DOI Heft:
No. 226 (January 1912)
DOI Artikel:Marriott, Charles: The water-colours of Sir Alfred East
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0281
Sir Alfred East'5 Water-Colours
HE WATER-COLOURS OF SIR
ALFRED EAST. BY CHARLES
MARRIOTT.
"Your attitude towards nature should be re-
spectful, but at the same time confident." These,
the opening words of Sir Alfred East's book on
" Landscape Painting," were strongly recalled to
my mind when I first saw him at work in a studio
in St. Ives, Cornwall. The picture, painted in the
Cotswolds and brought to St. Ives for final revision
in a winter light untroubled by the fogs of London,
though true to nature in essentials, and therefore
respectful, seemed to exist for him less as a subject
found in nature than as a theme to support and
express a conception of his own. Relations that
were accidental in nature seemed to have a pur-
pose in the picture, as if the artist had disengaged
the inner meaning of the scene; discovered the
essential rhythm under the surface of appearances.
It was a single statement and not a collection of
parts. I felt that he could have abolished a tree
or put one in as one might alter the position of a
flower in a garland without materially affecting its
character as a garland, though the design would be
improved. As he worked he talked—about music,
I think—and his hand moved from one part of
the picture to another so that the suggestion of
arranging flowers was complete.
That impression of Sir Alfred at work is con-
sistent with the impression that it is now my good
fortune to renew at frequent intervals in the
Academy, at the R.B.A., and from the water-
colours that are reproduced in these pages. If I
had to sum up in a single word the characteristics of
Sir Alfred's art in their immediate effect upon the
observer, I should use the word " Improvisation."
That, for the immediate effect and what is
implied in it, is admirably expressed in the artist's
own words : " Nature expresses life with a curious
and interesting sense of directness. Although we
know there are millions of years behind her
simplest development, yet the result is one of
apparent ease, a spontaneous and direct effort."
One has only to look at the drawings here re-
produced to recognise that though many years of
observation and labour have gone to the develop-
ment of the power to make them, they are not in
themselves produced by observation and labour.
To paraphrase the words of theartist, in them he
has expressed nature with a curious and interesting
sense of directness. "This," he seems to say, "is
" st. jacques, dieppe "
LIV. No. 226.—January 1912
by sir alfred east
259
HE WATER-COLOURS OF SIR
ALFRED EAST. BY CHARLES
MARRIOTT.
"Your attitude towards nature should be re-
spectful, but at the same time confident." These,
the opening words of Sir Alfred East's book on
" Landscape Painting," were strongly recalled to
my mind when I first saw him at work in a studio
in St. Ives, Cornwall. The picture, painted in the
Cotswolds and brought to St. Ives for final revision
in a winter light untroubled by the fogs of London,
though true to nature in essentials, and therefore
respectful, seemed to exist for him less as a subject
found in nature than as a theme to support and
express a conception of his own. Relations that
were accidental in nature seemed to have a pur-
pose in the picture, as if the artist had disengaged
the inner meaning of the scene; discovered the
essential rhythm under the surface of appearances.
It was a single statement and not a collection of
parts. I felt that he could have abolished a tree
or put one in as one might alter the position of a
flower in a garland without materially affecting its
character as a garland, though the design would be
improved. As he worked he talked—about music,
I think—and his hand moved from one part of
the picture to another so that the suggestion of
arranging flowers was complete.
That impression of Sir Alfred at work is con-
sistent with the impression that it is now my good
fortune to renew at frequent intervals in the
Academy, at the R.B.A., and from the water-
colours that are reproduced in these pages. If I
had to sum up in a single word the characteristics of
Sir Alfred's art in their immediate effect upon the
observer, I should use the word " Improvisation."
That, for the immediate effect and what is
implied in it, is admirably expressed in the artist's
own words : " Nature expresses life with a curious
and interesting sense of directness. Although we
know there are millions of years behind her
simplest development, yet the result is one of
apparent ease, a spontaneous and direct effort."
One has only to look at the drawings here re-
produced to recognise that though many years of
observation and labour have gone to the develop-
ment of the power to make them, they are not in
themselves produced by observation and labour.
To paraphrase the words of theartist, in them he
has expressed nature with a curious and interesting
sense of directness. "This," he seems to say, "is
" st. jacques, dieppe "
LIV. No. 226.—January 1912
by sir alfred east
259