DOI issue:
No. 303 (June 1918)
DOI article:Wedmore, Frederick: Still life and Mr. William Nicholson
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21265#0014
Still Life and Mr. William Nicholson
In the remote future, to which our successors
may look forward, when—since all things are
possible—Englishmen may have become an
artistic people, it may be recollected, or perhaps
be slowly learnt, how interesting was the Still
Life of the very earliest of our real masters of
the brush. Hogarth employed it, indeed, less
as main theme than as substantial and important
accessory ; and it was an English artist, it was
Richard Earlom, who—translating colour and
texture as both. appeared in the great flower
and fruit pieces of Van Huysum, into the art
of engraving—gave a little more extended circu-
lation to examples of Still Life. In Holland,
at a date appreciably earlier, one of the greatest
and rarest Dutch masters of genre—Vermeer
of Delft—displayed his powerful control of Still
Life subjects. De Heym was even more con-
tinuously their master. And, reaching again
the eighteenth century, there came, in the
fullness of Time, Chardin, whose never dazzling,
always discreet and sensitive and sympathetic
and fully equipped talent, has, in the matter of
appreciation, now come into his own. Occupied
with William Hunt, Mr. Ruskin—great even in
his mistakes or his misfortunes—had apparently
never heard of Chardin.
It has been the privilege of Frenchmen to
have entered into and understood with a surpass-
ing readiness the charm of humble human duties
and of homely things. To do so is a part of
French character. And so the sceptre, if one
may be allowed to call it that, of Still Life
painting having long since passed to France, in
the great art of Chardin, has ever remained
with her.
Never more conspicuously perhaps have
France and Still Life painting been honourably
associated than in quite recent years. In the
later of those years England herself—assuredly
under our neighbour's influence to some extent
—has taken up the most engaging problems of
Still Life with an increasing willingness. There
is Mr. Francis James, essentially colourist and
draughtsman of flowers. Again, Mr. Horace
Mann Livens may be cited with confidence.
Time will do justice to his individuality in this
department of his labour, hardly less than to
his nobly planned and broadly executed water-
colours of London and of Brighton and of an
everyday world. Mr. Clausen has painted
flower pieces that are charming. But when he
began, France had already had Fantin, whom
perhaps, in the sphere of labour 1 am for the
moment discussing, he may most admire or recall.
France, in Still Life, had already had Manet,
with his great convincing certainty of vision
and of touch. And then there is Vollon, with
his special sumptuousness, his order and free-
dom amidst wealth of matter, and his august,
Imperial way. With us again there has
" arrived " Mr. Peploe—and in France Cezanne
and M. Laprade and M. Marc, of Toulouse.
All are delightful.
The course of Still Life painting having been
thus lightly, but not carelessly sketched, we are
brought round again to the achievements of
William Nicholson—one of the most variously
endowed artists now practising his craft.
To begin with a great tour de force—a thing
which, once seen, it would be difficult to forget—
the Still Life pieces in the Goupil Gallery
Exhibition include that curious and engaging
masterpiece of technique and of comedy, The
Hundred Jugs. Is it a back room at a china-
shop, where expert service. will presently turn
chaos into order ? Mr. Nicholson at any rate
has dexterously stepped in, while chaos—by far
the more amusing of the two possible rulers-
is yet in full sovereignty. Mr. Nicholson, like
the good dramatist in Francisque Sarcey's
estimation, has known the scene a faire:
the particular aspect that beyond all others
demanded portrayal.
A fragment of interior more interesting to
me personally—a picture more enjoyably to be
lived with, because it has, along with the ut-
most dexterity, much more of actually achieved
beauty—is The Convex Mirror. The mirror
distorts much, in quite an entertaining fashion ;
but life and character—with no recourse to the
eccentric or the merely novel—are in the man
whose figure is caught by the glass ; and one
live thing besides the student at the mirror is
recorded without whimsical or ordered change,
and with exact and delicate appreciation. That
is the rose-crested cockatoo, whose lovely
greyish pink is a familiar note in Mr. Nichol-
son's studio.
