DOI issue:
No. 226 (January 1912)
DOI article:Marriott, Charles: The water-colours of Sir Alfred East
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21155#0289
Sir Alfred East's Water-Colours
A GREY MORNING BY SIR ALFRED EAST
artist make picture," and he went through the relation to the general scheme, but that it has an
movements of plodding industry. " Japanese artist emotional meaning of its own, determined not by
make study "; with intense concentration he copied the associations of an arbitrary " symbolism " which
an imaginary object before him; " Japanese artist must be explained before the meaning is understood,
make picture," and he repeated the fine, careless but by the essential character of colour itself. In
gesture which, in his opinion, the English artist this direction Sir Alfred's art is always progressing ;
too often reserves for the study. This is a mis- you feel that, working on a basis of proved ex-
take Sir Alfred never makes ; to the study he perience, he is on the edge of further discoveries ;
brings patient observation, while in the picture he that he will presently reduce to principles what are
relies on vision and the direct statement of what as yet hardly more than vague speculations about
he sees. that fascinating subject, the emotional language of
It has been said that all Sir Alfred's pictures are colour,
solutions of some problem of decoration. That, in Not only the outward appearance of nature,
a sense, is true, but the decorative intention is then, but her inner meaning is expressed in his
never at the cost of feeling. The moods, not less drawings and always in a form that gives delight
than the forms of nature, are expressed in his to the eye. But there is something more. To a
drawings. He culls trees as another man might remarkable degree these drawings express the
cull flowers, and flings them together into a grace- personality of the artist. The phrase has come to
ful pattern, but the pattern has always an emotional be associated with so much that is undesirable,
significance. And not only the pattern, but the affected, and pretentious in art that it is necessary
colour. To quote his own words: "The raison to consider what it really means. Like many
d'etre of painting, in contradistinction to the other other sayings about art, it contains a paradox,
arts, is the expression of colour, or rather the ex- The expression of personality is the highest
pression of colour allied with form." In looking at function of the artist; it is the last thing he can or
one of his drawings you feel that the colour is not should try to do deliberately. The very act of
only true in relation to nature and harmonious in trying implies that something is kept in reserve,
267
A GREY MORNING BY SIR ALFRED EAST
artist make picture," and he went through the relation to the general scheme, but that it has an
movements of plodding industry. " Japanese artist emotional meaning of its own, determined not by
make study "; with intense concentration he copied the associations of an arbitrary " symbolism " which
an imaginary object before him; " Japanese artist must be explained before the meaning is understood,
make picture," and he repeated the fine, careless but by the essential character of colour itself. In
gesture which, in his opinion, the English artist this direction Sir Alfred's art is always progressing ;
too often reserves for the study. This is a mis- you feel that, working on a basis of proved ex-
take Sir Alfred never makes ; to the study he perience, he is on the edge of further discoveries ;
brings patient observation, while in the picture he that he will presently reduce to principles what are
relies on vision and the direct statement of what as yet hardly more than vague speculations about
he sees. that fascinating subject, the emotional language of
It has been said that all Sir Alfred's pictures are colour,
solutions of some problem of decoration. That, in Not only the outward appearance of nature,
a sense, is true, but the decorative intention is then, but her inner meaning is expressed in his
never at the cost of feeling. The moods, not less drawings and always in a form that gives delight
than the forms of nature, are expressed in his to the eye. But there is something more. To a
drawings. He culls trees as another man might remarkable degree these drawings express the
cull flowers, and flings them together into a grace- personality of the artist. The phrase has come to
ful pattern, but the pattern has always an emotional be associated with so much that is undesirable,
significance. And not only the pattern, but the affected, and pretentious in art that it is necessary
colour. To quote his own words: "The raison to consider what it really means. Like many
d'etre of painting, in contradistinction to the other other sayings about art, it contains a paradox,
arts, is the expression of colour, or rather the ex- The expression of personality is the highest
pression of colour allied with form." In looking at function of the artist; it is the last thing he can or
one of his drawings you feel that the colour is not should try to do deliberately. The very act of
only true in relation to nature and harmonious in trying implies that something is kept in reserve,
267