Studio: international art (72.1918)

Paul and Thomas Sandby

Near the Second Turnpike of Oxford Street,
which is pure water-colour. How clear the
sunlight, and how transparent the shadows are !
The Encampment on Blackheath, too, is a master-
piece in pure water-coloui. In this how beauti-
fully the light plays over the undulating country ;
and the figures are most admirably placed and
their movements well suggested. The artist
was especially good at peopling his scenes with
figures that are of wonderful grace and beauty.
These and other drawings have a charm and
delicacy that J. R. Cozens, Girtin, or even
Turner can hardly surpass in their early work.
Indeed the Carew Castle, Pembrokeshire, shows
what Turner owed to Paul Sandby. In his
turn he was influenced by some of these men.
The Stirling Castle (with the golfers in the fore-
ground) shows how the
artist was not ashamed
to take hints from Girtin,
who was a much younger
man, though he died seven
years before him. Other
artists influenced Paul
Sandby, notably Richard
Wilson, as can be plainly
seen in the two drawings
here reproduced in colour,
which have nevertheless
Sandby’s charming per-
sonality. They are typical
of a phase in his art in
which he especially ex-
celled. The drawing of
Ipswich, which belongs to
Mr. Girtin and is here
reproduced, is a particu-
larly good example of
Paul Sandby’s way of
rendering late afternoon
sunlight on a town, and
is a most poetical work.

He was evidently also a
great admirer of Gains-
borough’s landscapes, and
drawings like the View
in the Isle of Wight (also
belonging to Mr. Girtin)
and the Windsor Park
clearly show what an in-
fluence the older artist had
upon Sandby.

In spite of these influ-
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ences the art of Paul Sandby has a style which
is particularly his own. It certainly is one of the
best examples representing what is now generally
regarded as characteristic of the early British
water-colour school, namely, tinted drawings
outlined with a pen and finished with washes of
local colour. In his early drawings he used the
reed-pen elaborately for the outline and structure
of his drawings. In his later ones he subdued
the rigidity of his pen-strokes by drowning them
in rich colour, especially in the foreground.

Altogether British landscape art, more espe-
cially that in the medium of water-colour,
owes a good deal to Paul Sandby. The influence
of his works, so thoroughly national in character,
was undoubtedly very great on his pupils and
the artists who followed him.

' COVENT GARDEN PIAZZA

BY THOMAS SANDBY, R.A.

[In the collection of Edward Marsh, Esq.)