DOI issue:
No. 294 (September 1917)
DOI article:Marriott, Charles: The work of Arnesby Brown, R. A.
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21263#0149
" IN JUNE " OIL PAINTING BY ARNESBY BROWN, R.A.
Brown has remained stolidly indifferent to the and his arrangement of the facts and conditions
progress of painting in France ; but that he has into an effective whole is always a more or less
taken from it only such elements as could be conscious and deliberate process. Both may
digested in his own body of painting. His arrive at equally good and apparently similar
modified use of " pointillism " in the treatment results, but the designer works deductively, the
of certain effects of light is an illustration. composer inductively. It is idle to debate
Like Constable Mr. Brown is a good composer which is the higher art in painting ; every artist
rather than a great designer. The distinction must work his own way, and there always will
may seem arbitrary but it is vital for all that; be painters in whom the sense of rhythm and
as vital as the distinction which divides mankind pattern or the sense of character predominates,
into Platonists and Aristotelians, and much Now, just as the Platonist in life is always in
more vital than that which divides them into danger of tumbling over the facts through
Liberals and Conservatives. The two faculties, insufficient acquaintance with their character,
of design and composition in painting, proceed so the designer in painting is always in danger
from entirely different orders of the human of missing his public through inadequate
mind. The designer feels everything instinc- realization of the facts with which they are
tively as rhythm and pattern, which he may or familiar. On the other hand, the composer,
may not learn to substantiate by study of the though he will never lose touch with his fellows
facts ; the composer feels everything, whether in respect of character, may easily fail to relate
facts or conditions, instinctively as character ; his facts to that hidden pattern of the universe,
133
Brown has remained stolidly indifferent to the and his arrangement of the facts and conditions
progress of painting in France ; but that he has into an effective whole is always a more or less
taken from it only such elements as could be conscious and deliberate process. Both may
digested in his own body of painting. His arrive at equally good and apparently similar
modified use of " pointillism " in the treatment results, but the designer works deductively, the
of certain effects of light is an illustration. composer inductively. It is idle to debate
Like Constable Mr. Brown is a good composer which is the higher art in painting ; every artist
rather than a great designer. The distinction must work his own way, and there always will
may seem arbitrary but it is vital for all that; be painters in whom the sense of rhythm and
as vital as the distinction which divides mankind pattern or the sense of character predominates,
into Platonists and Aristotelians, and much Now, just as the Platonist in life is always in
more vital than that which divides them into danger of tumbling over the facts through
Liberals and Conservatives. The two faculties, insufficient acquaintance with their character,
of design and composition in painting, proceed so the designer in painting is always in danger
from entirely different orders of the human of missing his public through inadequate
mind. The designer feels everything instinc- realization of the facts with which they are
tively as rhythm and pattern, which he may or familiar. On the other hand, the composer,
may not learn to substantiate by study of the though he will never lose touch with his fellows
facts ; the composer feels everything, whether in respect of character, may easily fail to relate
facts or conditions, instinctively as character ; his facts to that hidden pattern of the universe,
133