DOI Heft:
No. 225 (December 1911)
DOI Artikel:Ruttner, Frank: The portrait paintings of John Duncan Fergusson
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0229
John Duncan Fergusson
■ 'l HE SPOTTED SCARF BY J. T). FERGUSSON
necessary to dwell upon his delicate adaptation of
rhythm to particularise each person he portrays.
It is the subtlety of this adaptation that enables
him to be at once so simple and so significant, to
emphasise by a change of metre the dignified
repose of Miss Elizabeth Dryden and the
sparkling vivacity of The Spotted Scarj.
This application of rhythm to the expression of
character in portraiture is perhaps the most original
and most salient feature in Mr. Fergusson's art.
But with him, happily, it is an instinct rather than a
fixed principle, and therefore no petrifying theory has
yet been able to harden his elasticity. He confesses
that he comes to each fresh subject with no pre-
conceived ideas as to its treatment, and that if he
does happen to begin by thinking he ought to treat a
subject in one way, he usually finds when it is
finished that he has treated it in quite another.
And it is because he has contrived through all these
theoretical days to keep his vision so fresh and his
practice so flexible, that we may justly indulge the
highest hopes for his future, the future of an artist
who has already won what is best worth having,
afford of echoing therein the significant lines of namely, the attention and respect of his most highly
his sitter's face and figure. They are certainly not gifted contemporaries. F. R.
put in for their own sake or just to
fill up the canvas, and that is why
they never distract our interest from
the central figure. On the contiaiy,
they help to bring out, even to
simplify for us the essential charac-
teristics of the personality portrayed.
Observe in the Portrait of Miss
Elizabeth D?yden (p. 203) how the
significant lines of the forehead and
chin, for example, are balanced and
repeated in the contours of the petals
to her left. These repetitions un-
doubtedly contribute to the rhyth-
mic quality of the whole design, but
they also serve materially in empha-
sising the significant traits of the
sitter.
The wealth of accessories in
La Dame ai/x Oranges is again
an orchestration of the curves and
contours peculiar to the sitter, a
rhythmic fugue of line and colour. In
The Spotted Scarf we find accented
syllables of paint playing an import-
ant part in determining character.
But it is not enough to point out
that Mr. Fergusson's portraits are
generally rhythmic in design, it is portrait of mis bertha case by j. d. fergusson
207
■ 'l HE SPOTTED SCARF BY J. T). FERGUSSON
necessary to dwell upon his delicate adaptation of
rhythm to particularise each person he portrays.
It is the subtlety of this adaptation that enables
him to be at once so simple and so significant, to
emphasise by a change of metre the dignified
repose of Miss Elizabeth Dryden and the
sparkling vivacity of The Spotted Scarj.
This application of rhythm to the expression of
character in portraiture is perhaps the most original
and most salient feature in Mr. Fergusson's art.
But with him, happily, it is an instinct rather than a
fixed principle, and therefore no petrifying theory has
yet been able to harden his elasticity. He confesses
that he comes to each fresh subject with no pre-
conceived ideas as to its treatment, and that if he
does happen to begin by thinking he ought to treat a
subject in one way, he usually finds when it is
finished that he has treated it in quite another.
And it is because he has contrived through all these
theoretical days to keep his vision so fresh and his
practice so flexible, that we may justly indulge the
highest hopes for his future, the future of an artist
who has already won what is best worth having,
afford of echoing therein the significant lines of namely, the attention and respect of his most highly
his sitter's face and figure. They are certainly not gifted contemporaries. F. R.
put in for their own sake or just to
fill up the canvas, and that is why
they never distract our interest from
the central figure. On the contiaiy,
they help to bring out, even to
simplify for us the essential charac-
teristics of the personality portrayed.
Observe in the Portrait of Miss
Elizabeth D?yden (p. 203) how the
significant lines of the forehead and
chin, for example, are balanced and
repeated in the contours of the petals
to her left. These repetitions un-
doubtedly contribute to the rhyth-
mic quality of the whole design, but
they also serve materially in empha-
sising the significant traits of the
sitter.
The wealth of accessories in
La Dame ai/x Oranges is again
an orchestration of the curves and
contours peculiar to the sitter, a
rhythmic fugue of line and colour. In
The Spotted Scarf we find accented
syllables of paint playing an import-
ant part in determining character.
But it is not enough to point out
that Mr. Fergusson's portraits are
generally rhythmic in design, it is portrait of mis bertha case by j. d. fergusson
207