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#0290
Sir Alfred Easts Water-Colours
LEE MANOR LANE BY SIR ALFRED EAST
and complete self-expression is only possible in
complete self-surrender to the business of the
moment. In art no less than in life a man must
lose himself to find himself. Now in looking at
the drawings of Sir Alfred East it is evident that
he has thought about nothing but the emotion
of the moment. So far as any ulterior motive
is concerned they are as unselfconscious as
growing flowers. There is no personal "axe to
grind," no theory to prove, no prejudice to
advertise. The subject conceived, the whole man
responds to it with no other thought than to
express his emotion with the simplest and most
direct means at his command, and the result is as
autographic as a signature.
The temperament revealed in these drawings is
essentially lyrical. Whether the theme be grave or
gay, simple or elaborate, the emotion conveyed
is that of joy in the beauty of the world. It
is this as much as anything that gives to the
drawings their character of improvisation; they
are like songs. Indeed, in looking at them you
are constantly reminded of music, and though
Sir Alfred is too good an artist to attempt in
one art the function of another, his work shares
with music the power of expressing what cannot be
268
expressed in words. It is as far as painting could
be from descriptive reporting. Any information
about facts conveyed is by the way, as, if a man
tells you simply and directly what he feels, you
have a clear and true idea of what made him feel
it. The subject is implied in the emotion. Look-
ing over the drawings reproduced here, and remem-
bering others by the same artist, one is astonished
at his width of sympathy and range of moods.
No country is "foreign" to him; wherever he
goes he seems to feel the characteristic atmosphere,
to get, as he says, " the smell of the country."
There seems to be no shade of feeling that he
cannot express in water-colour. For that is the
point that one always comes back to ; his command
of all the resources of the medium. Using it
always according to its temperament, he has never-
theless extended its range and deepened its power.
His drawings are not merely executed in water-
colour, they are conceived in terms of water-colour
and carried out with a simplicity and precision
and purity of idiom that suggest a man speaking
his native language. Charles Marriott.
Mr. Arthur George Bell has been elected member
of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.
LEE MANOR LANE BY SIR ALFRED EAST
and complete self-expression is only possible in
complete self-surrender to the business of the
moment. In art no less than in life a man must
lose himself to find himself. Now in looking at
the drawings of Sir Alfred East it is evident that
he has thought about nothing but the emotion
of the moment. So far as any ulterior motive
is concerned they are as unselfconscious as
growing flowers. There is no personal "axe to
grind," no theory to prove, no prejudice to
advertise. The subject conceived, the whole man
responds to it with no other thought than to
express his emotion with the simplest and most
direct means at his command, and the result is as
autographic as a signature.
The temperament revealed in these drawings is
essentially lyrical. Whether the theme be grave or
gay, simple or elaborate, the emotion conveyed
is that of joy in the beauty of the world. It
is this as much as anything that gives to the
drawings their character of improvisation; they
are like songs. Indeed, in looking at them you
are constantly reminded of music, and though
Sir Alfred is too good an artist to attempt in
one art the function of another, his work shares
with music the power of expressing what cannot be
268
expressed in words. It is as far as painting could
be from descriptive reporting. Any information
about facts conveyed is by the way, as, if a man
tells you simply and directly what he feels, you
have a clear and true idea of what made him feel
it. The subject is implied in the emotion. Look-
ing over the drawings reproduced here, and remem-
bering others by the same artist, one is astonished
at his width of sympathy and range of moods.
No country is "foreign" to him; wherever he
goes he seems to feel the characteristic atmosphere,
to get, as he says, " the smell of the country."
There seems to be no shade of feeling that he
cannot express in water-colour. For that is the
point that one always comes back to ; his command
of all the resources of the medium. Using it
always according to its temperament, he has never-
theless extended its range and deepened its power.
His drawings are not merely executed in water-
colour, they are conceived in terms of water-colour
and carried out with a simplicity and precision
and purity of idiom that suggest a man speaking
his native language. Charles Marriott.
Mr. Arthur George Bell has been elected member
of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.