DOI issue:
No. 362 (May 1923)
DOI article:Finberg, Alexander Joseph: Gerald Brockhurst's paintings and drawings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21397#0268
GERALD BROCKHURSTS PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS
above all craftsmanship and kills respect
for the medium in which the artist works.
The later Romanticists in their destructive
onslaughts upon the forms of art developed
quite logically the faults and weaknesses of
their own doctrines. Cubism and all the
different methods of distorting natural
shapes are merely the death struggles of
an impotent and worn-out convention. 0
But the failures of Romantic art are
organically connected with the failures,
social, moral and intellectual, of nine-
teenth-century education. Romanticism
was not merely an artistic and literary ex-
periment ; it was a way of life. The
insipid, conventional and frequently dis-
gusting works of Romantic art were merely
symptoms—like the Great War—of vast
underlying weaknesses ; symptoms of the
shrinking from fact, the nursing of illu-
sions, the evasiveness of thought, and
worship of unreason of the modern world.
Reaction against these vices in art must
display itself in a new feeling for fine
craftsmanship, in respect for the medium,
in a love of clearness, precision and com-
pleteness of statement. And these are the
most striking characteristics of Mr. Brock-
hurst's work. The appeal of his most
delightful paintings, like Fabian and The
Blue Cloak, exhibited at the Grosvenor
Galleries in 1921, and Hermione, and some
of the others here reproduced, depends
ultimately I believe upon the consummate
modelling of the figure. Mr. Brockhurst is
above all things a draughtsman. The two
beautiful pencil drawings here reproduced
are fine examples of the extraordinary keen-
ness and thoroughness of his studies, not
only in the rendering of the two dimen-
sions, but in the rendering of weight and
solidity. No difficulties are evaded, every-
thing is studied completely, and there is an
entire absence of that meaningless and
conventional scribble which passes with
the ignorant for inspiration and as the
mark of an “ advanced ” and emancipated
spirit. 0 0 0 0 0 0
The insistence upon the weight and
solidity of objects which gives distinction
to all Mr. Brockhurst does is, I believe, a
conscious and deliberate reaction on his
part against the flimsiness which was
brought into modern art by the Impres-
sionists. When first I became interested in
248
Mr. Brockhurst's work I could not help
wondering whether his freedom from the
conventional prejudices of the studios was
the result of some happy accident of birth
or environment. But I was pleased to find
that accident had nothing to do with the
matter. He had studied in the schools of
the Royal Academy, that hot-bed of con-
ventionality, but he has a way of thinking
and experimenting for himself. I found
that he had made a most painstaking and
thorough study of all the theories and the
practice of the French nineteenth-century
revolutionaries and experimenters. I doubt
BROCKHURST
above all craftsmanship and kills respect
for the medium in which the artist works.
The later Romanticists in their destructive
onslaughts upon the forms of art developed
quite logically the faults and weaknesses of
their own doctrines. Cubism and all the
different methods of distorting natural
shapes are merely the death struggles of
an impotent and worn-out convention. 0
But the failures of Romantic art are
organically connected with the failures,
social, moral and intellectual, of nine-
teenth-century education. Romanticism
was not merely an artistic and literary ex-
periment ; it was a way of life. The
insipid, conventional and frequently dis-
gusting works of Romantic art were merely
symptoms—like the Great War—of vast
underlying weaknesses ; symptoms of the
shrinking from fact, the nursing of illu-
sions, the evasiveness of thought, and
worship of unreason of the modern world.
Reaction against these vices in art must
display itself in a new feeling for fine
craftsmanship, in respect for the medium,
in a love of clearness, precision and com-
pleteness of statement. And these are the
most striking characteristics of Mr. Brock-
hurst's work. The appeal of his most
delightful paintings, like Fabian and The
Blue Cloak, exhibited at the Grosvenor
Galleries in 1921, and Hermione, and some
of the others here reproduced, depends
ultimately I believe upon the consummate
modelling of the figure. Mr. Brockhurst is
above all things a draughtsman. The two
beautiful pencil drawings here reproduced
are fine examples of the extraordinary keen-
ness and thoroughness of his studies, not
only in the rendering of the two dimen-
sions, but in the rendering of weight and
solidity. No difficulties are evaded, every-
thing is studied completely, and there is an
entire absence of that meaningless and
conventional scribble which passes with
the ignorant for inspiration and as the
mark of an “ advanced ” and emancipated
spirit. 0 0 0 0 0 0
The insistence upon the weight and
solidity of objects which gives distinction
to all Mr. Brockhurst does is, I believe, a
conscious and deliberate reaction on his
part against the flimsiness which was
brought into modern art by the Impres-
sionists. When first I became interested in
248
Mr. Brockhurst's work I could not help
wondering whether his freedom from the
conventional prejudices of the studios was
the result of some happy accident of birth
or environment. But I was pleased to find
that accident had nothing to do with the
matter. He had studied in the schools of
the Royal Academy, that hot-bed of con-
ventionality, but he has a way of thinking
and experimenting for himself. I found
that he had made a most painstaking and
thorough study of all the theories and the
practice of the French nineteenth-century
revolutionaries and experimenters. I doubt
BROCKHURST