Studio: international art (66.1915)

Mr. Clausens Work in Water-Colour

The Society of Twelve, always sound a distinct
note in any assemblage of pictures; to vary the
metaphor, they seem to open a window through
which streams in a revivifying breeze, clear sun-
light, and the fresh smell of the earth.

Even in a black-and-white reproduction—and
it must be borne in mind that these water-colours
depend for effect almost entirely upon their colour
-—one catches something of that sense of atmo-
sphere and light which the artist captures so simply
and directly, yet withal so dexterously and with
such a lofty sense of style. Thus the river
subjects, Limehouse Reach and Tower Bridge, a
wonderful impression of yellow mist and fog over
the water, with bridge and buildings looming out
in pale purplish tones against the golden haze,
which are but two from among a host of studies of
different aspects of the Thames, make us think of
those words of Whistler’s in which he speaks of
the magical spell cast over the scene by the atmo-
spheric effect “when the evening mist clothes the
riverside with poetry as with a veil, and the poor
buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the
tall chimneys become campanili, and the ware-
houses are palaces in the night, and the whole
city hangs in the heavens. . .” Or, consider such

works as The Seine from Chhteau Gaillard, or
Landore, in which, with a rather different method,
using colour over chalk or charcoal drawing,
Mr. Clausen achieves such a sombre and austerely
dignified rendering of the effect of Nature. But
it is in our frontispiece, Mount's Bay—Evening,
that the charm of his work will be most fully
appreciated. The beautiful colour, the warm
sunlight, and the haze at close of day which
here find expression, make it a drawing having
an ever increasing appeal the more it is studied ;
and certainly it is one great test of the worth of
a work of art, that it should charm us more as
we learn to know it better.

One of our greatest artists made complaint once
in the writer’s hearing that painters nowadays do
not draw sufficiently, unlike the old masters who
were always pencil in hand noting effects and
constantly adding to the store of raw material in
their numerous sketch books ; they show a tendency
to “ rush into paint,” to cover yards of canvas
without regard for the due and careful provision of
complete data and material which can only result
from adequate study and which the artistic taste
of the painter enables him then to co-ordinate and
arrange. In the present case, while we admire and