DOI Heft:
No. 253 (May 1914)
DOI Artikel:Manson, James Bolivar: Mr. Geoffrey Blackwell's collection of modern pictures
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21209#0279
Mr. Geoffrey BlackweW s Collection of Modern, Pictures
of a particular painter. At the present stage this
collection is largely a representation of the work of
Mr. Steer; but works of a different calibre or of
different intention are being added to what is
already no ordinary collection. The surrendering
of oneself to a certain definite sympathy is the
natural outcome of an initial enthusiastic impulse,
but it is not perhaps, if adhered to, the surest road
to a broader education.
An examination of this collection, then, must be
largely a study of the personality of the artist
whose work, at the present moment, dominates it.
The View above Ludlow (1899)—an early work in
the later period—makes a natural beginning. This
picture is of interest as revealing possibilities and
tendencies which later pictures have confirmed,
rather than of value for intrinsic merit. As a design
it is confused. It has no dynamic centre but
presents at once, vaguely comprehensive, that
quality of large grasp—that power of seeing things,
particularly great expanses of country, in their
entirety, which distinguishes the work of Mr. Steer.
'But later this power is restrained by a more decided
sense of composition. It no longer expresses
itself for its own sake, as a discovery immediately
to be notified. But if this View above Ludlow
revealed certain gifts of Mr. Steer, it was also marked
by the peculiar character of his colour vision which
is expressed in all his later work (with the exception
of his spontaneous oil-sketches) as being kept within
a limited and somewhat conventional scale of colour
tones. It is a scale which resembles somewhat
the spectrum as it appears to the violet-blind (see
"Colour Vision" Capt. Abney, 1895). But this
limited colour expression is not consistent with the
colour in Mr. Steer's later oil-sketches. The pre-
sumption is that it is an adopted academic scale
which appeared to be adapted to the particular kind
of effect which the artist sought to communicate.
The pictures divide themselves into classes corre-
lated and differing rather as to nature of subject
than as to treatment, with the exception of the
"THE HOME FARM, KNARESBOROUGH " OIL PAINTING BY P. WILSON STEER
272
of a particular painter. At the present stage this
collection is largely a representation of the work of
Mr. Steer; but works of a different calibre or of
different intention are being added to what is
already no ordinary collection. The surrendering
of oneself to a certain definite sympathy is the
natural outcome of an initial enthusiastic impulse,
but it is not perhaps, if adhered to, the surest road
to a broader education.
An examination of this collection, then, must be
largely a study of the personality of the artist
whose work, at the present moment, dominates it.
The View above Ludlow (1899)—an early work in
the later period—makes a natural beginning. This
picture is of interest as revealing possibilities and
tendencies which later pictures have confirmed,
rather than of value for intrinsic merit. As a design
it is confused. It has no dynamic centre but
presents at once, vaguely comprehensive, that
quality of large grasp—that power of seeing things,
particularly great expanses of country, in their
entirety, which distinguishes the work of Mr. Steer.
'But later this power is restrained by a more decided
sense of composition. It no longer expresses
itself for its own sake, as a discovery immediately
to be notified. But if this View above Ludlow
revealed certain gifts of Mr. Steer, it was also marked
by the peculiar character of his colour vision which
is expressed in all his later work (with the exception
of his spontaneous oil-sketches) as being kept within
a limited and somewhat conventional scale of colour
tones. It is a scale which resembles somewhat
the spectrum as it appears to the violet-blind (see
"Colour Vision" Capt. Abney, 1895). But this
limited colour expression is not consistent with the
colour in Mr. Steer's later oil-sketches. The pre-
sumption is that it is an adopted academic scale
which appeared to be adapted to the particular kind
of effect which the artist sought to communicate.
The pictures divide themselves into classes corre-
lated and differing rather as to nature of subject
than as to treatment, with the exception of the
"THE HOME FARM, KNARESBOROUGH " OIL PAINTING BY P. WILSON STEER
272