DOI issue:
No. 249 (January 1914)
DOI article:Baldry, Alfred Lys: A romanticist painter: W. Russell Flint
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21208#0284
A Romanticist Painter: IV. Russell Flint
which he works helps very greatly to make in-
telligible the purpose and intention of his art. He
is a particularly accomplished craftsman and in
water-colour painting especially he has a certainty
of method that makes the solution of even the
most difficult of technical problems a matter of
comparative ease. It is here that the effects of his
admirable early training can be plainly recognised.
It is characteristic of Mr. Russell Flint’s water-
colour work that though the methods he uses are
comparatively complex he is able to achieve in the
final result an air of spontaneity and fresh direct-
ness that is entirely satisfying. He really builds
up his picture gradually by alternately laying in
broad and well-defined washes and scrubbing down
what he has laid in so as to bring it into a proper
condition for the next stage of development. At
the last he puts in crisply and with clean decision
sharp touches of colour which define the facts to
which he wishes to give prominence, and these
touches bring together the whole design and make
it live. Of course this method demands a very
clear conviction from the outset and a conviction,
too, that must be kept unaltered through all the
stages by which the picture is evolved ; but then
this power of visualising and retaining his first
impression is one that he has cultivated so well
that there is little danger of his going astray.
What he is likely to do in the near future is an
interesting subject for speculation; to an artist
whose age is only thirty-three, and whose work is
already of such unquestionable excellence, almost
any degree of achievement would seem to be
possible. Naturally, much depends upon the view
he takes of his professional responsibilities, but in
that matter he has proved himself to be too
sincerely in earnest for any apprehension to be felt
that he will relax his effort. He is now taking
pains to enlarge his outlook and to gain new ex-
periences—he has, for example, just spent nine
months in a tour through Italy and Sicily, visiting
a number of places and making a great variety of
sketches. But so far there is no sign that he feels
any inclination to modify that view of life and
nature which has hitherto coloured so pleasantly
the whole of his production. A romanticist he is
by instinct and association, and a romanticist it is
to be hoped he will remain to the end, because
after all there is nothing like romance to give a
seductive atmosphere to an artist’s work and to
keep him out of those pitfalls which beset the path
of the mere materialist. A. L. Baldry.
“a fountain at frascati”
262
WATER-COLOUR BY W. RUSSELL FLINT
which he works helps very greatly to make in-
telligible the purpose and intention of his art. He
is a particularly accomplished craftsman and in
water-colour painting especially he has a certainty
of method that makes the solution of even the
most difficult of technical problems a matter of
comparative ease. It is here that the effects of his
admirable early training can be plainly recognised.
It is characteristic of Mr. Russell Flint’s water-
colour work that though the methods he uses are
comparatively complex he is able to achieve in the
final result an air of spontaneity and fresh direct-
ness that is entirely satisfying. He really builds
up his picture gradually by alternately laying in
broad and well-defined washes and scrubbing down
what he has laid in so as to bring it into a proper
condition for the next stage of development. At
the last he puts in crisply and with clean decision
sharp touches of colour which define the facts to
which he wishes to give prominence, and these
touches bring together the whole design and make
it live. Of course this method demands a very
clear conviction from the outset and a conviction,
too, that must be kept unaltered through all the
stages by which the picture is evolved ; but then
this power of visualising and retaining his first
impression is one that he has cultivated so well
that there is little danger of his going astray.
What he is likely to do in the near future is an
interesting subject for speculation; to an artist
whose age is only thirty-three, and whose work is
already of such unquestionable excellence, almost
any degree of achievement would seem to be
possible. Naturally, much depends upon the view
he takes of his professional responsibilities, but in
that matter he has proved himself to be too
sincerely in earnest for any apprehension to be felt
that he will relax his effort. He is now taking
pains to enlarge his outlook and to gain new ex-
periences—he has, for example, just spent nine
months in a tour through Italy and Sicily, visiting
a number of places and making a great variety of
sketches. But so far there is no sign that he feels
any inclination to modify that view of life and
nature which has hitherto coloured so pleasantly
the whole of his production. A romanticist he is
by instinct and association, and a romanticist it is
to be hoped he will remain to the end, because
after all there is nothing like romance to give a
seductive atmosphere to an artist’s work and to
keep him out of those pitfalls which beset the path
of the mere materialist. A. L. Baldry.
“a fountain at frascati”
262
WATER-COLOUR BY W. RUSSELL FLINT