The subtlety of vision and of touch which is
the charm of Still Life work, and which the
painter with whom we are engaged does so
abundantly possess, is shown again, and with a
singular and dainty charm, in Silver Lustre—■
is shown, too, in that one bit of Still Life here,
that is touched with Romance, that has a story
In the remote future, to which our successors
may look forward, when—since all things are
possible—Englishmen may have become an
artistic people, it may be recollected, or perhaps
be slowly learnt, how interesting was the Still
Life of the very earliest of our real masters of
the brush. Hogarth employed it, indeed, less
as main theme than as substantial and important
accessory ; and it was an English artist, it was
Richard Earlom, who—translating colour and
texture as both. appeared in the great flower
and fruit pieces of Van Huysum, into the art
of engraving—gave a little more extended circu-
lation to examples of Still Life. In Holland,
at a date appreciably earlier, one of the greatest
and rarest Dutch masters of genre—Vermeer
of Delft—displayed his powerful control of Still
Life subjects. De Heym was even more con-
tinuously their master. And, reaching again
the eighteenth century, there came, in the
fullness of Time, Chardin, whose never dazzling,
always discreet and sensitive and sympathetic
and fully equipped talent, has, in the matter of
appreciation, now come into his own. Occupied
with William Hunt, Mr. Ruskin—great even in
his mistakes or his misfortunes—had apparently
never heard of Chardin.
It has been the privilege of Frenchmen to
have entered into and understood with a surpass-
ing readiness the charm of humble human duties
and of homely things. To do so is a part of
French character. And so the sceptre, if one
may be allowed to call it that, of Still Life
painting having long since passed to France, in
the great art of Chardin, has ever remained
with her.
Never more conspicuously perhaps have
France and Still Life painting been honourably
associated than in quite recent years. In the
later of those years England herself—assuredly
under our neighbour's influence to some extent
—has taken up the most engaging problems of
Still Life with an increasing willingness. There
is Mr. Francis James, essentially colourist and
draughtsman of flowers. Again, Mr. Horace
Mann Livens may be cited with confidence.
Time will do justice to his individuality in this
department of his labour, hardly less than to
his nobly planned and broadly executed water-
colours of London and of Brighton and of an
everyday world. Mr. Clausen has painted
flower pieces that are charming. But when he
began, France had already had Fantin, whom
perhaps, in the sphere of labour 1 am for the
moment discussing, he may most admire or recall.
France, in Still Life, had already had Manet,
with his great convincing certainty of vision
and of touch. And then there is Vollon, with
his special sumptuousness, his order and free-
dom amidst wealth of matter, and his august,
Imperial way. With us again there has
" arrived " Mr. Peploe—and in France Cezanne
and M. Laprade and M. Marc, of Toulouse.
All are delightful.
The course of Still Life painting having been
thus lightly, but not carelessly sketched, we are
brought round again to the achievements of
William Nicholson—one of the most variously
endowed artists now practising his craft.
To begin with a great tour de force—a thing
which, once seen, it would be difficult to forget—
the Still Life pieces in the Goupil Gallery
Exhibition include that curious and engaging
masterpiece of technique and of comedy, The
Hundred Jugs. Is it a back room at a china-
shop, where expert service. will presently turn
chaos into order ? Mr. Nicholson at any rate
has dexterously stepped in, while chaos—by far
the more amusing of the two possible rulers-
is yet in full sovereignty. Mr. Nicholson, like
the good dramatist in Francisque Sarcey's
estimation, has known the scene a faire:
the particular aspect that beyond all others
demanded portrayal.
A fragment of interior more interesting to
me personally—a picture more enjoyably to be
lived with, because it has, along with the ut-
most dexterity, much more of actually achieved
beauty—is The Convex Mirror. The mirror
distorts much, in quite an entertaining fashion ;
but life and character—with no recourse to the
eccentric or the merely novel—are in the man
whose figure is caught by the glass ; and one
live thing besides the student at the mirror is
recorded without whimsical or ordered change,
and with exact and delicate appreciation. That
is the rose-crested cockatoo, whose lovely
greyish pink is a familiar note in Mr. Nichol-
son's studio.
The subtlety of vision and of touch which is
the charm of Still Life work, and which the
painter with whom we are engaged does so
abundantly possess, is shown again, and with a
singular and dainty charm, in Silver Lustre—■
is shown, too, in that one bit of Still Life here,
that is touched with Romance, that has a story