Studio: international art (72.1918)

Matthew Maris

MATTHEW MARIS

IT holds true that in artistic affairs the
ordinary laws of supply and demand do
not always operate, for is it not a fact
that the largest producers of good pictures
are also the most valued as well as the best
known—Turner, Corot, Rembrandt, Raeburn ?
Yet there are some notable examples of artists
being both very rare yet very widely known.

In a general way, it requires a large number
of good pictures to
have been painted by
an artist' for him to
be received into the
ranks of those ac-
cepted as famous by
the ordinary public ;
while at the same time
being admitted to be
so by the special con-
noisseur. There are
a small number of
painters whose names
and general artistic
characteristics are
known to nearly every
practising artist, as
well as to the majority
of well-read lovers of
pictures, and of these,

Matthew Maris, who
died on August 22
last, is one of the most
remarkable.

The art of Matthew
Maris is diffused with
that air of subtle mys-
tery which, while being
somewhat incomprehensible to the multitude,
renders his work exceedingly precious and
entrancing to those whose feelings are in accord
with the artist’s method of expression. But if
it is given to few, at the first experience, to
understand and precisely estimate the artistic
value of his pictures, there is no doubt that the
majority of lovers of art can arrive at a large
amount of appreciation of these pieces ; although
this may be attained only after some careful
study of their special qualities and charm.

Bom at The Hague on August 17, 1839,
Matthew Maris had completed his seventy-
eighth year, and he died in London, where he
LXXII. No. 296.—November 1917

had lived for more than half his lifetime,
although he never at any period entered into
the life and movement of the metropolis.

The time is too near to tell the full story of
the artist’s later years, but it is a grievous
wrong to say that he endured poverty or suffered
any approach to penury. True it is that for
nearly a decade he showed great reluctance to
permit any work to leave his little painting-
room ; but also true is it that he was well
cared for all these years by devoted friends; and

his material needs,
very few and simple,
were entirely satisfied
by a sympathetic
housekeeper, who un-
derstood his wayward
temperament. The
brief story of Mat-
thew Maris’s life was
set forth m "The
Studio” Special
Number of 1907:
"The Brothers
Maris,” and to this
there is little or
nothing to add. His
mortal remains were-
laid to rest in Old
Hampstead Cemetery
on August 27 ; and I
know for certain that
the grave will not
lack loving hands to
give it proper atten-
tion both now and
in the future.

His last hours were
soothed by the minis-
tration of most careful attendants, and he passed
away in the early hours of the morning without
suffering, while the previous day he had been
unusually full of movement.

Matthew Maris had no studio in the ordinary
sense, and he deliberately preferred and remained
resolutely faithful to a tiny flat in Westboume
Square, Bayswater. One room was a com-
bined bedroom and sitting-room, where he
received the few visitors who sought him out,
and the other he called his painting-room, and
into this only one or two intimates were ad-
mitted. Here were placed the canvases, not
quite a dozen in number, on which he had

47

BUST OF MATTHEW MARIS. BY FREDERICK LESSORE