DOI Heft:
No. 370 (January 1924)
DOI Artikel:[Notes: two hundred and twenty-one illustrations]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21399#0063
EDINBURGH
EDINBURGH.—By many, the mem-
bers of the artist community are not
looked upon as possessing more than a
normal amount of energy. In fact, it
is believed by some that if their tempera-
tures could be taken in that respect,
the thermometer would never rise above a
placid degree. It may be justly said that
there is a certain section of that fraternity
of whom that belief may be true. But
there are, too, more sections of numerous
exceptions, and certainly Mr. W. Miles
Johnston would be included amongst
them. His remarkable energy is one of his
most noticeable characteristics. His early
days were spent as a student in the Edin-
burgh College of Art, which he followed
up with a considerable period of outdoor
drawing and animal painting in America,
returning some few years ago with many
canvases, simple and refined in treatment,
of unusual aspects of that country’s land-
scapes ; art motives in which he expresses
himself with a refined outlook and great
delicacy of poetic feeling; be the dominant
theme of the moment, some lonely shep-
herd’s cottage, a row of bathers and bathing
boxes on a sunlit shore, or tall pine trees,
through which one sees the ever enchanting
" THE BITTERN.” PASTEL
BY W. MILES JOHNSTON
"SEALBASKING.” PASTEL
BY W. MILES JOHNSTON
blue hills of Arran. But perhaps the most
fascinating amongst all his works are his oil
paintings and pastel drawings of animals,
such subjects as rabbits, parrots, cockatoos ;
but all the various members of the feathered
family have an irresistible charm for him,
and should one show him a newly shot
bird of rare plumage, you may rely upon
his borrowing it, and that it will be rapidly
recaptured in a distinguished drawing as
well as safely returned long before it
shows any other signs of animated life.
At present he may be found in his Edin-
burgh studio, where he and his wife, also
an accomplished artist, equally concentrate
their energy in conducting interesting, as
well as unique, classes in drawing and other
art instruction, it being in its elementary
stage a side of education in which he main-
tains some uncommon methods by which he
gets the best from each student without
their feeling they have been set a weari-
some task. Otherwise much of his spare
time is taken up studying the animal
and bird life in the Edinburgh Zoological
Gardens. His Seal Basking and The
Bittern, here reproduced, are attractive
examples of that study. But, like the
swallows when spring and summer come,
Edinburgh knows him no more. Like
them, he obeys the call to fresh fields
and pastures new, and to discover him
then will be to find him sketching and
pastel-stained near Brodick’s shores and
glens, or amidst the quiet hills of Grey
Galloway. E.A. T.
45
EDINBURGH.—By many, the mem-
bers of the artist community are not
looked upon as possessing more than a
normal amount of energy. In fact, it
is believed by some that if their tempera-
tures could be taken in that respect,
the thermometer would never rise above a
placid degree. It may be justly said that
there is a certain section of that fraternity
of whom that belief may be true. But
there are, too, more sections of numerous
exceptions, and certainly Mr. W. Miles
Johnston would be included amongst
them. His remarkable energy is one of his
most noticeable characteristics. His early
days were spent as a student in the Edin-
burgh College of Art, which he followed
up with a considerable period of outdoor
drawing and animal painting in America,
returning some few years ago with many
canvases, simple and refined in treatment,
of unusual aspects of that country’s land-
scapes ; art motives in which he expresses
himself with a refined outlook and great
delicacy of poetic feeling; be the dominant
theme of the moment, some lonely shep-
herd’s cottage, a row of bathers and bathing
boxes on a sunlit shore, or tall pine trees,
through which one sees the ever enchanting
" THE BITTERN.” PASTEL
BY W. MILES JOHNSTON
"SEALBASKING.” PASTEL
BY W. MILES JOHNSTON
blue hills of Arran. But perhaps the most
fascinating amongst all his works are his oil
paintings and pastel drawings of animals,
such subjects as rabbits, parrots, cockatoos ;
but all the various members of the feathered
family have an irresistible charm for him,
and should one show him a newly shot
bird of rare plumage, you may rely upon
his borrowing it, and that it will be rapidly
recaptured in a distinguished drawing as
well as safely returned long before it
shows any other signs of animated life.
At present he may be found in his Edin-
burgh studio, where he and his wife, also
an accomplished artist, equally concentrate
their energy in conducting interesting, as
well as unique, classes in drawing and other
art instruction, it being in its elementary
stage a side of education in which he main-
tains some uncommon methods by which he
gets the best from each student without
their feeling they have been set a weari-
some task. Otherwise much of his spare
time is taken up studying the animal
and bird life in the Edinburgh Zoological
Gardens. His Seal Basking and The
Bittern, here reproduced, are attractive
examples of that study. But, like the
swallows when spring and summer come,
Edinburgh knows him no more. Like
them, he obeys the call to fresh fields
and pastures new, and to discover him
then will be to find him sketching and
pastel-stained near Brodick’s shores and
glens, or amidst the quiet hills of Grey
Galloway. E.A. T.
45