Studio: international art (79.1920)

MR. AUGUSTUS JOHN AS PORTRAIT PAINTER

THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM HUGHES,
P.C., PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
BY AUGUSTUS E JOHN

is conveyed, not in any action or gesture,
but by sheer quality of painting. It is a
** simmering ” portrait. Sir Robert Borden,
G.C.M.G., P.C., Prime Minister of Canada,
compels attention by weight of personality.
One would expect him to be a scant speaker,
long in deliberation, and firm and rather
abrupt in utterance. In H.R.H. Emir
Feisul one is aware of the painter's enjoy-
ment of his task in the suave relation of
tones, but the character is not missed. The
picture could never be mistaken for a study
of the costume model; it is obviously a
portrait. From a purely psychological
48

point of view The Right Hon. Lord Robert
Cecil, P.C., M.P., is the most remarkable
portrait in the room. It is impossible, of
course, to forget hearsay in looking at this
picture ; but, even assuming that Mr. John
was affected by what he had heard about
Lord Robert, it would still be an extra-
ordinary piece of shorthand interpretation.
Portrait of a Boy reminds us that, with all
his modernity, Mr. John is a traditional
painter. Nothing, to my mind, is more
significant of his personal security than the
candid way in which he will refer to this or
that painter of the past. Painting is, after