DOI Heft:
No. 242 (May 1913)
DOI Artikel:Stodart-Walker, Archibald: The recent paintings of E. A. Walton, R.S.A.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21160#0290
E. A. Walton, R.S.A.
where tree and distant hill and intermediary
atmosphere join together in a tender unity that
could only be the outcome of a gifted insight and
a masterly brush. Mr. Walton realises, what all
great artists and few laymen do realise, that one
can never know the shape of anything until one
can draw it. Given three such separate entities
as a green field in the foreground, a green tree in
the middle distance, and a green hill beyond, he
knows that, in the drawing of these, he will not be
called upon to use much green at all. He knows
that, enveloping these three entities, there is an
atmosphere, and that atmosphere may have the
predominant note of violet which may sink into
insignificance the potential green of each individual
passage considered separately. Art is the revealer
of Nature. It is only the man who has entered
into its mysteries that can reach to the intimate
beauties and possibilities of Nature. Even in
portrait painting the sitter may not realise what he is
like until he looks at the canvas of the painter and
then corrects his impression of himself by com-
paring the presentment with the image in the
glass. This is why the uncultivated layman must
always remain a Philistine in matters of art. He
thinks he knows himself as he thinks he knows
Nature, and in reality he knows neither. The
artist steps down to him with a message, and so
acts in a dual capacity as a revealer of art and as a
revealer of Natnre.
The old academic landscape painter had little to
reveal but what was evident to the "rough observer",
hence his popularity with the crowd, which loves
the presentment of the familiar. When the new
men offered something it had never seen before,
it protested and labelled them " impressionists "
and " paint-slingers " and used other terms intended
to leave a sting. Mr. Walton was one of the pioneers
of that "impressionism" which gave so much
significance to the men of the Glasgow School, to
Whistler, to William McTaggart, to Monticelli, to
Cecil Lawson, to the modern Dutch and Barbizon
Schools, to Mr. Sargent, and to Mr. Wilson Steer.
In the pictures of these men we have the personality
'the ford" (oil) (Inthe City Art Gallery, Leeds) by e. a. walton, r.s.a.
267
where tree and distant hill and intermediary
atmosphere join together in a tender unity that
could only be the outcome of a gifted insight and
a masterly brush. Mr. Walton realises, what all
great artists and few laymen do realise, that one
can never know the shape of anything until one
can draw it. Given three such separate entities
as a green field in the foreground, a green tree in
the middle distance, and a green hill beyond, he
knows that, in the drawing of these, he will not be
called upon to use much green at all. He knows
that, enveloping these three entities, there is an
atmosphere, and that atmosphere may have the
predominant note of violet which may sink into
insignificance the potential green of each individual
passage considered separately. Art is the revealer
of Nature. It is only the man who has entered
into its mysteries that can reach to the intimate
beauties and possibilities of Nature. Even in
portrait painting the sitter may not realise what he is
like until he looks at the canvas of the painter and
then corrects his impression of himself by com-
paring the presentment with the image in the
glass. This is why the uncultivated layman must
always remain a Philistine in matters of art. He
thinks he knows himself as he thinks he knows
Nature, and in reality he knows neither. The
artist steps down to him with a message, and so
acts in a dual capacity as a revealer of art and as a
revealer of Natnre.
The old academic landscape painter had little to
reveal but what was evident to the "rough observer",
hence his popularity with the crowd, which loves
the presentment of the familiar. When the new
men offered something it had never seen before,
it protested and labelled them " impressionists "
and " paint-slingers " and used other terms intended
to leave a sting. Mr. Walton was one of the pioneers
of that "impressionism" which gave so much
significance to the men of the Glasgow School, to
Whistler, to William McTaggart, to Monticelli, to
Cecil Lawson, to the modern Dutch and Barbizon
Schools, to Mr. Sargent, and to Mr. Wilson Steer.
In the pictures of these men we have the personality
'the ford" (oil) (Inthe City Art Gallery, Leeds) by e. a. walton, r.s.a.
267