DOI issue:
No. 290 (May 1917)
DOI article:Lees, George Frederic William: The art of George Harcourt
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.24576#0179
The Art of George Harcourt
and to comprehend the artist’s growth the
better, we will pass over the exhibit of 1895
as rapidly as possible. His picture of that
year, Thought Reading, was well received at
the Academy and also at the Paris Salon,
where he was awarded a third-class medal for
it ; but the true continuation of the golden
qualities seen in At the Window and—in greater
measure still—in Psyche is observable, not in
this clever representation of an ephemeral
society amusement, but in The Leper’s Wife,
where we have a subject which, through its
lofty spiritual idea, is of eternal interest. No
wonder that Watts, who had silently noted
Mr. Harcourt’s previous work, was impelled,
on seeing this noble canvas at the Royal
Academy of 1896, to send his congratulations
to the painter.
The idea of The Leper’s Wife, though sug-
gested by Tennyson’s “ Happy, or the Leper’s
Bride,” was not done as an illustration to the
poem, but as a representation of the great
ideal of self-sacrifice. I know of nothing in
art so dramatic and at the same time so simply
and finely expressed as this figure with hidden
face, who shrinks back in generous horror into
the gloom of the forest. Naught of him save
that warning hand is visible, but how much
it tells us of his unhappy state and his unwilling-
ness to accept the magnificent sacrifice of the
divine creature who is still ready to succour
him. These figures are types of boundless devo-
tion and unutterable suffering rather than the
individual man and woman of the poem, and
it is because of their symbolism that the pic-
ture ranks so high and came to mean so much
to Watts, who assuredly detected in it many of
his own intellectual and aesthetic ideals.
The artistic kinship between Watts and Mr.
Harcourt is one on which some emphasis must
be laid. Both in Psyche and in The Leper’s
Wife* we see the influence—but in its most
legitimate aspect—of the great modern master.
There is the symbolism of human emotion,
combined with decorative qualities of a high
order. Though the idea of painted anecdote
is as abhorrent to Mr. Harcourt as it is to
Mr. George Moore, he is by no means content
to hobble his genius by the rigid application
* This painting now hangs in the building known
as "School” at Winchester College, to which it was
presented by the artist in memory pf his son, who was
a member of the great public school.
of artistic shibboleths, such as " Art for Art’s
sake,” of which we used to hear so much. Like
the painter of Love and Death, he does not see
why the finest pictorial qualities should not
exist in a work that has subject.
At the Academy of 1899 he exhibited For-
given, the theme of which was the return of
an erring wife, whose dress of beautiful old-
world material gave him an opportunity of
displaying his mastery in the rendering of
colour harmonies. This picture was purchased
by the South Australian Government for the
National Gallery at Adelaide. Then came
Dawn, a single - figure child study, which
obtained an honourable mention at the Paris
International Exhibition of 1900. The Wan-
derer, painted some two or three years later,
went to the New Zealand Academy.
Meanwhile, in 1901, Mr. Harcourt, after
being for a number of years Herkomer’s assist-
ant, was appointed by the Allan Fraser Trustees
as Governor of the Art School at Hospitalfield,
near Arbroath, a wildly picturesque region
which Scott immortalized in “ The Antiquary,”
and Southey used as the scene for his poem,
“ The Abbot of Aberbrothock.” Mr. Har-
court’s eight years’ sojourn in this romantic
district was fruitful in many notable works of
art. Readers of this magazine are already
acquainted with some of them, such as The
Tracing. Others are The Painter’s Family,
Melody, At the Harpsichord, and Supper in
Summer-Time—all exhibited at the Royal
Academy. He also produced an important
piece of fresco work, depicting The Founding
of the Bank of England in 1694, eighteen feet
in height, which forms one of a series, the
first of which was painted by Lord Leighton,
at the Royal Exchange. It was presented by
members of the Stock Exchange.
In 1909 Mr. Harcourt returned to his old
haunts in Bushey, with which his connexion,
moreover, was never really severed. The follow-
ing year saw the production of The Birthday,
a portrait group awarded a gold medal at the
Amsterdam International Exhibition of 1912.
This picture and others which both preceded
and followed it marked a new departure
in the treatment of portrait-groups, inas-
much as interesting problems of light were
attacked and successfully solved by the artist.
