Studio: international art (53.1911)

Edwin Alexander, A.R.S.A., R.W.S.

and backgrounds designed to throw into relief one goes on—or rather as one gets older," he says,

their fine feathers, and when their heads are turned, "the less one cares to make definite statements."

the movement is noted and extravagantly praised Of course where, in this respect, the artist refrains,

again in art. We do not know how this has it is not for us to rush in, though we like making

affected the creatures themselves, but the reaction definite statements. He continues : " I feel more

upon the artists is visible. Only in exchange for inclined to try to learn from others than to attempt

extravagant admiration have the less apparent to teach them"—a sentiment not without charm

characteristics of animal life been shown more from one whose fluency of style in painting is so

fully to men; and there has sprung up a new kind enviable.

of animal picture in which such artists as Mr. Apropos of Mr. Alexander's first remark, just

Edwin Alexander and Mr. Joseph Crawhall excel, quoted, we may state that the artist was born in

and in which the obvious is passed over in favour Edinburgh in 1870. It is interesting to note that

of a studied deference to the thousand and one little with the exception of a few months in Paris his art

idiosyncrasies of manner upon which animals of the education was also received at the School of Art

same species rest their claims to an individuality, in Edinburgh, and since the age of sixteen he

As in these days such an elaboration of the know- has exhibited in the Royal Scottish Academy, of

ledge of every part of life proceeds, to the end of which he is an Associate. After his election to

an enrichened sense of life altogether, art itself the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colour just

increases its affluence, and the infinite possibilities over ten years ago, when he was barely thirty,

that yet further await it frame themselves into a nearly all his work has been sent to the exhibitions

faith. of these two societies. A sojourn of three years

There is something surprising in the willing- in Egypt, the painter tells us, was one of the

ness of man to sit, as described above, at the strongest influences upon his outlook upon things,

feet of animals, but it is of a piece with the though at the time production itself was almost

humility with which every kind of knowledge suspended.

begins—and not only begins, for a reflection of it is One must not forget Mr. Alexander as landscape

conveyed in a letter before the writer as he pens painter, though in so far as the writer has had an

these lines, in which Mr. Alexander briefly ex- opportunity of studying his art in this aspect, each

presses himself in regard to painting. " The more scene had a general character which could best be

" iona "
90

( The property of R. M. Lindsay, Esq., Dundee)

by edwin alexander