Studio: international art (84.1922)

THE PAINTINGS OF WILL C. PENN, R.O.I.

The man who can paint many subjects in
the spirit those subjects demand is a greater
artist than he who paints one thing and one
only and for ever, nature (hard task
mistress) having made no two subjects alike.
The portrait painter who gains the whole
world of technical achievement is profited
little if he lose his own soul and that
of his sitter in the process. It is therefore
the true portrait painter of whom we can
say that in looking at his works we can form
an idea of how the sitters would act in
certain events of life, especially when the
painter is an objectivist; for the frequent
stumbling block of the objectivist is a
neglect of the spiritual or an inability to
express it. Said Stevenson " The difficulty
of literature is not to write, but to write
what you mean." It is possible in painting
to be so taken up with brush flourishing

that we lose our meaning altogether, or
express what we did not intend. Mr.
Penn's brush is lively but his mind is
livelier and his sitters are given information
about themselves in a manner kindly but
inexorably truthful. 0000

Mr. Penn's still life studies are excellent
in tone and colour and as definite and
serious as those of the Dutch masters whose
inspiration he has felt. In their good
company he has declined to float above
the third dimension and has clung to literal
truth. The attitude which conveys " I may
or may not like this, but it is there " does
not suit everyone, but it has an indisputable
right to existence, if the spirit behind the
attitude is well expressed. 000

Spirit is the special property of no one
school and it may wellbefoundin thework of
a man whose general development has been

35