DOI Heft:
No. 247 (October 1913)
DOI Artikel:Stodart-Walker, Archibald: The paintings of James Whitelaw Hamilton, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21208#0038
Janies IVhitelaw Hamilton, A.R.S.AR.S.W.
beauty in the less theatrical phases of nature; that
form of vision which enables the painter to reveal
the beauty at his feet instead of finding it amongst
the hills and the glory beyond.
Mr. Whitelaw Hamilton has all the charm of
the French Romanticists, coupled with the glow
of his native colourists. Like many of his con-
freres, he is occasionally almost Whistleresque in
his drawing, more particularly in some of his very
sensitive water-colours, as in Kirkcudbright. Mr.
Hamilton’s strong decorative sense is never allowed
to run riot at the expense of just values and strict
regard for form. He never slurs his drawing nor
escapes a necessary definity by the trick methods
often used by those who worship at the decorative
shrine. His artistry is never affected, nor has he
turned his eclecticism into a mere convention.
His work shows a genuine, if not an absorbing,
love of nature. His eye is sensitive to a degree to
beauty, even if there is occasionally a lack of con-
fidence in expressing the emotion on the spiritual
plane which is within him. His fault, if any, lies
in the faithfulness to that discretion which is the key-
note of his character and which finds its apotheosis
in the work of his brilliant friend, the President of
the Royal Scottish Academy. Mr. Hamilton’s
landscapes may not have the spontaneity and daring
of those of Mr. Lavery, but they have more of
romance and sentiment. He has little of the swing
and fire of McTaggart, or the surging verve of the
atmospheres of David Cox; yet there is an authori-
tativeness which occasionally passes even these
great masters, though the means to attain the
results seem more evident.
In making these comparisons we are thinking
only of Mr. Hamilton’s essays in landscape, apart
from the more specialised seascape and harbour
studies. In these latter Mr. Hamilton has few
rivals. The subtle relations between sea and sail
and mast and cliff and cottage are painted with a
deftness and sense of realism which only a long
and profound study could have accomplished,
added to the temperament of a man of a romantic
and poetical nature. Of his sea pieces, perhaps
“st. abb’s head”
16
BY J. WHITELAW HAMILTON
beauty in the less theatrical phases of nature; that
form of vision which enables the painter to reveal
the beauty at his feet instead of finding it amongst
the hills and the glory beyond.
Mr. Whitelaw Hamilton has all the charm of
the French Romanticists, coupled with the glow
of his native colourists. Like many of his con-
freres, he is occasionally almost Whistleresque in
his drawing, more particularly in some of his very
sensitive water-colours, as in Kirkcudbright. Mr.
Hamilton’s strong decorative sense is never allowed
to run riot at the expense of just values and strict
regard for form. He never slurs his drawing nor
escapes a necessary definity by the trick methods
often used by those who worship at the decorative
shrine. His artistry is never affected, nor has he
turned his eclecticism into a mere convention.
His work shows a genuine, if not an absorbing,
love of nature. His eye is sensitive to a degree to
beauty, even if there is occasionally a lack of con-
fidence in expressing the emotion on the spiritual
plane which is within him. His fault, if any, lies
in the faithfulness to that discretion which is the key-
note of his character and which finds its apotheosis
in the work of his brilliant friend, the President of
the Royal Scottish Academy. Mr. Hamilton’s
landscapes may not have the spontaneity and daring
of those of Mr. Lavery, but they have more of
romance and sentiment. He has little of the swing
and fire of McTaggart, or the surging verve of the
atmospheres of David Cox; yet there is an authori-
tativeness which occasionally passes even these
great masters, though the means to attain the
results seem more evident.
In making these comparisons we are thinking
only of Mr. Hamilton’s essays in landscape, apart
from the more specialised seascape and harbour
studies. In these latter Mr. Hamilton has few
rivals. The subtle relations between sea and sail
and mast and cliff and cottage are painted with a
deftness and sense of realism which only a long
and profound study could have accomplished,
added to the temperament of a man of a romantic
and poetical nature. Of his sea pieces, perhaps
“st. abb’s head”
16
BY J. WHITELAW HAMILTON