DOI Heft:
No. 250 (February 1914)
DOI Artikel:Salaman, Malcolm C.: The pictorial art of Mr. Fred Stratton
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21209#0026
Fred Stratton
foliage speak by the supernatural apparition of the Dryad. Look at the original and fascinating
nymphs and fauns, even as the bard believes Forest Ecstasy, reproduced here—this is as genuine
he hears the voices of spirits in the whisper an inspiration as any that painter ever put upon
of winds passing through the trees. But these canvas. Let his own words describe its origin,
figures, whether those of nymphs or of simple " It is an attempt to arouse the emotion that \I
fishers, are always a complemental part of the felt when standing under the trees on a brilliant
scene ; the incarnation of an emotion the artist has summer day. It was all so beautiful that I asked
felt; so true it is that in art the subject is naught, myself, ' What should I do if there were more
and that its whole value is in the impression it can than this? If Pan should begin to pipe ! I should
communicate." Now, that might very well have been go mad with joy, become ecstatic' Then I
written of Mr. Fred Stratton painting the Sussex imagined the woods alive with troops of happy,
woodlands, and interpreting in beautiful pictures healthy nymphs and semi-humans dancing through
the emotions their lovely witcheries have aroused in the sunshine, and I felt a positive ecstasy."
him, when the lambent joy and glory of sunlight or But with such a conception ready to his hand,
the stilly twilight has transfigured the trees and Mr. Stratton did not go slap-dash at his canvas, in
the glades, peopling'them with exquisite fantasies, the approved fashion of the moment, content to
For never were our English woodlands—and Mr. convey a rhythmic impression of something that
Stratton has seen no others—painted with more of might possibly be guessed to mean a dance in the
the true intuitions of poetry. Of this artist it sunlight, but at any rate would serve for a decora-
might be justly said, as Leigh Hunt said of Keats, tive pattern. His methods have a pride ofthorough-
that he never beholds a tree without seeing ness they inherit, perhaps, from an older tradition,
which yet, because of the
vitalising emotion, keeps
his art in line with the art
that is always alive. He
set about designing and
painting a picture that
should express his concep-
tion with the best art and
craft at his command.
And, after his usual cus-
tom, he made innumerable
sketches, studies and
finished drawings from
nature—every figure being
carefully drawn in the
nude from life, even
though draperies should
be added for the sake of
colour — and then he
painted the whole picture
more or less from memory,
the memory constantly re-
freshed, for he lives always
in close and intimate touch
with nature.
This picture, and the
others reproduced here,
may be regarded as typical
of Mr. Stratton's pic-
torial attitude towards the
world, which is that of
the poet and the romantic
'the diver" on. painting by fred stratton impressionist rather than
22
foliage speak by the supernatural apparition of the Dryad. Look at the original and fascinating
nymphs and fauns, even as the bard believes Forest Ecstasy, reproduced here—this is as genuine
he hears the voices of spirits in the whisper an inspiration as any that painter ever put upon
of winds passing through the trees. But these canvas. Let his own words describe its origin,
figures, whether those of nymphs or of simple " It is an attempt to arouse the emotion that \I
fishers, are always a complemental part of the felt when standing under the trees on a brilliant
scene ; the incarnation of an emotion the artist has summer day. It was all so beautiful that I asked
felt; so true it is that in art the subject is naught, myself, ' What should I do if there were more
and that its whole value is in the impression it can than this? If Pan should begin to pipe ! I should
communicate." Now, that might very well have been go mad with joy, become ecstatic' Then I
written of Mr. Fred Stratton painting the Sussex imagined the woods alive with troops of happy,
woodlands, and interpreting in beautiful pictures healthy nymphs and semi-humans dancing through
the emotions their lovely witcheries have aroused in the sunshine, and I felt a positive ecstasy."
him, when the lambent joy and glory of sunlight or But with such a conception ready to his hand,
the stilly twilight has transfigured the trees and Mr. Stratton did not go slap-dash at his canvas, in
the glades, peopling'them with exquisite fantasies, the approved fashion of the moment, content to
For never were our English woodlands—and Mr. convey a rhythmic impression of something that
Stratton has seen no others—painted with more of might possibly be guessed to mean a dance in the
the true intuitions of poetry. Of this artist it sunlight, but at any rate would serve for a decora-
might be justly said, as Leigh Hunt said of Keats, tive pattern. His methods have a pride ofthorough-
that he never beholds a tree without seeing ness they inherit, perhaps, from an older tradition,
which yet, because of the
vitalising emotion, keeps
his art in line with the art
that is always alive. He
set about designing and
painting a picture that
should express his concep-
tion with the best art and
craft at his command.
And, after his usual cus-
tom, he made innumerable
sketches, studies and
finished drawings from
nature—every figure being
carefully drawn in the
nude from life, even
though draperies should
be added for the sake of
colour — and then he
painted the whole picture
more or less from memory,
the memory constantly re-
freshed, for he lives always
in close and intimate touch
with nature.
This picture, and the
others reproduced here,
may be regarded as typical
of Mr. Stratton's pic-
torial attitude towards the
world, which is that of
the poet and the romantic
'the diver" on. painting by fred stratton impressionist rather than
22