Studio: international art (76.1919)

Paintings by E. Borough Johnson

OIL PAINTING BY E. BOROUGH JOHNSON

termines the executive manner of his picture.
This can certainly be seen in the examples
of his work which are reproduced here. The
quality of handling in the Gipsies study is very
unlike that which appears in the gracefully
designed portrait of Mrs. Corbett Smith—one
is rugged and vehement, the other is suave and
restrained, and yet in both appears the de-
cisiveness of the confident and accomplished
craftsman. Again, there is an obvious con-
trast of manner between the precisely detailed
Old Tithe Barn and the broader, more simpli-
fied, Stadhuis, Veere ; and in the Portrait Study
quite another view again of technical responsi-
bility is taken. Each of these subjects has

been approached from a different standpoint,
and each has received the kind of treatment
that suited it best; there has been no attempt
to bring them into agreement with a pre-
conceived system of practice.

Naturally, it is only a strong man who is
both shrewdly observant and keenly receptive
that can maintain so much independence of
artistic procedure, even against the tempta-
tion to compromise with himself or who can
avoid so successfully the tendency to adopt a
convenient personal mannerism. But Mr.
Borough Johnson happens to have this strength
of character in full measure, and to it he owes
largely the position he occupies in modern art.

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