Studio: international art (53.1911)

THE STUDIO

THE PAINTINGS OF WILLIAM with dogged perseverance in the assertion of his

x T own beliefs a real command over the mechanism

IN lCriULoUJN. „ , . , , . , , , .
of his art he may compel the art world to accept

The artist who makes up his mind to break him as a person mistaken, perhaps, but still of

away from the customary conventions of his time such dominant ability that he cannot conveniently

and to choose his own way in the practice of be ignored. Force of character, backed up by

his profession must be a man with more than technical skill of a high order, will gain for an artist

ordinary force of character. He must lack neither a position in which he will receive at least a

courage nor the capacity for dogged perseverance; measure of consideration, a position for which he

he must be able to withstand rebuffs, and to remain will have to fight hard, but one in which, when he

unmoved by misunderstanding or misrepresentation has once arrived, he will be quite reasonably

of his aims; he must have the power to continue, secure; the technical skill, however, is a necessity,

uninfluenced by opposition, in the direction he has because without it he will not be able to convince

marked out for himself, and to refuse to make people that the ideas he wishes to convey have any

concessions to professional clamour or popular definite claim to attention.

demand. He must, in a word, be a rather rare The strong man, the fighter who will make no

^Pe of individual with special strength of con- compromises and whose sense of his own importance

viction and a definite ability to fix his mind upon is properly developed, can impose himself on the

what he conceives to be the right course for him to art world and beat down opposition. He can

follow. secure acceptance and make his influence felt, but

For the modern artist is not willingly allowed to he can only do this by proving beyond all dispute

be independent either by his professional brethren that he is armed at all points and that there are no

or by the public to whom necessarily his appeal weak places in his equipment. In his progress he

has to be made. The art world is divided to-day will go through several stages : at first he will be

into schools, each of which has its own small group despised because he has not come out of any of

of exponent's and its own particular following, and the recognised pigeon-holes in which modern art is
the man who does not
attach himself to any one

of these schools runs the I^^^I^H l\l

nsk oi being treated us a 1

s°rt of outcast whom no ■ , K\%

one win accept and for Mtt\

whom there is not a good 111

word to be said. Every jl\

school is suspicious of him Mil

because his independence W 111

lmPlles. as they assume, K^jMH

a certain contempt for the , . ^ ' ^

authority they claim, and B^P^M*H«fl ' "

every faction of the public 'V* '7M ''

ls 0PPosed to him because Ic^W i JT I

hls work has not the tricks WB/^QR J 9L '.^|' '

expression and the mat* HmK. ''9ft ^^k^^^l^^;
"ensms of handling which HK^^-aT? *9BflBfl& jPPIt^PVtti

tney have been taught to 'J^^^^^S^^^
rCgard i,s essentials in artis *' ^'•SFTSI

tic performance. % ~%JlU**- -*-*5ass*^ HH^^B

But there is inot thP

chance th .vr j "cufids fighting for a rose" by william nicholsont

e mat it he combines (By special permission)

UII. No. 2i9._jUNE ,9„. 3