Studio: international art (53.1911)

William Nicholson

classified and tabulated; next he will be abused as that he intends and is fit to do. Much as he has
a kind of discordant interruption in a general already accomplished—and his record is indis-
harmony of disagreement; then he will be tolerated putably distinguished—there are possibilities in
as an inconvenient exception but one which must him which suggest that the place he occupies to-
be recognised because it cannot be got rid of; and day is only an intermediate one and that he is still
at last he will be put on a duly decorated pedestal a long way from the quiet spot where he will
with his own group of worshippers all ready to eventually settle down to contemplate with satis-
swear that there is no one else like him and that he faction his past labours.

is the one shining light in the art of his times. As it happens, Mr. Nicholson has all the qualifi-

Not many men, however, arrive at the pedestal cations which are required by the man who decides
stage. There are too many disabilities to overcome, to disregard the prevalent tendencies of the art of
too many pitfalls in the form of temptations to take the age in which he lives and to strike a new note
the line of least resistance and to accept an easy in matters of practice. He is, to begin with,
popularity by some surrender of independence, for genuinely original, a frankly individual thinker
any but the most confident and convinced worker who does not derive his opinions from other
to win through to the end along the path on which people but forms them for himself in accordance
he set out. Such a number of artists have begun with the promptings of his temperament. He does
with enthusiasm to carve out a career through the not accept any of the fashionable conventions
thickets of popular misunderstanding and bad taste, which satisfy the men who do not take a properly
only to turn back half-way to trot along the nice, personal view of their responsibilities; but equally
smooth, level road which ends in the city of lost he does not set out to deliberately outrage even
ambitions; such a number have left in the thickets the conventions which he would be the least
the bones of their reputa-
tions and have been blotted
out of memory by the over-
growth which in so short
a time has hidden all the
evidences of their labour;
only here and there is the
track cut straight through
all the tangle to the clear
ground beyond where the
great ones dwell—where the
pedestals stand in a serene
open space and the air is
perfumed with the smoke of
incense.

It would, probably, be
not quite fair to suggest that
Mr. William Nicholson has
already, arrived at this
elysium where the few great
masters sit in dignified seclu-
sion. Admission to an ■

elysium suggests the end of / ' JL.. I \'f^Bv *H

striving and the attainment

of a position in which the ... US yEjf "^1 'Srl^^^r

man who has fought well can
rest: upon his laurels and

watch placidly his worship- ■■~^--\\iXwm\mwmi *

pcrs bowing down before ' '^f^HHBIE^Mn'<''l'^^^BB^BB

him. But Mr. Nicholson

is a young man, and he « first commoW day" by william Nicholson

has certainly not done all (By special permission)

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