Studio: international art (72.1918)

Mitral Paintings by Frank Brangwyn, A.R.A.

embodied in each painting is wonderfully
complex, the outpourings on canvas of a power-
ful imagination harnessed to a direct and
unsophisticated nature. Modern in feeling, the
designs are linked up with the best works of
the Renaissance schools of Florence and Umbria
by reason of their intrinsic power of execution,
arrangement, and spacing of individual figures.
As in his little-known Royal Exchange panel,
he has allowed nothing to interfere with the
essentials of composition, unity of design, and
proper distribution of colour masses. Taking
Nietzsche's “ live dangerously,” he has applied
the philosophic dictum to his art. These panels
soar beyond the mere technical. He has
mastered design and colour; these paintings,
more than any example of his art during
the past epoch, represent his artistic heritage.
Some individual figures may need a more
finished execution; but each, without excep-
tion, is vigorously drawn, pregnant with life and
human feeling, if of the workaday world. Perhaps
the best examples are seen in the rendering of
the fishermen drawing a net from an adjoining
lake, in Water I; this group symbolizes her-
culean strength and intensity of human effort,
yet they take their natural place in the ensemble
of the composition.

Coming to the symbolism of these mural
paintings, whilst some of them may, after close
scrutiny, lend themselves to an easy explanation,
there are others which will prove veritable
enigmas, just as did Watts's imaginative com-
positions to the average Victorian. Of the first
order are the Earth panels. The first of these
shows the trelliswork of a vineyard, overhung
with purple grapes against the indigo background
of sky, being picked by the primitive grape-
treaders, thrown into a large stone vat that is
set against the soft shadows rendered by the
arbour, and then pounded into juice, which is
being drunk by the well-arranged foreground
group. In the second composition is the intent
group of fruit-pickers, a masterpiece of design,
illustrated here in colour, though the reduced
size makes impossible the adequate rendering
of many of the individual beauties of colour.
The brush tintings on the dress of the mother,
a happy characterization, are Japanesque in
their delicate hues of purple, brown, pink, and
white spottings. As in other panels, the warm
colours are relieved by the hues of the orange-
tree backgrounds in neutral tones of green, etc.,
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splashed with yellow. In the pickers on the
ladders a fine essay in perspective is attempted.

Following the natural arrangement of the
panels are the Fire murals. In Primitive Fire
the right note is struck by the passive, won-
dering faces of the peasants, whose outstretched
hands are held to the thin grey-white column of
smoke, fanned by the blowers into flame, rising
up to the illimitable beyond. It is a magnifi-
cent colour-scheme of leaves in autumn tintings.
A fine decorative ensemble dignifies Industrial
Fire. Notice the pottery lying about the fore-
ground, with the well-delineated, contrasted,
duller tonal scheme of tall fir- and pine-trees.

There is no difficulty in comprehending the
first of the Air panels. Here is seen the beau-
tiful form of a massive golden-toned windmill
set against a cobalt-blue sky, impassive to the
oncoming storm which is heralded by the wind
that sweeps along heedlessly the foreground
group, whose forms are contrasted by the
brightness of the golden corn. How complete
is this composition! Brangwyn includes the
rainbow in the distance, cleverly posed against
the shaft of the mill, and a group of children,
making use of the wind to fly their kite.
In Air II an ethereal note is rendered. The
hardwood trees are of a rich autumn tone,
through which are observed birds on the wing,
whose white coats harmonize with the trunks,
beyond which is the finely distanced sky. The
symbolism is concealed in the light moving
group of bowmen with the listening hunter
screened by the tree, straining his ear to detect
the moving of the unsuspecting prey. A
refined treatment is observable in the panel of
The Fountain, the second of the last element,
Water. Men, women, and children move
towards the fountain, with their various rich-
coloured vessels, the source of which is indicated
by the inclusion of a pair of flamingos. The
slender forms of the trees and the delicacy of
the branches complete a magnificent theme.

The colour-scheme is mainly treated in autumn
tones, contrasts being obtained by the employ-
ment of browns and greys against the bright
colour masses of the still-life groups and blues
of skies, varied purples and reds of leaves, and
the speckled coloured dresses of the women and
the scarves of the men.

Brangwyn’s dexterity of design is seen in the
medium of mosaic, which will form the subject
of a subsequent article.