DOI issue:
No. 306 (September 1918)
DOI article:Wedmore, Frederick: The water-colours of Horace Mann Livens
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21265#0110
The Water-Colours of Horace Mann Livens
adoption is an instrument not only of utility: front beheld in the radiant afternoon-light of
it is an instrument of charm. There is fascina- summer and of Piccadilly.
tion in Mr. Liven's vision : fascination in his Themes as many as these, and themes as
method of disclosing it. If you are intelligent various, are treated by Mr. Livens with a spirit
and have once concentrated yourself upon his tolerant of all. Indeed, for him, one and all these
work, you do not for anything or at any time matters may be approached with something
damn him with faint praise. He has you in his more than toleration—with an intense, devoted,
grip—he has cast his spell. pregnant gaze. Mr. Livens is a Realist. " The
And what are the themes that this most true Realist," I think I heard him say one day,
serious artist—never fantastic, never for a and if I did not, I ought to have heard him say
moment conventional—what are the themes to it, " the true Realist is the true Romantic,
which he addresses himself ? They are many ; besides."
and they are many partly because he would dis- Established many years ago, in a part of
approve of any too great specialization of effort. Surrey which, if on the one hand it is not quite
Edouard Manet, or Edouard Manet's work, would country, is on the other hand not quite suburb,
be at his elbow to jog him and reprove him, did Mr. Livens made for himself abundant oppor-
he address himself at all exclusively to this or tunities of studying cocks and hens—the proud,
that class of object or subject. A man whose self-satisfied denizens of the yard. Their colour
eyes are open should be a
citizen of the world. A
man who can not only see,
but draw and paint, must
paint, on one day or
another—or must be will-
ing to paint—not one thing,
but everything. And so
Mr. Livens—working with
many mediums : working
in oils, working in water-
colours, working in pastels,
working even on rare but
still happy occasions with
the needle of the etcher—
so Mr. Livens, during—
well, say a quarter of a
century — has produced
his visions of the fowl-
run, visions of old faience
smooth and grey, visions
of massed flowers, visions
of a dismantled house,
almost Pryde-like in its
suggestion of the uncanny,
visions too of the state-
liest course of a great
river, broad and bridged
—visions too of Brighton
plunged on what excep-
tional days in a Novem-
ber gloom, and then, in
brisker weather, of Brigh-
ton alive and astir, or
of some sunny restaurant "euston" water-colour by h. mann livens.
104
adoption is an instrument not only of utility: front beheld in the radiant afternoon-light of
it is an instrument of charm. There is fascina- summer and of Piccadilly.
tion in Mr. Liven's vision : fascination in his Themes as many as these, and themes as
method of disclosing it. If you are intelligent various, are treated by Mr. Livens with a spirit
and have once concentrated yourself upon his tolerant of all. Indeed, for him, one and all these
work, you do not for anything or at any time matters may be approached with something
damn him with faint praise. He has you in his more than toleration—with an intense, devoted,
grip—he has cast his spell. pregnant gaze. Mr. Livens is a Realist. " The
And what are the themes that this most true Realist," I think I heard him say one day,
serious artist—never fantastic, never for a and if I did not, I ought to have heard him say
moment conventional—what are the themes to it, " the true Realist is the true Romantic,
which he addresses himself ? They are many ; besides."
and they are many partly because he would dis- Established many years ago, in a part of
approve of any too great specialization of effort. Surrey which, if on the one hand it is not quite
Edouard Manet, or Edouard Manet's work, would country, is on the other hand not quite suburb,
be at his elbow to jog him and reprove him, did Mr. Livens made for himself abundant oppor-
he address himself at all exclusively to this or tunities of studying cocks and hens—the proud,
that class of object or subject. A man whose self-satisfied denizens of the yard. Their colour
eyes are open should be a
citizen of the world. A
man who can not only see,
but draw and paint, must
paint, on one day or
another—or must be will-
ing to paint—not one thing,
but everything. And so
Mr. Livens—working with
many mediums : working
in oils, working in water-
colours, working in pastels,
working even on rare but
still happy occasions with
the needle of the etcher—
so Mr. Livens, during—
well, say a quarter of a
century — has produced
his visions of the fowl-
run, visions of old faience
smooth and grey, visions
of massed flowers, visions
of a dismantled house,
almost Pryde-like in its
suggestion of the uncanny,
visions too of the state-
liest course of a great
river, broad and bridged
—visions too of Brighton
plunged on what excep-
tional days in a Novem-
ber gloom, and then, in
brisker weather, of Brigh-
ton alive and astir, or
of some sunny restaurant "euston" water-colour by h. mann livens.
104