Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Studio: international art — 52.1911

DOI Heft:
No. 217 (April, 1911)
DOI Artikel:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of Sir Ernest A. Waterlow, R.A., P.R.W.S.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20972#0197

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Sir Ernest A. JVaterlow, R.A., P.R.W.S.

putting forth her fullest forces, and that her
gentleness is but a veil through which her
strenuous vitality can be clearly detected.
Therefore, though he represents her in her
fairest form, though he insists upon her beauty
and seductiveness, he never forgets to suggest
as well her tense energy and her dominating force.

It is for this reason that his pictures with
their elegance of design, their luminous vivacity
of colour, and their subtle delicacy of effect,
are so free from any taint of weakness and
carry about them so markedly an air of distinc-
tion. In them can be clearly perceived the
hand of a painter who has far too thorough a
knowledge of what he is about to fumble or
hesitate, and whose insight into his subject is
too acute to allow him to miss the shades of
character which make it interesting. In them
also is displayed the finely cultivated taste of an
artist who has educated his perceptions by per-
sistent analysis of Nature's meaning until his
selective sense has become so keen that he can
seize with certainty upon just those details
which he requires to fill out and round off
properly his pictorial scheme. His canvases
are never empty, never superficial or inadequate
in suggestion, but, equally, they are not over-

loaded with useless detail, and there is never in
them anything that does not help to make more
complete the impression of rhythmical loveliness
which it is his purpose to convey.

Against the cult of ugliness work of this type,
work which so seriously and earnestly strives to
mark the distinction between simpering pretti-
ness and true beauty, can be opposed as proof
that there are better ways of saving art from
decadence than by making it a slave to a
nauseous convention. If the weaker spirits
who let themselves be coerced by clamour into
following blind leaders would try to acquire the
clear vision and the sound judgment of men like
Sir Ernest Waterlow there would be less to
deplore in the tendencies of modern art. He
shows them what is possible when the study of
nature is approached with a clean mind and a
wholesome preference, and what can be done
when artistic effort is governed by sincerity
rather than affectation ; and certainly he shows
them that the search for what is beautiful in the
world in which we live need not, and should not,
lead to either feebleness or sentimentality. But,
of course, those who would follow his example
must emulate also his independence and his
steadfastness in pursuit of the right ideals.

THE MILL

BY SIR E. A. WATERLOW

17.5
 
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