DOI Heft:
No. 218 (May, 1911)
DOI Artikel:Baker, C. H. Collins: The paintings of William Orpen, A.R.A., R.H.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20972#0276
William Orpen, A.R.A., R.H.A.
any lack of thoroughness. Of him it cannot be In 1901 Mr. Orpen painted the first of his
said that the path of his career is littered with series of portrait groups and what we will call
abandoned beginnings and unmastered fragments, portrait-interiors. This group, of Captain Swin-
For so thorough is his curiosity in whatever problem ton's family, is in a lighter, gayer key than The
engages him that before leaving it he invariably has Fracture or The Valuers, and already shows its
taken it to a conclusion. To analyse in detail his painter's choice of colour scheme—pale apple-
diverse activities is naturally beyond the scope of green, a darker emerald green, a dull purplish
this article; we can but glance generally at the maroon and the rich note of brown-golden wood,
direction they have taken. The earliest Orpen I With The Valuers in 1902 was hung the portrait
have seen is also the only landscape from him of Staats Forbes, which, I remember, extracted
I have come across. There is, however, a rumour admiration from all sides in virtue of the re-
that another exists. The picture alluded to is markable research of its modelling. This again
called French Soldiers on the Mairh and was is one of Mr. Orpen's assets, his faculty of so
painted in 1898 or 1899. In it we can trace at modelling a head that barely a half-tone or a
once the properly pictorial appeal the subject made plane is unregistered, and of retaining, notwith-
to Mr. Orpen. We see his interest in the amusing standing, a largeness of effect. In accessories, at
contrasts of tone and colour, in the fine pattern one time, a similar unity sometimes failed him; an
made across the sunny landscape by strips of almost fidgety handling and restless tone conspired
shadow. His interest in the
landscape seems detachedly
objective; the scene lies
before us like the reflection
in a mirror—like the reflec-
tion, what is more, in a
Claude mirror. For in his
earliest paintings, of which
perhaps the best known are
The Fracture of 1901 and
The Valuers of 1902, a rather
sombre key prevails. They
show none of the engross-
ment in plei?i-air with which
his latest work is filled. At
that time his occupation was
rather with spacing and
silhouette, and as his atti-
tude in these two pictures
is half satiric his grasp of
subtle individuality and
elusive vital action is quite re-
markable. Though the colour
of these paintings is compara-
tively simple and subdued yet
it is eminently a colourist's ;
quiet harmonies of greys and
browns, with perhaps a stac-
cato note of red or Cam-
bridge blue. In The Valuers
(reproduced in The Studio
for October, 1909, p. r8), he
pushed that particular style,
. in that particular tone, as far
as it would go, and charac-
teristically abandoned it. "mary" (i9io) by william orpen, a.r.a.
2S4
any lack of thoroughness. Of him it cannot be In 1901 Mr. Orpen painted the first of his
said that the path of his career is littered with series of portrait groups and what we will call
abandoned beginnings and unmastered fragments, portrait-interiors. This group, of Captain Swin-
For so thorough is his curiosity in whatever problem ton's family, is in a lighter, gayer key than The
engages him that before leaving it he invariably has Fracture or The Valuers, and already shows its
taken it to a conclusion. To analyse in detail his painter's choice of colour scheme—pale apple-
diverse activities is naturally beyond the scope of green, a darker emerald green, a dull purplish
this article; we can but glance generally at the maroon and the rich note of brown-golden wood,
direction they have taken. The earliest Orpen I With The Valuers in 1902 was hung the portrait
have seen is also the only landscape from him of Staats Forbes, which, I remember, extracted
I have come across. There is, however, a rumour admiration from all sides in virtue of the re-
that another exists. The picture alluded to is markable research of its modelling. This again
called French Soldiers on the Mairh and was is one of Mr. Orpen's assets, his faculty of so
painted in 1898 or 1899. In it we can trace at modelling a head that barely a half-tone or a
once the properly pictorial appeal the subject made plane is unregistered, and of retaining, notwith-
to Mr. Orpen. We see his interest in the amusing standing, a largeness of effect. In accessories, at
contrasts of tone and colour, in the fine pattern one time, a similar unity sometimes failed him; an
made across the sunny landscape by strips of almost fidgety handling and restless tone conspired
shadow. His interest in the
landscape seems detachedly
objective; the scene lies
before us like the reflection
in a mirror—like the reflec-
tion, what is more, in a
Claude mirror. For in his
earliest paintings, of which
perhaps the best known are
The Fracture of 1901 and
The Valuers of 1902, a rather
sombre key prevails. They
show none of the engross-
ment in plei?i-air with which
his latest work is filled. At
that time his occupation was
rather with spacing and
silhouette, and as his atti-
tude in these two pictures
is half satiric his grasp of
subtle individuality and
elusive vital action is quite re-
markable. Though the colour
of these paintings is compara-
tively simple and subdued yet
it is eminently a colourist's ;
quiet harmonies of greys and
browns, with perhaps a stac-
cato note of red or Cam-
bridge blue. In The Valuers
(reproduced in The Studio
for October, 1909, p. r8), he
pushed that particular style,
. in that particular tone, as far
as it would go, and charac-
teristically abandoned it. "mary" (i9io) by william orpen, a.r.a.
2S4