DOI issue:
No. 281 (August 1916)
DOI article:West, W. K.: Some pastels by Mr. George Sheringham
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21262#0158
Some Pastels by George Sheringham
"THE POOL" BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
about them all there is an air of perfect agreement Certainly, in everything he does Mr. Shering-
between the idea by which they are inspired and ham proves that he has an absolute control over
the means adopted to make the idea intelligible to all the essentials of the decorator's art, and that
other people. Always it is the design itself that just as he knows by instinct what is the medium
first claims attention, not the cleverness of the best suited for the interpretation of a particular
craftsman who has exercised his skill in carrying kind of design, so he understands surely what kind
out the design; always the immediate impression of treatment is most appropriate for each class of
one receives in looking at Mr. Sheringham's work his production. There is nothing stereotyped in
is that he seems infallibly to arrive at perfect his art, no limitation of his energies to one type of
achievement; it is only by later examination that expression. It is interesting, as an illustration of
one realises how a masterly use of his medium this, to compare the reticence and simplicity of
contributes to this perfection, and it is only after such things as The Flowered Shawl, The Reader,
much contemplation that one perceives what part and Le Petit Dejeuner, with the sumptuousness of
the medium itself plays in bringing about the The Queen's Bedchamber and The Toilet, and with
result. But then the artist has in this instance the almost careless freedom of The Landscape
purposely selected the medium because it lends Time-sketch, or, again, to set the quiet breadth of
itself so well to his particular scheme of practice the study by the sea, Sand, against the more
and fits in so admirably with his temperamental fantastic richness of The Pond and The Pool. An
preferences—that is why this delightful atmo- artist who can handle equally well motives so
sphere of agreement between his mind and hand markedly divergent in character, and can keep
pervades the whole of his work. consistently in each one such an admirable
138
"THE POOL" BY GEORGE SHERINGHAM
about them all there is an air of perfect agreement Certainly, in everything he does Mr. Shering-
between the idea by which they are inspired and ham proves that he has an absolute control over
the means adopted to make the idea intelligible to all the essentials of the decorator's art, and that
other people. Always it is the design itself that just as he knows by instinct what is the medium
first claims attention, not the cleverness of the best suited for the interpretation of a particular
craftsman who has exercised his skill in carrying kind of design, so he understands surely what kind
out the design; always the immediate impression of treatment is most appropriate for each class of
one receives in looking at Mr. Sheringham's work his production. There is nothing stereotyped in
is that he seems infallibly to arrive at perfect his art, no limitation of his energies to one type of
achievement; it is only by later examination that expression. It is interesting, as an illustration of
one realises how a masterly use of his medium this, to compare the reticence and simplicity of
contributes to this perfection, and it is only after such things as The Flowered Shawl, The Reader,
much contemplation that one perceives what part and Le Petit Dejeuner, with the sumptuousness of
the medium itself plays in bringing about the The Queen's Bedchamber and The Toilet, and with
result. But then the artist has in this instance the almost careless freedom of The Landscape
purposely selected the medium because it lends Time-sketch, or, again, to set the quiet breadth of
itself so well to his particular scheme of practice the study by the sea, Sand, against the more
and fits in so admirably with his temperamental fantastic richness of The Pond and The Pool. An
preferences—that is why this delightful atmo- artist who can handle equally well motives so
sphere of agreement between his mind and hand markedly divergent in character, and can keep
pervades the whole of his work. consistently in each one such an admirable
138