

drawings.

It is an aim of high art, this selecting of
the most elemental facts and feelings of life,
and presenting them in a definite concen- study by george belcher

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