DOI issue:
No. 182 (January 1925)
DOI article:Hind, Arthur Mayger: Some remarks on recent English painting
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21402#0011
SOME REMARKS ON RECENT ENGLISH PAINTING
In general the avoidance of human
interest has led to a greater uniformity of
character in the work of the group of
artists chiefly inspired by modern French
art, than was evinced by the old Academic
painting. There is too little 'thought for
the varied quality of paint suited to dif-
ferent subjects ; and brown nudes, made
fashionable by Gauguin, to take one
example, are treated in a forceful manner
more suited to mountain landscape. The
landscape dress itself is too consistently
French for English work, and the best
things that Duncan Grant has done are,
in my opinion, more nearly in the vein
of Constable than of Cezanne. It is easy
to speak of internationalism in art, but
the truest art always retains the real
flavour of its country; even if English
art is doomed to remain provincial in
foreign eyes, it is not bettered in essential
qualities by becoming outwardly Conti-
nental, and I am confident that the art
of such painters as Steer, Holmes,Cameron,
Clausen and Rothenstein will be regarded
in future as the more representative,
in that its development has been more
national as well as more natural. I
illustrate as one of the best recent ex-
amples of what I have called the French
tendencies, Mr. Elliott Seabrooke's Rocks
at Le Lavandou, where subtle relations of
forms and colours are conveyed with less
sacrifice of natural beauty than is evidenced
in so much recent work. 000
In the natural expression of landscape,
in which English art can claim in Constable
an inspirer and not a follower of the
French, I would refer with particular
appreciation to the work of Mr. Gilbert
Spencer and Mr. Allan Gwynne-Jones.
Mr. Spencer shows imaginative vision in
his very fidelity to nature, and his Gar-
sington, in a recent Goupil exhibition,
was as beautiful an example as I have seen;
while Mr. Gwynne-Jones, sketching in oil
with a fresh touch reminiscent of Constable,
has done his finest things, such as the
Spring Evening, Froxfield, with an unusual
understanding of the intricate beauties
of nature's tracery combined with a large
sense of design. 0000
Amid the chameleon tendencies of
modern art it is pleasant to refer to
a master so notable for singleness of
DRAWING IN BLACK AND RED
CHALK. BY W. P. ROBERTS
(Chenil Gallery)
aim as Mr. Lucien Pissarro. He has
suffered, perhaps, in his work as a
painter in oils from a more epoch-making
father, Camille Pissarro, the finest figure
in the Impressionist group. Lucien has
found a special niche in fame for his
beautiful books and woodcuts ; but as a
painter he has been chiefly known as an
unswerving follower of his father's aims,
to what excellent purpose has been shown
more clearly than ever in his recent
exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, from
which my illustration is taken. His Portrait
5
In general the avoidance of human
interest has led to a greater uniformity of
character in the work of the group of
artists chiefly inspired by modern French
art, than was evinced by the old Academic
painting. There is too little 'thought for
the varied quality of paint suited to dif-
ferent subjects ; and brown nudes, made
fashionable by Gauguin, to take one
example, are treated in a forceful manner
more suited to mountain landscape. The
landscape dress itself is too consistently
French for English work, and the best
things that Duncan Grant has done are,
in my opinion, more nearly in the vein
of Constable than of Cezanne. It is easy
to speak of internationalism in art, but
the truest art always retains the real
flavour of its country; even if English
art is doomed to remain provincial in
foreign eyes, it is not bettered in essential
qualities by becoming outwardly Conti-
nental, and I am confident that the art
of such painters as Steer, Holmes,Cameron,
Clausen and Rothenstein will be regarded
in future as the more representative,
in that its development has been more
national as well as more natural. I
illustrate as one of the best recent ex-
amples of what I have called the French
tendencies, Mr. Elliott Seabrooke's Rocks
at Le Lavandou, where subtle relations of
forms and colours are conveyed with less
sacrifice of natural beauty than is evidenced
in so much recent work. 000
In the natural expression of landscape,
in which English art can claim in Constable
an inspirer and not a follower of the
French, I would refer with particular
appreciation to the work of Mr. Gilbert
Spencer and Mr. Allan Gwynne-Jones.
Mr. Spencer shows imaginative vision in
his very fidelity to nature, and his Gar-
sington, in a recent Goupil exhibition,
was as beautiful an example as I have seen;
while Mr. Gwynne-Jones, sketching in oil
with a fresh touch reminiscent of Constable,
has done his finest things, such as the
Spring Evening, Froxfield, with an unusual
understanding of the intricate beauties
of nature's tracery combined with a large
sense of design. 0000
Amid the chameleon tendencies of
modern art it is pleasant to refer to
a master so notable for singleness of
DRAWING IN BLACK AND RED
CHALK. BY W. P. ROBERTS
(Chenil Gallery)
aim as Mr. Lucien Pissarro. He has
suffered, perhaps, in his work as a
painter in oils from a more epoch-making
father, Camille Pissarro, the finest figure
in the Impressionist group. Lucien has
found a special niche in fame for his
beautiful books and woodcuts ; but as a
painter he has been chiefly known as an
unswerving follower of his father's aims,
to what excellent purpose has been shown
more clearly than ever in his recent
exhibition at the Leicester Galleries, from
which my illustration is taken. His Portrait
5