DOI issue:
No. 265 (April 1915)
DOI article:Reddie, Arthur: Water-colours and oil paintings by S. J. Lamorna Birch, R.W.S.
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21212#0184
Water-Colours and Paintings by S. J. Lamorna Birch
it is one of the most important works Mr. Birch
has yet given us. Painted in a range of colours
peculiarly his own, it has that reticence of
palette and a little dryness which one finds so
characteristic in his art. The theme is handled
with dignity, and the artist has dexterously pre-
served the unity of the composition in a manner
that is quite remarkable when we consider the
great variety in the perspective and the character
of the different parts of the scene, in the painting,
of which the cohesion and harmony of the whole
might easily have been lost. Here is detail
revelled in and given most naturally and realistic-
ally, but yet subordinated all the while to the
orchestration of the picture as a whole. In many
ways one feels that here Mr. Birch is himself and
at his best; and the subject that by reason of its
bigness and size might have lent itself admirably
to oil-painting is rendered with all respect for
the medium in which the artist works with such
assurance, and with a quality of transparency and
delicacy of atmosphere such as water-colour can
give par excellence.
Appreciation of Mr. Birch’s art has been wide,
as is to some extent seen from the fact that he is
represented in the Manchester City Art Gallery,
the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in the art
galleries of Preston, Lancaster, Plymouth, Brighton,
and Rochdale, in the Municipal Gallery at
Wellington, New Zealand, the National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa, and the Ann Brown Memorial
Gallery at Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
The reproductions of his works which this article
accompanies will serve to show that Mr. Birch’s
contributions to contemporary landscape art are,
indeed, worthy of attention and study; and they
form an evidence, much more conclusive than any
words can be, that this artist has undoubtedly
earned an honourable place as one who, working
quietly and earnestly, unmoved by the alarums
and excursions of the mere sensationalists in art
but neither falling into the rut of those whose
inspiration has become petrified and stale by
deadly but perchance popular repetition, is playing
his part in worthily maintaining the fine traditions
of our art of landscape. Arthur Reddie.
WATER-COLOUR BY S. J. LAMORNA BIRCH, R.W.S.
it is one of the most important works Mr. Birch
has yet given us. Painted in a range of colours
peculiarly his own, it has that reticence of
palette and a little dryness which one finds so
characteristic in his art. The theme is handled
with dignity, and the artist has dexterously pre-
served the unity of the composition in a manner
that is quite remarkable when we consider the
great variety in the perspective and the character
of the different parts of the scene, in the painting,
of which the cohesion and harmony of the whole
might easily have been lost. Here is detail
revelled in and given most naturally and realistic-
ally, but yet subordinated all the while to the
orchestration of the picture as a whole. In many
ways one feels that here Mr. Birch is himself and
at his best; and the subject that by reason of its
bigness and size might have lent itself admirably
to oil-painting is rendered with all respect for
the medium in which the artist works with such
assurance, and with a quality of transparency and
delicacy of atmosphere such as water-colour can
give par excellence.
Appreciation of Mr. Birch’s art has been wide,
as is to some extent seen from the fact that he is
represented in the Manchester City Art Gallery,
the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, in the art
galleries of Preston, Lancaster, Plymouth, Brighton,
and Rochdale, in the Municipal Gallery at
Wellington, New Zealand, the National Gallery of
Canada, Ottawa, and the Ann Brown Memorial
Gallery at Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
The reproductions of his works which this article
accompanies will serve to show that Mr. Birch’s
contributions to contemporary landscape art are,
indeed, worthy of attention and study; and they
form an evidence, much more conclusive than any
words can be, that this artist has undoubtedly
earned an honourable place as one who, working
quietly and earnestly, unmoved by the alarums
and excursions of the mere sensationalists in art
but neither falling into the rut of those whose
inspiration has become petrified and stale by
deadly but perchance popular repetition, is playing
his part in worthily maintaining the fine traditions
of our art of landscape. Arthur Reddie.
WATER-COLOUR BY S. J. LAMORNA BIRCH, R.W.S.