DOI Artikel:
Taylor, J.: The fifty-fourth exhibition of the royal Glasgow institute of the fine arts
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0110
The Royal Glasgow Institute
But here they are in The Enchanted Wood and by
the Water Lilies, mid tall tree trunks, and a riot
of blossom, with radiant complexions, in dainty
frocks, true complement of the environment.
Hornel’s art bewitches and it will continue to
captivate. There are no imitators to counterfeit
it, no pupils to arouse disputes over authenticity.
Forward amongst the new men stands Mr.
A. R. W. Allan, an earnest student of country life
and incident. He has learnt early the lesson
of restraint and concentration, the essentiality of
one picture on one canvas; he has a firm grasp of
tonal values in relation to distance; he absorbs his
subject and the local colour of it, then makes a
gripping picture that calls one back again and
again, each time to discover fresh interest in
idea, composition, or technique. Mr. Allan’s art
is no mere pictorialism, instigated by whim or
necessity; it is a living passion, an impelling
purpose, and in pursuit of it he lives the outdoor
life, mixes with the husbandman, and has the
fields for a rendezvous. Turning the Plough is
a study approached with purpose, handled with
insight, worked out with sincerity. The subject
is the team ; the accessories, brown earth tinged
with green, distant landscape, a receding sky, and
in a degree the ploughman, are all subordinate, as
they would be with mind and eye concentrated on
the horses. Every other consideration is lost
in the bold sympathetic treatment, the successful
working out of a problem teeming with difficulty
and temptation to a young painter.
Mr. D. Forrester Wilson is an essentially decora-
tive artist, conscious of the value of big, almost
unbroken spaces around a well-modelled figure.
His Faggots is striking tonally, in reticence pro-
nounced, in massed monochromism startling. The
canvas, except for grey tones in the figure, faint
green in the tree trunks, and the deferential note
in the extreme background, is a mass of golden
brown fallen leaves, yet the effect is naturalistic,
pleasing, actual; the faggot woman is a reality.
A further glimpse of sky might have helped the
composition, but this did not come within the
mind or eye of the artist, and his must be the
clearer vision.
“winter morning in the highlands”
104
BY A. K. BROWN, R.S.A.
But here they are in The Enchanted Wood and by
the Water Lilies, mid tall tree trunks, and a riot
of blossom, with radiant complexions, in dainty
frocks, true complement of the environment.
Hornel’s art bewitches and it will continue to
captivate. There are no imitators to counterfeit
it, no pupils to arouse disputes over authenticity.
Forward amongst the new men stands Mr.
A. R. W. Allan, an earnest student of country life
and incident. He has learnt early the lesson
of restraint and concentration, the essentiality of
one picture on one canvas; he has a firm grasp of
tonal values in relation to distance; he absorbs his
subject and the local colour of it, then makes a
gripping picture that calls one back again and
again, each time to discover fresh interest in
idea, composition, or technique. Mr. Allan’s art
is no mere pictorialism, instigated by whim or
necessity; it is a living passion, an impelling
purpose, and in pursuit of it he lives the outdoor
life, mixes with the husbandman, and has the
fields for a rendezvous. Turning the Plough is
a study approached with purpose, handled with
insight, worked out with sincerity. The subject
is the team ; the accessories, brown earth tinged
with green, distant landscape, a receding sky, and
in a degree the ploughman, are all subordinate, as
they would be with mind and eye concentrated on
the horses. Every other consideration is lost
in the bold sympathetic treatment, the successful
working out of a problem teeming with difficulty
and temptation to a young painter.
Mr. D. Forrester Wilson is an essentially decora-
tive artist, conscious of the value of big, almost
unbroken spaces around a well-modelled figure.
His Faggots is striking tonally, in reticence pro-
nounced, in massed monochromism startling. The
canvas, except for grey tones in the figure, faint
green in the tree trunks, and the deferential note
in the extreme background, is a mass of golden
brown fallen leaves, yet the effect is naturalistic,
pleasing, actual; the faggot woman is a reality.
A further glimpse of sky might have helped the
composition, but this did not come within the
mind or eye of the artist, and his must be the
clearer vision.
“winter morning in the highlands”
104
BY A. K. BROWN, R.S.A.