Studio: international art (54.1912)

Sir James Guthrie, P.R.S.A.

MISS JESSIE MARTIN BY SIR JAMES GUTHRIE

pictorial vision outside the realms ot portrait
painting. But those who are familiar with his
earlier work, with his Schoolmates, The Goose Girl,
and The Highland Funeral, have still a hope that
the scholarly sense of reality, the profound insight
into decorative qualities, the dignity of interpre-
tation, the subtle realisation of mental and moral
atmosphere which made these genre paintings as
significant as anything painted by Bastien Lepage
or Jean Francois Millet, may some day be placed
at the service of art. For Guthrie has advanced
since then. The real has become an even greater
reality, the painter has approached many steps
nearer to the heart of things, the meaning of the
vision is more prehensile, and the power of
interpreting it more certain and profound. The
growth has not been merely in one direction. The
quality of the mind is more seasoned, the quality
of the paint free from tentative experiment. Within
the limits he has set himself there is nothing in
which Guthrie might not succeed. This is not
idle flattery, it is written with a sense of responsible
conviction. There is a great brain behind the
brush. In its expression we catch glimpses of
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that grim sense of reality and responsibility which
is an inheritance of the best type of the Evangelical
Scottish Divine, that logical precision of statement
which is characteristic of the northern lawyer at
his highest plane, but more than these we have
the noble outlook upon life and nature which is
the prerogative of no class or country, but of all
convincing personalities. Add to this a delightful
sense of humour—the real embodiment of that
sense of proportion and perfection which eliminates
the unseemly and the mere grotesque and prevents
mankind " running riot in idolatries, drifting into
vanities, and congregating in absurdities, planning
shortsightedly, plotting dementedly"—and being
guilty of the other vices worthy of the laughter of
George Meredith's "comic spirit."

It is, as Vauvenargues says, " so easy to criticise
but very hard to estimate." To understand is to
equal. Men of genius even do not know all that
they do and they do not do it purposely. The
characteristic of genius is not to be faultless but
to have qualities enough to cause faults to be
forgiven. To be lacking in defects is to be lacking
in originality. Sir James Guthrie has guarded
himself as much against the opinion of coteries as
of the crowd; few men indeed have been so
influenced by opinion as he. He is the least
dogmatic of men; he gives the impression as if
he never thought of himself, but allowed his
personality and his genius to dwell apart among
the stars. Yet there is nothing of the mere
dreamer about him. He knows what is to be
done and he does it, but he is diffident of saying
anything unless his judgment be called for. He
seldom talks about painting, but he paints. An
eminently successful man, it must not be supposed
that as a man of genius he has not worn all the
crowns, including the crown of thorns, as Victor
Hugo says. At any rate he has never humoured
his reputation, he has never sacrificed his genius
for a Philistine's nod. The contact he has had
with the world as a man of affairs has not been
murderous to his art.

The trustees of the new London Museum at
Kensington Palace have purchased the series of
historical costumes which Mr. Seymour Lucas, R. A.,
has been collecting for many years past, the collec-
tion comprising several hundred examples dating
from the time of Henry VIII. to that of George III.
The trustees have also had many promises of gifts
or loans to the costume section, which will thus
be a unique feature of the museum. The formal
opening of the museum will take place shortly.