DOI article:
Finberg, Alexander Joseph: The wood-cuts of T. Sturge Moore
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0043
The Wood-Cuts of T. St urge Moore
ILLUSTRATION TO WORDSWORTH’S “AS IN A GROVE I SAT RECLINED.”
DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED BY T. STURGE MOORE
know, and see and touch. He complained that
the visible world “ put him out.” Hence a certain
amount of dryness, abstractness, and cold remote -
ness in most of his work, although it has a
splendour and significance of its own, especially in
such magnificent designs as Elijah in the Fiery
Ch ariot and
Pity like a
Naked New-
born Babe
striding the
Blast. But
Moore’s mind
and art are
of a different
kind. He is
essentially a
lover of all
living and
moving things
—a lover of
the brown,
sweet-smelling
earth, of the worms which wriggle in it, of the
plants and trees which grow upon it, of the funny
beasts which dwell amongst their shadows, and of
the rocks which burst through the earth’s yielding
surface and
tower up into
s now-capped
mountains; he
loves the rivers
and the little
waves playing
on the flat
shore or throw-
ing themselves
against the
jagged rocks.
He is too
much of a
poet and too
Httle of an
artist, in the
modern
lar
the
popu-
ILLUSTRATION TO “THE CENTAUR AND THE BACCHANTE” BY DE GUERIN.
DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED BY T. STURGE MOORE
sense of
word, to
"ant to sit
down and draw or paint one little scene or any one
Particular concatenation of objects. If he tried to
do such a thing he would feel that all the other
scenes and objects in this rich and beautiful world
were gently reproaching him with his neglect of
their charms. Moore does not “ study Nature.”
He simply watches her with the patient affection of
a mother watching her child. And then, somehow
—I cannot tell how, for I am not a creative genius
—all that the patient watcher has seen and felt
and thought seems to project itself into an image
which can be drawn and cut upon a wood-block of
a few square
inches, a tri-
umphant syn-
thesis of things
seen and the
mood in which
they have been
received.
Pan, a Cloud,
is a magnifi-
cent design of
this kind. It
is full of the
happiness of a
glorious sum-
mer’s noon.
The clouds
hanging down over the hillside on which the sheep
browse and sleep are like the spirit of the creator
of the scene conscious of and rejoicing in the
happiness of all its creatures. Pan Mountain is
the incarna-
tion of the
high moun-
tains rejoicing
in the fresh-
ness and light
of their height,
and enjoying
the rugged and
gnarled forms
of their own
limbs and the
friendly shelter
of the verdure
that nestles
round their
feet. This
superb and
perfect design
was first pub-
lished in the
1893. In Pan
on a small
third number of “ The Dial ” in
Island we see the genial god sitting
rock listening to the lapping of the clear green
waves and watching the free traffic of the clouds
and the waters. The reproduction here given of
this design is taken from the first and unpublished
37
ILLUSTRATION TO WORDSWORTH’S “AS IN A GROVE I SAT RECLINED.”
DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED BY T. STURGE MOORE
know, and see and touch. He complained that
the visible world “ put him out.” Hence a certain
amount of dryness, abstractness, and cold remote -
ness in most of his work, although it has a
splendour and significance of its own, especially in
such magnificent designs as Elijah in the Fiery
Ch ariot and
Pity like a
Naked New-
born Babe
striding the
Blast. But
Moore’s mind
and art are
of a different
kind. He is
essentially a
lover of all
living and
moving things
—a lover of
the brown,
sweet-smelling
earth, of the worms which wriggle in it, of the
plants and trees which grow upon it, of the funny
beasts which dwell amongst their shadows, and of
the rocks which burst through the earth’s yielding
surface and
tower up into
s now-capped
mountains; he
loves the rivers
and the little
waves playing
on the flat
shore or throw-
ing themselves
against the
jagged rocks.
He is too
much of a
poet and too
Httle of an
artist, in the
modern
lar
the
popu-
ILLUSTRATION TO “THE CENTAUR AND THE BACCHANTE” BY DE GUERIN.
DESIGNED AND ENGRAVED BY T. STURGE MOORE
sense of
word, to
"ant to sit
down and draw or paint one little scene or any one
Particular concatenation of objects. If he tried to
do such a thing he would feel that all the other
scenes and objects in this rich and beautiful world
were gently reproaching him with his neglect of
their charms. Moore does not “ study Nature.”
He simply watches her with the patient affection of
a mother watching her child. And then, somehow
—I cannot tell how, for I am not a creative genius
—all that the patient watcher has seen and felt
and thought seems to project itself into an image
which can be drawn and cut upon a wood-block of
a few square
inches, a tri-
umphant syn-
thesis of things
seen and the
mood in which
they have been
received.
Pan, a Cloud,
is a magnifi-
cent design of
this kind. It
is full of the
happiness of a
glorious sum-
mer’s noon.
The clouds
hanging down over the hillside on which the sheep
browse and sleep are like the spirit of the creator
of the scene conscious of and rejoicing in the
happiness of all its creatures. Pan Mountain is
the incarna-
tion of the
high moun-
tains rejoicing
in the fresh-
ness and light
of their height,
and enjoying
the rugged and
gnarled forms
of their own
limbs and the
friendly shelter
of the verdure
that nestles
round their
feet. This
superb and
perfect design
was first pub-
lished in the
1893. In Pan
on a small
third number of “ The Dial ” in
Island we see the genial god sitting
rock listening to the lapping of the clear green
waves and watching the free traffic of the clouds
and the waters. The reproduction here given of
this design is taken from the first and unpublished
37