Studio: international art (89.1925)

THE ART OF MR. HARRY MORLEY

' the night passeth and the day
cometh." by harry morley

THE ART OF MR. HARRY MORLEY start which may lead on to a dimly per-
BY W. GAUNT, B.A. a 0 a ceived goal. There are those who will

start with the negro, take their inspiration
T is a striking if somewhat dreary from mere savagery, and turn the old

I

thought that there is an end set to every broad highway of evolution into a mere
path of human endeavour, that there chaos, with little bright patches here and
comes a time of brilliant effort which there, set deeper and ever deeper in the
completes one particular phase of ex- confusion. With much of this it is im-
pression so decisively that no one can possible for persons not afflicted with
ever seriously compete in that kind again, nerves, morbidity, or affectation to sym-
Greek sculpture achieved such a finality, pathise. And here again we find in Mr.
and the stern ne plus ultra made Canova, Harry Morley that calmness and sanity
Thorwaldsen and Flaxman merely ridic- which mark him off from others who
ulous when they attempted a similar look backward. He seeks for a tradition
achievement. Shakespeare made the post- to rest upon and has chosen a good one.
Shakespearean romantic drama ridiculous. Aware that the full Renaissance, with its
So after looking upon the heights of the florid and naturalistic trend may (and,
Renaissance who will dare to pile artistic indeed, has in the past) become a despotism,
Pelion upon Ossa i Which brings us to he has been led by his natural inclinations
the significance of the paintings of Mr. to an art obviously capable of the highest
Harry Morley. He has looked upon the development — that of the Early
Renaissance and, for the very reason that Florentines. 00000
he found it supremely good, decided to He is thus a pre-Raphaelite. We would
do something else. He has taken the not be understood to say that he has
imperfect tradition rather than the perfect imitated the Brethren of the nineteenth
for his model, and has made it his business century, or that his work bears many
to evolve something original out of the obvious resemblances to theirs. It is
incomplete. 00000 simply that the same stream of influence
In this he is not alone. It is a general has touched him, and has made him turn
feature of modern art that it hovers over towards the same quarter. He has gone
the whole artistic field that its predecessors to the source rather than to the derivative,
have covered, seeking ever for the fresh and, with somewhat different results, due
Vol. LXXXIX. No. 384.—March, 1925. 123