DOI Heft:
No. 235 (October 1912)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: A notable decorative artist: George Sheringham
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0028
George Sheringham
methods are likely to lose their vitality; if his
sense of design is imperfect, if his colour-feeling is
insufficiently acute, and if his observation is too
matter-of-fact, his productions will be wanting in
just that quality of distinctive originality which
gives the true hall-mark to all fine decoration.
There is, in a word, no room in the ranks of the
decorators for the man of merelyaverage capabilities.
The artist who is by no means a consummate
craftsman and who has only moderate powers of
expression can often score a great popular success
through the accident of a telling subject—many
a poorly painted picture has brought fame to
its producer because he has chanced to hit upon
a motive which has pleased the crowd. But the
decorator has not the opportunity of glossing over
imperfections of practice by hiding behind a
popular subject; he makes his success or his
failure by the use of his own capacities only, and
he depends upon himself alone for the position he
takes in his profession. It is this that causes the
art of decoration to be more exacting than any
other form of artistic expression and that obliges
the men who follow it to acquire a more than
ordinarily complete mastery over its complicated
technicalities.
Among the younger decorative artists of the
present day there are few who are so thoroughly
capable of meeting any demand that may be made
upon them as Mr. George Sheringham. He is
a typical decorator, possessing that peculiar balance
of qualities which ensures an exceptional complete-
ness of achievement, and endowed with an extra-
ordinary fertility of imagination. A rarely graceful
draughtsman, a colourist with an unusual sensitive-
ness to refinements of combination and arrange-
ment, and a designer whose wholesome originality
is satisfying in the highest degree, he has advanced
in a few energetic years to a position in the front
rank. This position he can with complete justice
be said to have made almost entirely by his own
efforts, for his art is in all its main essentials a
purely personal manifestation—something created
by himself. It reflects neither the teaching of any
particular master nor the tenets of any past or
present school; it sets forth an individual con-
viction that is guided by an exquisite taste and
controlled by a really delightful feeling for beauty
of the highest order.
Mr. Sheringham is, however, not a self-taught
artist; he has learned his craft under good tuition
and has had the advantage of a thorough training ;
and on the foundation of this well-ordered educa-
tion he has built up a system of working which
owes much of its practical character to the teaching
he received in his student days. He learned early
in life what is so valuable to the artist—how to
study and how to think, and most of all how to
PAINTED SILK PANEL FOR A MUSIC-ROOM
(In the tossession of P. H. Kemp Prossor, Esq.)
BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
6
methods are likely to lose their vitality; if his
sense of design is imperfect, if his colour-feeling is
insufficiently acute, and if his observation is too
matter-of-fact, his productions will be wanting in
just that quality of distinctive originality which
gives the true hall-mark to all fine decoration.
There is, in a word, no room in the ranks of the
decorators for the man of merelyaverage capabilities.
The artist who is by no means a consummate
craftsman and who has only moderate powers of
expression can often score a great popular success
through the accident of a telling subject—many
a poorly painted picture has brought fame to
its producer because he has chanced to hit upon
a motive which has pleased the crowd. But the
decorator has not the opportunity of glossing over
imperfections of practice by hiding behind a
popular subject; he makes his success or his
failure by the use of his own capacities only, and
he depends upon himself alone for the position he
takes in his profession. It is this that causes the
art of decoration to be more exacting than any
other form of artistic expression and that obliges
the men who follow it to acquire a more than
ordinarily complete mastery over its complicated
technicalities.
Among the younger decorative artists of the
present day there are few who are so thoroughly
capable of meeting any demand that may be made
upon them as Mr. George Sheringham. He is
a typical decorator, possessing that peculiar balance
of qualities which ensures an exceptional complete-
ness of achievement, and endowed with an extra-
ordinary fertility of imagination. A rarely graceful
draughtsman, a colourist with an unusual sensitive-
ness to refinements of combination and arrange-
ment, and a designer whose wholesome originality
is satisfying in the highest degree, he has advanced
in a few energetic years to a position in the front
rank. This position he can with complete justice
be said to have made almost entirely by his own
efforts, for his art is in all its main essentials a
purely personal manifestation—something created
by himself. It reflects neither the teaching of any
particular master nor the tenets of any past or
present school; it sets forth an individual con-
viction that is guided by an exquisite taste and
controlled by a really delightful feeling for beauty
of the highest order.
Mr. Sheringham is, however, not a self-taught
artist; he has learned his craft under good tuition
and has had the advantage of a thorough training ;
and on the foundation of this well-ordered educa-
tion he has built up a system of working which
owes much of its practical character to the teaching
he received in his student days. He learned early
in life what is so valuable to the artist—how to
study and how to think, and most of all how to
PAINTED SILK PANEL FOR A MUSIC-ROOM
(In the tossession of P. H. Kemp Prossor, Esq.)
BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
6