DOI issue:
Nr. 246 (September 1913)
DOI article:Garstin, Norman: The paintings of A. J. Munnings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21159#0276
A. J. Mminings
manner. This is so, but the value of the art as
such depends upon the subtlety of the rendering
combined with the dignity of the motive.
Now the usual painter of horses is more often
occupied with transferring his client’s views about
his horse to canvas than he is with those eternal
truths of nature, the perception of which is his own
real claim to be considered an artist.
It is possible, even certain, that those painters
who act in this self-effacing manner are really not so
much suppressing their own outlook as tacitly
admitting that they have not any; they are
craftsmen, more or less competent to do what
is required, producing an article which is, in it's way,
excellently suited to its environment.
The inn parlour, with its postured pugilists, and
the squire’s sanctum with masks and brushes, whips
and spurs—all seem to supply exactly the right
atmosphere by that happy conjunction which is
really association of ideas, for as works of art such
pictures make very slight pretensions.
Now when an artist, in the true sense of the
word, comes upon the scene which has been so long
occupied by these craftsmen, one wonders a little
how it will work out; whether the forces that
have hitherto operated to bring about a certain
result will be too strong and will eventually bind
him in the grinding house—him, this young man
whose eyes had been so clear in its vision of
sun and shade and all the varying aspects of that
nature which he loves.
For these opposing forces are exceedingly power-
ful ; they are the blind forces of custom combined
with an inability to see anything like the finer
phases of art.
It is in fact a horse that is wanted, a horse and
nothing more, and it is wanted much as the engineer
wants a scale drawing of a great locomotive
with every nut and coupling-rod lined with con-
scientious, unemotional accuracy; and can one
blame the engineer for demanding a drawing that
shall fit his mental requirements ? This great
“ FETCHING THE BROWN PONY
256
BY A. J. MUNNINGS
manner. This is so, but the value of the art as
such depends upon the subtlety of the rendering
combined with the dignity of the motive.
Now the usual painter of horses is more often
occupied with transferring his client’s views about
his horse to canvas than he is with those eternal
truths of nature, the perception of which is his own
real claim to be considered an artist.
It is possible, even certain, that those painters
who act in this self-effacing manner are really not so
much suppressing their own outlook as tacitly
admitting that they have not any; they are
craftsmen, more or less competent to do what
is required, producing an article which is, in it's way,
excellently suited to its environment.
The inn parlour, with its postured pugilists, and
the squire’s sanctum with masks and brushes, whips
and spurs—all seem to supply exactly the right
atmosphere by that happy conjunction which is
really association of ideas, for as works of art such
pictures make very slight pretensions.
Now when an artist, in the true sense of the
word, comes upon the scene which has been so long
occupied by these craftsmen, one wonders a little
how it will work out; whether the forces that
have hitherto operated to bring about a certain
result will be too strong and will eventually bind
him in the grinding house—him, this young man
whose eyes had been so clear in its vision of
sun and shade and all the varying aspects of that
nature which he loves.
For these opposing forces are exceedingly power-
ful ; they are the blind forces of custom combined
with an inability to see anything like the finer
phases of art.
It is in fact a horse that is wanted, a horse and
nothing more, and it is wanted much as the engineer
wants a scale drawing of a great locomotive
with every nut and coupling-rod lined with con-
scientious, unemotional accuracy; and can one
blame the engineer for demanding a drawing that
shall fit his mental requirements ? This great
“ FETCHING THE BROWN PONY
256
BY A. J. MUNNINGS