DOI Heft:
No. 302 (May 1918)
DOI Artikel:Image, Selwyn: W. Eyre Walker, R.W.S.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21356#0120
IV. Eyre IValker, R.JV.S.
execution, and sordid suggestiveness in motive.
That, we should have been told in brilliant
enigmatic sentences, struck the healthy new
note in Art: it was emancipation from the
fetters of technical accomplishment—it was
genuine originality, and a virile facing of life's
facts. But we must not now stay to elaborate
this matter. The Old Water-Colour Society can
take very good care of itself, and will, we trust,
continue to go quietly on its established way of
devotion to Beauty and Fine Interest, and of
sane, thorough workmanship. It will at any
rate be no fault of its distinguished member,
Mr. Eyre Walker, should it allow itself to be at
all seduced from this its traditional path.
The illustrations accompanying the present
article, sufficiently various in subject and treat-
ment, prove in more than one instance Mr.
Walker's knowledge of tree form and growth;
and in their detail they show what he speaks of
as his persistent " love of the beauty of little
things—the stalk of a grass, the head of a
dandelion in seed, the markings on a birch-tree
stem, the lichen-patches on a rock." In this
connexion look at the coloured illustration,
A Surrey Canal: Evening, and the black-and-
white illustration, Old Willow Stems. The
draughtsmanship of the trees in the first of these
drawings could not for precision in handling of
delicately observed fact be surpassed: nor
would it be easy to convey the sense of tangled
flowering undergrowth under scintillating light
more vividly than it is given us in this study
of willow stems. A number of original sketches
of similar subjects are before me as I write ; and
all of them are characterized by this same
quality of intimate knowledge and delicate yet
firm draughtsmanship. Now it is interesting to
learn that Mr. Walker's first teacher in tree-
drawing was that famous master of the pencil
J. D. Harding. The pupil bears to-day grateful
testimony to the benefit he derived from
Harding's instruction and method. It is no
wonder. Beyond all manner of doubt there is
no training for students to be compared to that
discipline of the Pencil. I remember Burne-
Jones once commending it to me as, what
he vividly called it, the first indispensable
" monastic discipline " : and Ruskin with all his
pupils was insistent on it. So too, assuredly, we
"LIGHTS AND SHADOWS'
114
WATER-COLOUR BY W. EYRE WALKER, R.W.S,
execution, and sordid suggestiveness in motive.
That, we should have been told in brilliant
enigmatic sentences, struck the healthy new
note in Art: it was emancipation from the
fetters of technical accomplishment—it was
genuine originality, and a virile facing of life's
facts. But we must not now stay to elaborate
this matter. The Old Water-Colour Society can
take very good care of itself, and will, we trust,
continue to go quietly on its established way of
devotion to Beauty and Fine Interest, and of
sane, thorough workmanship. It will at any
rate be no fault of its distinguished member,
Mr. Eyre Walker, should it allow itself to be at
all seduced from this its traditional path.
The illustrations accompanying the present
article, sufficiently various in subject and treat-
ment, prove in more than one instance Mr.
Walker's knowledge of tree form and growth;
and in their detail they show what he speaks of
as his persistent " love of the beauty of little
things—the stalk of a grass, the head of a
dandelion in seed, the markings on a birch-tree
stem, the lichen-patches on a rock." In this
connexion look at the coloured illustration,
A Surrey Canal: Evening, and the black-and-
white illustration, Old Willow Stems. The
draughtsmanship of the trees in the first of these
drawings could not for precision in handling of
delicately observed fact be surpassed: nor
would it be easy to convey the sense of tangled
flowering undergrowth under scintillating light
more vividly than it is given us in this study
of willow stems. A number of original sketches
of similar subjects are before me as I write ; and
all of them are characterized by this same
quality of intimate knowledge and delicate yet
firm draughtsmanship. Now it is interesting to
learn that Mr. Walker's first teacher in tree-
drawing was that famous master of the pencil
J. D. Harding. The pupil bears to-day grateful
testimony to the benefit he derived from
Harding's instruction and method. It is no
wonder. Beyond all manner of doubt there is
no training for students to be compared to that
discipline of the Pencil. I remember Burne-
Jones once commending it to me as, what
he vividly called it, the first indispensable
" monastic discipline " : and Ruskin with all his
pupils was insistent on it. So too, assuredly, we
"LIGHTS AND SHADOWS'
114
WATER-COLOUR BY W. EYRE WALKER, R.W.S,