DOI issue:
Nr. 220 (July 1911)
DOI article:Taylor, Ernest Archibald: The american colony of artists in Paris, [2]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20973#0133
American Artists in Paris
out that no one could convict him of repetition,
and you will not find private collectors arguing over
the similarity of their pictures by the same artist.
He is a man of ideas, and for some years, by his
wonderful power of exciting interest, conducted
one of the largest art classes in Paris. Many to-day
have much to thank him for, and the outcome of
his work, a little publication entitled " Hints to Art
Students," is unique in its practicality. Alert and
alive with enthusiasm to any advancement, the
dullness of the picture in the average curtained
room has been claiming all his recent attention—
that is, the problem of making the most brilliant
retain its brilliance amidst dark surroundings with-
out the phosphorescent trickery of the showman.
What he doesn't know about colour is not worth
knowing, and that he has solved his enigma was
proved with certainty in a recent exhibition of his
work I saw in his studio. Public exhibitions claim
little of his attention, but what he has done for
others and is still doing to-day makes him a pro-
minent personality in the American colony of
.artists in Paris. The Bridge at Azy is an excellent
example of his work; with an intimate knowledge
of composition he instinctively finds beauty of line
and form in the simplest of subjects.
In giving a short note on each of the artists
included in this article, I have left John Marin to
112
come in near the end. It suits his character
completely; he is an elusive quantity and a modern
of sanity and individuality. He is known chiefly in
Paris and his own country by his etchings, but good
as they are it is in water-colour he excels. Black-
and-white reproduction gives one no idea of them,
as his line and colour are so interwoven that the
one is lost entirely without the other ; but to repeat,
he is an elusive quantity, having left Paris to
arrange an exhibition of his work in New York, and
to return soon with some of his latest and most
representative work; and I bewail not having
retained an original before his departure. So
without a reproduction you must just take my
word, and let me give you some extracts from his
own description written to me some months ago
after a fortnight's sketching in the Austrian Tyrol.
"You know once upon a time I saw a mountain,
several mountains. I looked down into the ravines,
I looked up the bellying sides, beheld forests,
rocks, rifts, shrub and moss, reached the heights
and soared above into the clouds. There were
times when great patches were cut off by curtains
of rolling clouds. Not all in one day, a succession
of days, a succession of moments. Take, choose,
make what you please ! how you felt and what was
revealed. Do you want to know what I think about
etchings and what they should be ? Well, little letters
out that no one could convict him of repetition,
and you will not find private collectors arguing over
the similarity of their pictures by the same artist.
He is a man of ideas, and for some years, by his
wonderful power of exciting interest, conducted
one of the largest art classes in Paris. Many to-day
have much to thank him for, and the outcome of
his work, a little publication entitled " Hints to Art
Students," is unique in its practicality. Alert and
alive with enthusiasm to any advancement, the
dullness of the picture in the average curtained
room has been claiming all his recent attention—
that is, the problem of making the most brilliant
retain its brilliance amidst dark surroundings with-
out the phosphorescent trickery of the showman.
What he doesn't know about colour is not worth
knowing, and that he has solved his enigma was
proved with certainty in a recent exhibition of his
work I saw in his studio. Public exhibitions claim
little of his attention, but what he has done for
others and is still doing to-day makes him a pro-
minent personality in the American colony of
.artists in Paris. The Bridge at Azy is an excellent
example of his work; with an intimate knowledge
of composition he instinctively finds beauty of line
and form in the simplest of subjects.
In giving a short note on each of the artists
included in this article, I have left John Marin to
112
come in near the end. It suits his character
completely; he is an elusive quantity and a modern
of sanity and individuality. He is known chiefly in
Paris and his own country by his etchings, but good
as they are it is in water-colour he excels. Black-
and-white reproduction gives one no idea of them,
as his line and colour are so interwoven that the
one is lost entirely without the other ; but to repeat,
he is an elusive quantity, having left Paris to
arrange an exhibition of his work in New York, and
to return soon with some of his latest and most
representative work; and I bewail not having
retained an original before his departure. So
without a reproduction you must just take my
word, and let me give you some extracts from his
own description written to me some months ago
after a fortnight's sketching in the Austrian Tyrol.
"You know once upon a time I saw a mountain,
several mountains. I looked down into the ravines,
I looked up the bellying sides, beheld forests,
rocks, rifts, shrub and moss, reached the heights
and soared above into the clouds. There were
times when great patches were cut off by curtains
of rolling clouds. Not all in one day, a succession
of days, a succession of moments. Take, choose,
make what you please ! how you felt and what was
revealed. Do you want to know what I think about
etchings and what they should be ? Well, little letters