DOI Heft:
No. 238 (January 1913)
DOI Artikel:Dixon, Marion Hepworth: The paintings of Philip Connard
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21158#0291
Philip Connard
The paintings of philip
CONNARD. BY MARION HEP-
WORTH DIXON.
It was Theophile Gautier, if I remember aright,
who divided mankind into two classes—the flam-
boyant and the drab. Art obviously has its drab
and flamboyant impulses; and we may deem our-
selves lucky when fashion, the almighty arbiter,
permits an artist to be something other than the
adroit purveyor of a new sensationalism. For
fashion, the desire for the strange and the bizarre,
is so all-paramount at the present day that I marvel
not at all that the Post-Impressionist, the Cubist,
and the Futurist should have arrested the attention
of our somewhat timid British critics. “ It is new,
it is strange and not a little incomprehensible,”
these good gentlemen appear to say, “ let us hasten
to praise what is new and strange and incompre-
hensible lest we be convicted of old-fogeyism.”
Now in the attitude of
both the critic and that
section of the public which
follows the newer criticism,
the fundamental principle
on which all serious art
subsists is curiously and
wantonly evaded. The
real test is apt to go by
the board. No one, for
instance, questions the
sincerity of the artist, yet it
is by his sincerity in the
last instance that he must
stand or fall. “Have
something to say before
you sit down to write,”
George Meredith was wont
to insist, and the maxim
holds equally good in the
sister art of painting; for
the artist who merely
imitates or simulates is lost,
there is no health in him.
And it matters not if he
imitates a cherished master
or the most triumphantly
successful of modern
schools. If he be anything
but himself his work will
avail him nothing. It will
be necessarily a reiteration,
a thing which smells of the
In the dominant personality of Mr. Philip
Connard, the subject of this article, we have a
healthy antidote to the something morbid which
threatens to engulf our younger schools of
painters. Life for him at any rate is no im-
penetrable riddle. On the contrary, it is some-
thing to portray and enjoy. At the same
time it should be said that Mr. Connard is a
painters’ painter in the sense that his manifest
delight is in his pigments. Indeed, so distinctive
is the handling of this trenchant impressionist
that his smallest still-life has a significance for
those who distinguish artistry from mere picture-
making. With Mr. Connard it is not the fascina-
tion of the unknown, but rather the actual thing
seen which haunts and preoccupies him. Others
may seek the barren moor, the rock-bound coast,
Mr. Connard’s muse is the muse of the Great City.
Not that he deals as a rule with any of the sterner
realities of modern capitals or suggests the greater
lamp.
LVII. No. 238.—January ign
THIS GUITAR BY PHILIP CONNA
(By permission of Messrs. Ernest Brown and Phillips, The Leicester Galleries)
The paintings of philip
CONNARD. BY MARION HEP-
WORTH DIXON.
It was Theophile Gautier, if I remember aright,
who divided mankind into two classes—the flam-
boyant and the drab. Art obviously has its drab
and flamboyant impulses; and we may deem our-
selves lucky when fashion, the almighty arbiter,
permits an artist to be something other than the
adroit purveyor of a new sensationalism. For
fashion, the desire for the strange and the bizarre,
is so all-paramount at the present day that I marvel
not at all that the Post-Impressionist, the Cubist,
and the Futurist should have arrested the attention
of our somewhat timid British critics. “ It is new,
it is strange and not a little incomprehensible,”
these good gentlemen appear to say, “ let us hasten
to praise what is new and strange and incompre-
hensible lest we be convicted of old-fogeyism.”
Now in the attitude of
both the critic and that
section of the public which
follows the newer criticism,
the fundamental principle
on which all serious art
subsists is curiously and
wantonly evaded. The
real test is apt to go by
the board. No one, for
instance, questions the
sincerity of the artist, yet it
is by his sincerity in the
last instance that he must
stand or fall. “Have
something to say before
you sit down to write,”
George Meredith was wont
to insist, and the maxim
holds equally good in the
sister art of painting; for
the artist who merely
imitates or simulates is lost,
there is no health in him.
And it matters not if he
imitates a cherished master
or the most triumphantly
successful of modern
schools. If he be anything
but himself his work will
avail him nothing. It will
be necessarily a reiteration,
a thing which smells of the
In the dominant personality of Mr. Philip
Connard, the subject of this article, we have a
healthy antidote to the something morbid which
threatens to engulf our younger schools of
painters. Life for him at any rate is no im-
penetrable riddle. On the contrary, it is some-
thing to portray and enjoy. At the same
time it should be said that Mr. Connard is a
painters’ painter in the sense that his manifest
delight is in his pigments. Indeed, so distinctive
is the handling of this trenchant impressionist
that his smallest still-life has a significance for
those who distinguish artistry from mere picture-
making. With Mr. Connard it is not the fascina-
tion of the unknown, but rather the actual thing
seen which haunts and preoccupies him. Others
may seek the barren moor, the rock-bound coast,
Mr. Connard’s muse is the muse of the Great City.
Not that he deals as a rule with any of the sterner
realities of modern capitals or suggests the greater
lamp.
LVII. No. 238.—January ign
THIS GUITAR BY PHILIP CONNA
(By permission of Messrs. Ernest Brown and Phillips, The Leicester Galleries)