These canvases are, indeed, both subject-
pictures and portrait groups. The subjects
167
and to comprehend the artist’s growth the
better, we will pass over the exhibit of 1895
as rapidly as possible. His picture of that
year, Thought Reading, was well received at
the Academy and also at the Paris Salon,
where he was awarded a third-class medal for
it ; but the true continuation of the golden
qualities seen in At the Window and—in greater
measure still—in Psyche is observable, not in
this clever representation of an ephemeral
society amusement, but in The Leper’s Wife,
where we have a subject which, through its
lofty spiritual idea, is of eternal interest. No
wonder that Watts, who had silently noted
Mr. Harcourt’s previous work, was impelled,
on seeing this noble canvas at the Royal
Academy of 1896, to send his congratulations
to the painter.
The idea of The Leper’s Wife, though sug-
gested by Tennyson’s “ Happy, or the Leper’s
Bride,” was not done as an illustration to the
poem, but as a representation of the great
ideal of self-sacrifice. I know of nothing in
art so dramatic and at the same time so simply
and finely expressed as this figure with hidden
face, who shrinks back in generous horror into
the gloom of the forest. Naught of him save
that warning hand is visible, but how much
it tells us of his unhappy state and his unwilling-
ness to accept the magnificent sacrifice of the
divine creature who is still ready to succour
him. These figures are types of boundless devo-
tion and unutterable suffering rather than the
individual man and woman of the poem, and
it is because of their symbolism that the pic-
ture ranks so high and came to mean so much
to Watts, who assuredly detected in it many of
his own intellectual and aesthetic ideals.
The artistic kinship between Watts and Mr.
Harcourt is one on which some emphasis must
be laid. Both in Psyche and in The Leper’s
Wife* we see the influence—but in its most
legitimate aspect—of the great modern master.
There is the symbolism of human emotion,
combined with decorative qualities of a high
order. Though the idea of painted anecdote
is as abhorrent to Mr. Harcourt as it is to
Mr. George Moore, he is by no means content
to hobble his genius by the rigid application
* This painting now hangs in the building known
as "School” at Winchester College, to which it was
presented by the artist in memory pf his son, who was
a member of the great public school.
of artistic shibboleths, such as " Art for Art’s
sake,” of which we used to hear so much. Like
the painter of Love and Death, he does not see
why the finest pictorial qualities should not
exist in a work that has subject.
At the Academy of 1899 he exhibited For-
given, the theme of which was the return of
an erring wife, whose dress of beautiful old-
world material gave him an opportunity of
displaying his mastery in the rendering of
colour harmonies. This picture was purchased
by the South Australian Government for the
National Gallery at Adelaide. Then came
Dawn, a single - figure child study, which
obtained an honourable mention at the Paris
International Exhibition of 1900. The Wan-
derer, painted some two or three years later,
went to the New Zealand Academy.
Meanwhile, in 1901, Mr. Harcourt, after
being for a number of years Herkomer’s assist-
ant, was appointed by the Allan Fraser Trustees
as Governor of the Art School at Hospitalfield,
near Arbroath, a wildly picturesque region
which Scott immortalized in “ The Antiquary,”
and Southey used as the scene for his poem,
“ The Abbot of Aberbrothock.” Mr. Har-
court’s eight years’ sojourn in this romantic
district was fruitful in many notable works of
art. Readers of this magazine are already
acquainted with some of them, such as The
Tracing. Others are The Painter’s Family,
Melody, At the Harpsichord, and Supper in
Summer-Time—all exhibited at the Royal
Academy. He also produced an important
piece of fresco work, depicting The Founding
of the Bank of England in 1694, eighteen feet
in height, which forms one of a series, the
first of which was painted by Lord Leighton,
at the Royal Exchange. It was presented by
members of the Stock Exchange.
In 1909 Mr. Harcourt returned to his old
haunts in Bushey, with which his connexion,
moreover, was never really severed. The follow-
ing year saw the production of The Birthday,
a portrait group awarded a gold medal at the
Amsterdam International Exhibition of 1912.
This picture and others which both preceded
and followed it marked a new departure
in the treatment of portrait-groups, inas-
much as interesting problems of light were
attacked and successfully solved by the artist.
These canvases are, indeed, both subject-
pictures and portrait groups. The subjects
167