DOI Heft:
No. 254 (June 1914)
DOI Artikel:Stodart-Walker, Archibald: The art of John Lavery, R.S.A., A.R.A., etc.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21210#0026
John Lavery, R.S.A., A.R.A.
once said to me, " Lavery is a wonderful man,
nothing frightens him." Mere courage, however,
is but a brute quality without capacity. Mr. Lavery
was once challenged with the dictum quoted. His
reply, so characteristic of this humorous Irish-Scot
was, " Yes, I can do a great many things in my own
way." Mr. Lavery has proved the quality of this
" way" in more ways than one, by his unerring
sense of style as a portrait-painter, by his splendid
capacity for design in those pictures which are more
colour harmonies than portraits and best of all by
his distinguished methods as a landscape painter.
All these aspects of his art are executed in his own
way. Mr. Lavery does not profess to combine
unerring insight into the subtleties of character with
a fine sense of pictorial design as does the man to
whom he makes acknowledgment that from him he
learnt most that is good in his portraiture. I mean,
of course, Sir James Guthrie. His landscapes have
not the poetical illusiveness of Mr. Walton's. He
has not the " solidity " of Mr. Orpen. One does
not feel the figure under the clothes as one felt
it with Sir George Reid; his paint does not glow
with the richness of Mr. Sargent. A livery por-
trait is a Lavery—a thing personal, quite distinctive
and in nearly every case distinguished. It can
be finished in a sitting, as in the case of the
portrait of Lady Diana Manners, and knowing the
circumstance the result is often something which
arouses the onlooker to use the term " miraculous."
Mr. Lavery has a faultless eye for the " lines " of
his sitters, be has an unerring grasp of whatever
" charm " they possess or suggest. His canvases
give you a sense of "flow," of elegance and
grace. He is not so richly gifted in the grand
manner as Mr. Sargent, yet there is never
anything squat or squalid about the portraiture.
It is chic, debonair, facile, dexterous. Ever
obsessed with the aim of expressing line and colour
harmony, there is little need for him to grope
for his effects. They seem to come to him as
a lyric came to the pen of Robert Burns—a study
" SKATING " (1913)
6
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A., A.R.A.
once said to me, " Lavery is a wonderful man,
nothing frightens him." Mere courage, however,
is but a brute quality without capacity. Mr. Lavery
was once challenged with the dictum quoted. His
reply, so characteristic of this humorous Irish-Scot
was, " Yes, I can do a great many things in my own
way." Mr. Lavery has proved the quality of this
" way" in more ways than one, by his unerring
sense of style as a portrait-painter, by his splendid
capacity for design in those pictures which are more
colour harmonies than portraits and best of all by
his distinguished methods as a landscape painter.
All these aspects of his art are executed in his own
way. Mr. Lavery does not profess to combine
unerring insight into the subtleties of character with
a fine sense of pictorial design as does the man to
whom he makes acknowledgment that from him he
learnt most that is good in his portraiture. I mean,
of course, Sir James Guthrie. His landscapes have
not the poetical illusiveness of Mr. Walton's. He
has not the " solidity " of Mr. Orpen. One does
not feel the figure under the clothes as one felt
it with Sir George Reid; his paint does not glow
with the richness of Mr. Sargent. A livery por-
trait is a Lavery—a thing personal, quite distinctive
and in nearly every case distinguished. It can
be finished in a sitting, as in the case of the
portrait of Lady Diana Manners, and knowing the
circumstance the result is often something which
arouses the onlooker to use the term " miraculous."
Mr. Lavery has a faultless eye for the " lines " of
his sitters, be has an unerring grasp of whatever
" charm " they possess or suggest. His canvases
give you a sense of "flow," of elegance and
grace. He is not so richly gifted in the grand
manner as Mr. Sargent, yet there is never
anything squat or squalid about the portraiture.
It is chic, debonair, facile, dexterous. Ever
obsessed with the aim of expressing line and colour
harmony, there is little need for him to grope
for his effects. They seem to come to him as
a lyric came to the pen of Robert Burns—a study
" SKATING " (1913)
6
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A., A.R.A.