Studio: international art (77.1919)

STUDIO-TALK

“FIRST OF THE SPRING." WATER-
COLOUR BY ROBERT BURNS, A.R.S.A.

EDINBURGH. —Few “one-man”
exhibitions of recent years in Edin-
burgh have excited so much interest
as the display of water-colours by Mr.
Robert Burns, A.R.S.A., at Messrs. Taylor
and Brown's Gallery, George Street,
recently. For many years Mr. Burns has
been held in high esteem as director of
painting in the Edinburgh College of Art,
and amongst his fellow-artists as one of
unusual versatility, in proof of which one
has only to refer to his past achievements
in stained glass, mural decorations, book
illustrations, etc. Yet never before has
his outlook and interpretation of Nature
been so markedly revealed as it was in his
recent exhibition. In the International
and various Academy galleries, his paint-
ings in oils have always been distinguished,
but here we had something more striking
in the realm of landscape painting in
water-colours in Scotland.. In the majority
of instances the scale upon which he
works, being greater than that which one
generally associates with water-colour draw-
ings, makes them even more remarkable;
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as the feeling of vitality is vigorously
carried throughout without hesitancy or
laboured indecisions, and his drawing is
always uncommonly good. After their
technical interest, perhaps the quality
which lingers most in these landscapes
is the charm they convey of intimate
solitude, and their evocation of scenes
and places made familiar by R. L. Steven-
son, or so fascinatingly described in John
Buchan's “ Grey Weather "—not that they
are in any way to be looked upon as
illustrations, but only that the moods and
personalities of artist and authors have
something in common. 000
Then, again, his painting of trees is
remarkable, when one considers the vast
amount of labour spent on them by many
water-colourists, and the evident con-
fession of weakness in the medley of form-
less jumble as expressed by others. 0
The exhibition will certainly enhance
the splendid reputation which Mr. Burns
already enjoys amongst his brother artists
and all lovers of the genuine in art. 0

E. A. T.