DOI issue:
No. 224 (November 1911)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0165
Studio- Talk
characteristics of flowers. He seems to paint in them interesting young artists, Mr. Douglas Fox Pitt and
something with which sympathy more than vision Mr. Walter Taylor, have been exhibiting water-
puts him in touch. He fails to find quite the same colour drawings. Both artists cultivate the same
inspiration in a flower bought out of a shop as in method ; they are thorough impressionists, allowing
one brought fresh in from the garden. It was some themselves much freedom of style, but it is evident
paintings of flowers by Mr. Wilson Steer that that a very sincere attitude towards their subject is
first turned Mr. Chowne's thoughts in that religiously maintained,
direction. This influence was strengthened in
its effect by his natural love of flowers. He The Leicester Gallery have been holding an
began to paint them in 1903, and no sooner had exhibition of Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale's
he taken them as his subject than he became illustrations to Tennyson's " Idylls of the King."
aware of the work of Fantin-Latour, which showed It cannot be said that Pre-Raphaelitism is dead
him the possibilities of the art. Mr. Chowne while Miss Fortescue Brickdale is alive—at least
is a disciple, but not an imitator of the great Pre-Raphaelitism in the spirit if not in the letter,
Fantin. An imitator is forced to content himself though in many points also in that. The Pre-
with the style, the outline, the body but not the Raphaelites held that art was exalted by choice ot
spirit of his master's work, which is the inimitable exalted theme, and Miss Fortescue Brickdale would
part of it. Mr. Chowne's work in itself is a protest be at one with them in this. It is not the common-
against racy superficial handling, that volubility of places of life that appeal to her brush. Very
touch that overflows in the modern still-life and charming in all her pictures is the refreshing sense
expresses so little. of green fields and rivers—with a very elaborate
and much-worked method she succeeds in retaining
At the Carfax Gallery during October two very in all her glimpses of the country the sensation of
FROM AN OIL PAINTING BY GERARD CHOWNE
143
characteristics of flowers. He seems to paint in them interesting young artists, Mr. Douglas Fox Pitt and
something with which sympathy more than vision Mr. Walter Taylor, have been exhibiting water-
puts him in touch. He fails to find quite the same colour drawings. Both artists cultivate the same
inspiration in a flower bought out of a shop as in method ; they are thorough impressionists, allowing
one brought fresh in from the garden. It was some themselves much freedom of style, but it is evident
paintings of flowers by Mr. Wilson Steer that that a very sincere attitude towards their subject is
first turned Mr. Chowne's thoughts in that religiously maintained,
direction. This influence was strengthened in
its effect by his natural love of flowers. He The Leicester Gallery have been holding an
began to paint them in 1903, and no sooner had exhibition of Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale's
he taken them as his subject than he became illustrations to Tennyson's " Idylls of the King."
aware of the work of Fantin-Latour, which showed It cannot be said that Pre-Raphaelitism is dead
him the possibilities of the art. Mr. Chowne while Miss Fortescue Brickdale is alive—at least
is a disciple, but not an imitator of the great Pre-Raphaelitism in the spirit if not in the letter,
Fantin. An imitator is forced to content himself though in many points also in that. The Pre-
with the style, the outline, the body but not the Raphaelites held that art was exalted by choice ot
spirit of his master's work, which is the inimitable exalted theme, and Miss Fortescue Brickdale would
part of it. Mr. Chowne's work in itself is a protest be at one with them in this. It is not the common-
against racy superficial handling, that volubility of places of life that appeal to her brush. Very
touch that overflows in the modern still-life and charming in all her pictures is the refreshing sense
expresses so little. of green fields and rivers—with a very elaborate
and much-worked method she succeeds in retaining
At the Carfax Gallery during October two very in all her glimpses of the country the sensation of
FROM AN OIL PAINTING BY GERARD CHOWNE
143