Studio: international art (58.1913)

THE STUDIO

HE PAINTINGS AND DRAW-
INGS OF FRANK MURA.

There are certain unusual characteristics
m the work of Mr. Frank Mura which give him a
particular claim to consideration. His aims as an
artist have always been very markedly personal, and
his outlook for many years past has been exceed-
ingly consistent in its individuality and freedom
from narrow convention. He has formed a style
of his own, based, indeed, upon accepted traditions,
but developed along lines which have allowed
him scope for the expression of his instinctive
sympathies and for the working out of his artistic
preferences. To claim him as a strict follower of
any one school, or to classify him exactly as a
member of any special group, would be impossible ;
he has sought his precedents in many directions
and he has taken what he wanted from the art of

any country which offered him what seemed to be
right.

As a consequence he is an artist whose work
shows a rather rare combination of sound study
and direct inspiration. It has a scholarly distinc-
tion that is very attractive, but it has, too, a freedom
of manner and a freshness of quality that prove
how much his personality has had to do with the
results at which he has arrived. His study has
been guided by a thoroughly logical intention
throughout, by a well-defined purpose to acquire
that insight into the achievement of other men
which would help him best to control his own
effort. It has been orderly and systematic and
essentially judicious : and it has been directed in
all its stages by a sincere recognition of the value
of well-assorted knowledge as an aid to the forma-
tion of an independent conviction.

It is not unlikely that something of Mr. Mura's

n the fields at lancing, sussex ";

LVIII. No. 239.—February 1913

from the oil tainting by frank mura

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