DOI issue:
No. 340 (July 1921)
DOI article:Baldry, Alfred Lys: Captain J. Audley Harvey's collection, [1]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21393#0020
CAPTAIN J. AUDLEY HARVEY'S COLLECTION
likings are based upon serious study and
long experience, and their selective sense is
controlled by an intimate knowledge of
aesthetic essentials. They are real judges of
art, and the collections they bring together
have a significant balance of qualities which
is very convincing because it is the result of
a consistent effort to realise certain ideals.
It is particularly because it shows so well
how this effort can be most effectively
directed that Captain Audley Harvey's
collection claims consideration. As an
example of judicious selection and as the
expression of a discriminating taste it is
most interesting, and as a gathering of
important works of art it has a definite
authority. To the people who limit them-
selves to the recognition of one only of the
many possible forms of artistic practice it
would, no doubt, seem rather incoherent
because it is full of contrasts of styles and
ranges over rather wide ground, and
4
because it includes paintings which attack
the problems of art from all sorts of stand-
points. But this incoherence, which can
better be described as comprehensiveness,
is not the least of its merits ; it proves that
the collector who is correctly observant of
the artistic achievement of his time must,
if he wishes to acquire the best things that
come within his reach, develop a thoroughly
catholic judgment and appreciate the fact
that no one school has a monopoly of great
accomplishment. 0000
Decidedly, Captain Harvey must be
credited with this acuteness of observa-
tion, and, as well, with a collector's ideal
which is more than ordinarily enlightened.
He has brought together Brangwyn and
Edward Stott, Arnesby Brown and Oliver
Hall, Clausen and Edgar Bundy, J. S.
Sargent and J. M. Swan, Cazin and D. Y.
Cameron; he has not neglected the
modern primitives and he has not despised
likings are based upon serious study and
long experience, and their selective sense is
controlled by an intimate knowledge of
aesthetic essentials. They are real judges of
art, and the collections they bring together
have a significant balance of qualities which
is very convincing because it is the result of
a consistent effort to realise certain ideals.
It is particularly because it shows so well
how this effort can be most effectively
directed that Captain Audley Harvey's
collection claims consideration. As an
example of judicious selection and as the
expression of a discriminating taste it is
most interesting, and as a gathering of
important works of art it has a definite
authority. To the people who limit them-
selves to the recognition of one only of the
many possible forms of artistic practice it
would, no doubt, seem rather incoherent
because it is full of contrasts of styles and
ranges over rather wide ground, and
4
because it includes paintings which attack
the problems of art from all sorts of stand-
points. But this incoherence, which can
better be described as comprehensiveness,
is not the least of its merits ; it proves that
the collector who is correctly observant of
the artistic achievement of his time must,
if he wishes to acquire the best things that
come within his reach, develop a thoroughly
catholic judgment and appreciate the fact
that no one school has a monopoly of great
accomplishment. 0000
Decidedly, Captain Harvey must be
credited with this acuteness of observa-
tion, and, as well, with a collector's ideal
which is more than ordinarily enlightened.
He has brought together Brangwyn and
Edward Stott, Arnesby Brown and Oliver
Hall, Clausen and Edgar Bundy, J. S.
Sargent and J. M. Swan, Cazin and D. Y.
Cameron; he has not neglected the
modern primitives and he has not despised