Studio: international art (78.1919)

THE ART OF A. J. MUNNINGS, A.R.A.

"A MODERN BILLY PRINGLE”
BY A. J. MUNNINGS, A.R.A.

the surface of a picture agreeable. It is a
process by which a work is brought by
degrees to the closest possible correspon-
dence with the actual experience of vision.
The greater the experience of the artist
the more his subject will disclose, and he
will learn to see still more in it with every
day that passes. But this is to presuppose
that he goes to nature. An unfashionable
thing to do ! Nevertheless, we must con-
tend that there is no other source of in-
spiration. To whatever degree the artist
may conventionalize his subject, there is
no other source but nature from which he
can receive his initial impulse. Employ
his line as abstractly as he will, if it has
vitality it will take it from that only source;
and however far his design may carry him
6

from his first impression, it must retain the
fire of the moment of inception and refresh
it as it goes. Critics who would divide art
that reflects nature from that which does
not cannot do so, for there is the reflection
or the echo of something living in every
inspired departure of design. The reflec-
tion is not always clearest where naturalism
is professed, a 0 a 0 0

The great and interesting pictures of the
world do not support the view that we can
make a sharp distinction between art which
is decorative and that which is illustrative.
Nor, would it seem, is any picture made
measurably greater or less as a work of art
by the marked predominance of one or the
other of these two aspects. Nevertheless,
only 'certain realities can enter with good