Studio: international art (55.1912)

D. Y. Camerons Paintings

presented, that there is a tendency occasionally to
over emphasis of contrast which makes such a canvas
as Luxor: Nightfall appear what may be called,
for want of a more subtle term, “theatrical.” Mr.
Cameron, indeed, does not disdain this “ theatrical ”
method—using the term in its better sense—to
achieve a strong effect. The use of the scaffolding
which frames the landscape in his great canvas
Morning, Whitby, is evident enough, but in so far
as it helps to strengthen the design—even to make
it—it is defensible. If Mr. Cameron had used
this method of presenting a landscape in nine
cases out of ten, it would have descended into the
category of a trick, as was the case with the Claude
convention and the use made by the Japanese
photographers of placing a prominent figure in
the foreground of their landscapes. But he
humours neither his methods nor his reputation.
He never repeats or plagiarises himself; a success
never stereotypes his methods into a convention.

In the mass of Mr. Cameron’s work a tendency
to the subdued, low tone is characteristic ; not only
in such canvases as Craigievar and Tewkesbury,
where the artist’s skill in architectural design is
portrayed at a brilliant pitch, but in the Criffel,
purchased by the Scottish Modern Arts Association,
and reproduced in this magazine in November 1908,
we find the preference for the study of nature in the
suave and tender key. But in The Marble Quarry
and Dark Badenoch we see him wrestling with the
more assertive and rugged aspects of nature. In
these canvases Mr. Cameron reaches to what may
be called sublimity. The Marble Quarry is as
powerful as anything painted in the earlier method
of his colleague Mr. W. Y. MacGregor. The vast
masses are handled with a freedom and force which
the casual observer had not expected from Mr.
Cameron. In Badenoch the painter again essays
the portrayal of the vast primitive forces of nature,
but in this case he carries his poetic imagery
further and gives to the canvas a poetry which is
absent from The Marble Quarry. In Badenoch,
indeed, Mr. Cameron is at the very highest ex-
pression of his genius, where imagination and
selection on the one hand and breadth of brush-
work and co-ordination of colour-values combine
to ensure a perfect ensemble. It may reflect the
influence of Sir George Reid’s famous canvas St.
Mary’s Loch, but it is distinctively individual and
was the most outstanding landscape in the remark-
able exhibition which opened the new galleries of
the Royal Scottish Academy last year. No charge
of monotony of subject or singleness of method
can be made against an artist who has produced
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three such canvases as The Hills of Skye, Criffel,
and Dark Badefioch.

When the present writer first saw The Hills of
Skye he was worried about something which he
could not define. He was patient enough to say
merely that he was nonplussed. Now he thinks
he has found a solution for his doubts. In this
landscape, while there is everything perfect in
relation of tone, there is something wanting in
relation of weight. The substantive values do not
seem to be correct. It is explained by the fact
that Mr. Cameron’s very refined sense of romance
and poetry has pushed him just a little too far, until
the pound avoirdupois is lost from the thing of
substance and becomes nebulous and almost
woolly. A romantic envelope should glorify a thing,
not destroy its values, and we may venture to opine
that in The Hills of Skye, which has been appraised
very highly by some of his most discerning critics,
the values of weight and substance have been lost.
It is sufficient to contrast such a picture as The
Marble Quarry with The Hills of Skye to appreciate
this question of tonal value as far as it affects sub-
stance and weight. It is superbly conveyed in
Badenoch and A Castle m the Ardennes, and in a
different key in Criffel, but is less masterly in The
Eildon Hills.

Mr. Cameron’s almost over-subtle delight in
style and in dignified design, the consciousness
of which is ever-present, prevents him making
any experiments in risky approximation of colours,
and his love for dignified repose precludes any
frequent excursion into rich, full, sensuous tones.
His very scholarly and studied art deprives his
canvases of the impression of spontaneity, though
The Marble Quarry suggests a loosening of the
bounds of ultra-discretion. Lacking passion, his
work possesses charm ; unemotional, it is almost in-
variably steeped with the romantic spirit; it is this
romance with an absence of emotion which gives to
some the impression of mere poetic intellectualism,
if the term be allowed. But through every phase of
his work, whether as an etcher or a colourist, we
catch the one unchallengeable note of distinction.
There is nothing crude, chaotic, or clumsy. Every-
thing is scholarly, refined, and deft. A man of liberal
culture and sensitive, sympathetic nature, he abhors
everything that is not orderly, well disposed, and
dignified, and these characteristics he expresses in
his masterly craftsmanship, which has placed him
amongst the very select in the world of modern art,
a position achieved by his own scholarly technique,
wedded to an insight into the beautiful which is
profound. A. S. W.