DOI Heft:
No. 223 (October 1911)
DOI Artikel:Stodart-Walker, Archibald: Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0046
Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.
always in a low and full tone, and such a method realisation of the subtle light and shade of the human
eliminates the possibilities of eclectic searching as face. But in the portrayal of the character by
practised by such men as Mr. Sargent, Mr. Orpen, means of paint, Sir James Guthrie is on his highest
or Mr. Lavery. It may appear to some that Sir plane when dealing with old men. Here force and
James Guthrie's very intellectual strength may be delicacy unite in gracious and dignified harmony,
a handicap to any excursions into experiment such and in his John Maclachlan and James Caldwell we
as are dear to Mr. Sargent, who while the master realise the beauty and sublimity of old age as they
of Guthrie in lustrous colour, in brushwork, which have not been interpreted by any modern painter,
seems inevitable, it is so determined, and in grandeur and with a scholarly sympathy that Raeburn seldom
of line, yet is inferior to the Scotsman in insight into achieved, and most of his contemporaries never,
the subtleties of character, in the power of inter- We can well remember standing along with one
, preting the delicate shades of intellectual force, in of our oldest and most distinguished painters,
poetic dignity of treatment on the one hand and in trained in a school very different to that of Sir
refinement of tone and colour and the masterly James Guthrie, before the picture of James Caldwell
juxtaposition of pigments on the other. So subtle when it was first exhibited in Edinburgh. " I am
and profound is this power in the hands of Sir James grateful to Providence," he said, " that I have been
Guthrie that it gives the impression that the picture privileged to live long enough to see that portrait."
has slowly grown into beautiful being, instead of There are many who regret that Guthrie has
springing into complete life as Pallas out of the ceased altogether from giving us examples of his
head of Jove. Mr. Sargent
gives you the impression as if
he were painting an action,
Sir James Guthrie as if he
were painting a state of the
mind, and in the nature of
things the latter must give the
impression of duration.
In his more recent work,
such as the Mrs. Craig Sellar,
we get a clarity and a brilliance
in the flesh tints that were
missing even in such a
masterly portrait as the Mrs.
fohn Findlay of Alter lour, in
which there still remain traces
of an early tendency to a slight
muddiness of texture in the
portrayal of the shadows of
the human face. In this
sense of purity and clarity ol
paint as standing in contra-
distinction to the soap and
rouge tints of some of our
fashionable portraitists, the
Lady Helen Munro Ferguson
(July number) is a noteworthy
example, as is The Lord
Dunedin, which though lack-
ing the lustrous shadows which
make his Marquis of Tulli-
bardine worthy to be classed
with a fine Rembrandt, is yet
a step forward from that
painting in its delicate miss lorna guthrie by sik jawes guthrie
24
always in a low and full tone, and such a method realisation of the subtle light and shade of the human
eliminates the possibilities of eclectic searching as face. But in the portrayal of the character by
practised by such men as Mr. Sargent, Mr. Orpen, means of paint, Sir James Guthrie is on his highest
or Mr. Lavery. It may appear to some that Sir plane when dealing with old men. Here force and
James Guthrie's very intellectual strength may be delicacy unite in gracious and dignified harmony,
a handicap to any excursions into experiment such and in his John Maclachlan and James Caldwell we
as are dear to Mr. Sargent, who while the master realise the beauty and sublimity of old age as they
of Guthrie in lustrous colour, in brushwork, which have not been interpreted by any modern painter,
seems inevitable, it is so determined, and in grandeur and with a scholarly sympathy that Raeburn seldom
of line, yet is inferior to the Scotsman in insight into achieved, and most of his contemporaries never,
the subtleties of character, in the power of inter- We can well remember standing along with one
, preting the delicate shades of intellectual force, in of our oldest and most distinguished painters,
poetic dignity of treatment on the one hand and in trained in a school very different to that of Sir
refinement of tone and colour and the masterly James Guthrie, before the picture of James Caldwell
juxtaposition of pigments on the other. So subtle when it was first exhibited in Edinburgh. " I am
and profound is this power in the hands of Sir James grateful to Providence," he said, " that I have been
Guthrie that it gives the impression that the picture privileged to live long enough to see that portrait."
has slowly grown into beautiful being, instead of There are many who regret that Guthrie has
springing into complete life as Pallas out of the ceased altogether from giving us examples of his
head of Jove. Mr. Sargent
gives you the impression as if
he were painting an action,
Sir James Guthrie as if he
were painting a state of the
mind, and in the nature of
things the latter must give the
impression of duration.
In his more recent work,
such as the Mrs. Craig Sellar,
we get a clarity and a brilliance
in the flesh tints that were
missing even in such a
masterly portrait as the Mrs.
fohn Findlay of Alter lour, in
which there still remain traces
of an early tendency to a slight
muddiness of texture in the
portrayal of the shadows of
the human face. In this
sense of purity and clarity ol
paint as standing in contra-
distinction to the soap and
rouge tints of some of our
fashionable portraitists, the
Lady Helen Munro Ferguson
(July number) is a noteworthy
example, as is The Lord
Dunedin, which though lack-
ing the lustrous shadows which
make his Marquis of Tulli-
bardine worthy to be classed
with a fine Rembrandt, is yet
a step forward from that
painting in its delicate miss lorna guthrie by sik jawes guthrie
24