Studio: international art (78.1919)

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

u MOVING THE TRUCK.” BY
A. J. MUNNINGS, A.R.A.

(Canadian War Records)

scape—which is still one of the elements
that gives a fascinating actuality to his
pictures. Nor, though love of horses has
brought him back again and again to them
as his subject, has he no other kind of
picture to show us. His painting In Corn-
wall, here reproduced, is one of many that
make it clear that the talents he has almost
consecrated now to the one subject would
have shone with almost equal brilliance in
any other field. This is the reason why
the backgrounds in his equestrian portraits
are seldom formal and uninteresting. 0
The feeling for the country-side has, of
course, been the soul of his hunting pic-
tures ; and it gave a peculiar value to

his pictures of the Canadian Cavalry and
Canadian Foresters in France, painted
from the life for the Canadian War Records.
Impressionableness is the breath of life of
his art. 00000

In early pictures, which I do not touch
upon in this article, Mr. Munnings's indi-
viduality was not so sharply defined as it is
in his present style. His colour has become
purer as he has advanced ; his execution
more refined, his composition simpler ; his
method more direct with every picture, as
he knows more surely what he wants to
do and what, from his own point of view—
the only sound one for an artist—is worth
doing. 00000

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