DOI issue:
No. 299 (February 1918)
DOI article:Salaman, Malcolm C.: Drawings by James McBey, official artist in Palestine
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21356#0018
Drawings by lames McBey, Official Artist in Palestine
tion. Dawn is beginning to steal over the
desert as the camels, laden with rations and
water, start upon their long slow journey, the
two guides ahead leading eastward. The atmos-
phere is charged with mystery ; the very legs
of the camels suggest the tedium of this inter-
minable treading of the sandy wastes for the
soldiers' imperative needs. Two of our illus-
trations are chosen from the series depicting
incidents of the Long Patrol. Tracks Discovered
—reproduced here in the tints of the original—
shows a group of guides on camels suddenly
pulled up to examine, with keen and expert
observation, some unexpected traces of foot-
marks in the sand. The dramatic interest of
the picture is intense—with the thrill almost of
Defoe's immortal invention—while the artistic
presentation is of convincing vitality, the
grouping of the camels, with their intent riders,
conveying, in its happy spontaneity of design,
the significance of the incident. This spon-
taneity of impression, with its inherent sense
of life, which has always characterized Lieut.
McBey's draughtsmanship, we find also in
Strange Signals, one of the twenty-four drawings
selected to illustrate " Desert Campaigns," by
W. T. Massey, the official correspondent on this
front. The curved necks of the camels—true
camels these, " gloomy-eyed and slow," as
McBey rightly interprets them, rather than with
Byron's " patient swiftness of the desert ship "
—lend themselves, with their sun-swart, bush-
trained Australian riders on their humps, artisti-
cally to rhythmic design, while the scene, with
its immense sandy distance, is suffused with
hot sunshine. What is it that these men are
straining their keen eyes to detect upon the
palpitating horizon ? The tiny film, apparently
of smoke, that they see may be Bedouins, it
may be only mirage. This the artist himself
suggests in one of the explanatory notes accom-
panying his drawings, notes with an apt literary
touch. Here, for instance, is his happy descrip-
tion of The Camp of Chabrias, a characteristic
landscape, charming in line and colour. " This,
the last redoubt in the chain, was begun by
Rome two thousand years ago, and finished by
Australia yesterday. It was a mouth of the
Nile once, and this fort and Pelusium still stand
sentinels over its memory, as do Richborough
and Reculver over the fickle Thames."
I wish it had been possible to include among
our illustrations the superb panoramic view of
the battlefield of Gaza, " the gate of Palestine,"
a very notable feat of spacious draughtsman-
ship, but no doubt it will be among the drawings
" CONVALESCENTS '
12
FROM A DRAWING BY JAMES MCBEY, OFFICIAL ARTIST IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE
tion. Dawn is beginning to steal over the
desert as the camels, laden with rations and
water, start upon their long slow journey, the
two guides ahead leading eastward. The atmos-
phere is charged with mystery ; the very legs
of the camels suggest the tedium of this inter-
minable treading of the sandy wastes for the
soldiers' imperative needs. Two of our illus-
trations are chosen from the series depicting
incidents of the Long Patrol. Tracks Discovered
—reproduced here in the tints of the original—
shows a group of guides on camels suddenly
pulled up to examine, with keen and expert
observation, some unexpected traces of foot-
marks in the sand. The dramatic interest of
the picture is intense—with the thrill almost of
Defoe's immortal invention—while the artistic
presentation is of convincing vitality, the
grouping of the camels, with their intent riders,
conveying, in its happy spontaneity of design,
the significance of the incident. This spon-
taneity of impression, with its inherent sense
of life, which has always characterized Lieut.
McBey's draughtsmanship, we find also in
Strange Signals, one of the twenty-four drawings
selected to illustrate " Desert Campaigns," by
W. T. Massey, the official correspondent on this
front. The curved necks of the camels—true
camels these, " gloomy-eyed and slow," as
McBey rightly interprets them, rather than with
Byron's " patient swiftness of the desert ship "
—lend themselves, with their sun-swart, bush-
trained Australian riders on their humps, artisti-
cally to rhythmic design, while the scene, with
its immense sandy distance, is suffused with
hot sunshine. What is it that these men are
straining their keen eyes to detect upon the
palpitating horizon ? The tiny film, apparently
of smoke, that they see may be Bedouins, it
may be only mirage. This the artist himself
suggests in one of the explanatory notes accom-
panying his drawings, notes with an apt literary
touch. Here, for instance, is his happy descrip-
tion of The Camp of Chabrias, a characteristic
landscape, charming in line and colour. " This,
the last redoubt in the chain, was begun by
Rome two thousand years ago, and finished by
Australia yesterday. It was a mouth of the
Nile once, and this fort and Pelusium still stand
sentinels over its memory, as do Richborough
and Reculver over the fickle Thames."
I wish it had been possible to include among
our illustrations the superb panoramic view of
the battlefield of Gaza, " the gate of Palestine,"
a very notable feat of spacious draughtsman-
ship, but no doubt it will be among the drawings
" CONVALESCENTS '
12
FROM A DRAWING BY JAMES MCBEY, OFFICIAL ARTIST IN EGYPT AND PALESTINE