Studio: international art (62.1914)

John Lavery, R.S.A., A.R.A.

treasures of the Glasgow Corporation Gallery. His but with reverence for the great craft in which he
equestrian study of Mr. Graham may also be re- has been hailed as an accredited expositor. He
called. But of this latter aspect of the painter's has not attempted what Matthew Arnold called "a
talent the greatest tour de force is The Amazon, a laborious moral deliverance," but he has in all
portrait of his daughter on a superb Arab, dominat- seriousness, with a sense of responsibility, delivered
ing a far-flung Moorish landscape. We have also his message in paint without soiling his artistic soul
the Equestrienne which the artist has long retained either to an academy or to a coterie. Though
in his own possession, out of legitimate affection he has passed the hallway house, yet there is youth
for an effort of which he ought to be rightly proud, in his brush, which is emphasised by his rare
In the picture In Morocco we have also another canvas In Morocco, the veritable apotheosis of all he
study of a horse, which in its drawing and colour feels, knows and thinks of life and colour in
treatment reveals graphically Mr. Lavery's power of Tangier. It is a fitting monument for his long
escaping from the dead formalism so long associated artistic career and an earnest of what we may
with animal-painting. Like Mr. Crawhall, Mr. expect in the future, a future as full of promise as
Lavery not only portrays animal life, but the in the springtime "at the golden gates of morning."
personal equation of each
individual animal.

Mr. Lavery's work has
been, with one exception,
entirely confined to oils.
That one exception is a
water-colour done in the
far-off Glasgow days, and
he has not used that
medium since. One thing
remains for him to do—
that is, to paint a purely
Scottish landscape. He
must approach the country
in which he was trained
as he has approached
Morocco and Switzerland,
and the result we are con-
vinced would be a valuable
and interesting contribu-
tion to the country of land-
scape painters.

Beginning with Guthrie,
Walton, Roche, Crawhall,
D. Y. Cameron and others
of the Glasgow School as
a revolutionary against a
stereotyped academic tra-
dition, Mr. Lavery has
never allowed himself to
run riot in extravagances.
Fully aware of the serious-
ness of the art of which
he is a disciple as well as
a master, he has neither
humoured his reputation,
nor played pranks with it.
He has expressed himself

not onlyin terms of himself, "mrs. kk.nnard " (1914) by john lavery,

14