Studio: international art (82.1921)

SOME DRAWINGS BY HENRY RUSHBURY

able reputation he is building up for
himself, far more on the accompanying
illustrations than on any verbal strength. 0

Extremists will deny that Rushbury is a
" modern " artist in the fullest sense. His
modernity is of a middle kind, full of tradi-
tional English elements, and outwardly
unaffected by the developments associated
with the influence of Cezanne. But a pro-
test may be made against the common
attempt to limit modernity to a particular
movement. The fine tradition of English
landscape, of the kind that the New English
Art Club has struggled so hard to maintain,
has still a good deal of progressive life in it,
and some of its transmutations, for instance
that of which Mr. Wilson Steer is the
acknowledged master, are as representative
of our own period (in a word, modern) as
any other fashion of painting. Besides, a
good picture is always a good picture,
irrespective of fashion. " In the house of
art there are many mansions." If we
admire Wilson and Crome and Cotman, we
should admire them no less if they were
painting to-day. If the spirit in which they
worked still lives it will express itself, not in
exactly the same terms—that would be
impossible without deliberate archaicism,
concerned with external accidents of man-
ner—but clearly and with a true modernity.
An artist like Rushbury seems destined to
carry on some part of the national tradition
in this way. He is of the sturdy independ-
ent type that produced such good results,
during the eighteenth century and the early
part of the nineteenth, in the Norwich
School and among the excellent little
masters of water-colour. They were honest,
clear-sighted individuals, caring little for
theory, and partial to a delicate sentiment
or dramatic quality; who, if they were
moved to paint the Thames, would not
think first of how to set it on fire. Like
them, Rushbury has a sense of the romance
of familiar things, and, though he is con-
cerned with design, he practically never
treats his landscape abstractly as pure form.
Here again the precise use of a term blocks
the way. The connection of " romance "
with aesthetics is out of favour. The word
may be construed as a positive insult.
Goethe, it will be remembered, defined
" romantic " as " sickly," as opposed to
classic health. Pseudo-romance, literary,

146

anecdotal or theatrical, fluctuating between
bathos and hysteria, has been the bane of
English art. But no accusation of sickliness
can be made against Rushbury. His senti-
ment is truthful and restrained, entirely
subordinate to his pictorial motive, and he
is in no danger of falling into the merely
" picturesque." Unfortunately none of his
pure landscapes could be included among
the illustrations. His work in Normandy
last year, and many of his English land-
scapes, rural and suburban, show that his
sympathy has a wider range than might be
gathered from his drawings of Marseilles ;
though these cannot be called monotonous.
His reticent colour has a distinct charm.
He has made almost no use of oil-paint,
preferring tempera for work on a large
scale, and this choice of medium has no
doubt affected his colour in some degree.
At least he aims at clearness and freshness,
and does not try to rival in water-colour the
fulness and depth of oils. 000
His use of tempera is, perhaps, a con-
sequence of his early training. He was
educated in his native city of Birmingham,
where several well-known artists have
specialised in this medium. His circum-
stances were not over propitious for a
young artist. At an age when more
fortunate youths are still at school, he was
faced with the material difficulties of life.
His first step in his chosen career was to
study at the Birmingham School of Art,
the preliminary fee being met by the sale
of two buck guinea-pigs ; and somehow
he managed to persist there for four years.
The tendency of the School being princi-
pally towards the encouragement of decora-
tive and useful arts, most of Rushbury's
time was given to the study of lettering,
pattern designing, stained glass and other
lesser crafts. He came away with a
collection of silver and bronze medals and
Government certificates, and spent two
years in the Cotswolds, acting as assistant
to Mr. Henry Payne, R.W.S., a decorative
artist whose work is familiar to readers of
The Studio. At the end of this period,
Rushbury decided that he was not drawn
towards decorative art. He came to
London, with five pounds as his only
capital, and a commission to paint the
Virgin on a ten-foot canvas for another
five pounds. A casual meeting with Mr.