DOI Heft:
No. 386 (May 1925)
DOI Artikel:Baldry, Alfred Lys: The art of Mr. W. Heath Robinson
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21402#0255
THE ART OF MR. W. HEATH ROBINSON
DP
" ANDY BATTLE." PEN DRAW-
ING BY W. HEATH ROBINSON
motive needs, if it is to be satisfying, to
be treated with a full sense of its decorative
possibilities. In this his consistency is
as notable as it is commendable ; he has
a stability of conviction and a directness
of purpose which guide him surely in
everything he does, 0000
Indeed, it is because he is so consistently
a decorator that his work, when it is
properly analysed, reveals such a high
degree of artistic understanding. It is
by decorative simplification and by careful
attention to the balancing of pattern that
he is able to deal with complicated arrange-
ments like The Fair Day and Fishing
without making them too involved to be
intelligible ; it is by the considered spacing
of the various details in the design that
such fantastic absurdities as How to
Dispense with Servants and A New Use for
Old War Balloons acquire pictorial authority
and a quaint dignity of effect which
enhances their value as humorous efforts.
It is his consciousness of artistic responsi-
bility that enables him to play the fool
so persuasively and to give to his most
ridiculous imaginings an air of solemn
probability. If he tried to make his art
as funny in treatment as it is in motive,
much of its point would be lost and
certainly much of its influence over people
who, even when they do not know why,
respond to the unusual combination of
light hearted fancy and serious technical
expression that Mr. Heath Robinson offers
for their acceptance. 000
There is the same seriousness of ex-
pression in the pictures which he produces
to satisfy his love of imaginative invention
and to realise fancies in which humour
does not play the leading part—in The
Thief, for instance, the studious attention
he has devoted to the completion of a
decorative abstraction has far more to do
with the success of his design than the
fact that the beings introduced to fill out
the picture are actors in an amusing little
comedy intended to make people laugh.
There is the same insistence upon the need
for deliberate construction in those of his
works which record his observations of
nature and in which he transcribes her
realities with a full sense of their poetic
suggestion ; here again he recognises de-
sign as the indispensable foundation upon
which all else must be built up, if the
structure is to have its necessary air of
strength and solidity. Always he strives
for that exact adjustment of line and mass
which is the first essential in true decora-
tion, and always he aims at that beauty of
pattern which gives to a pictorial com-
position its most decisive charm. That
his aim has been rightly directed and that
his efforts have met with success can be
seen plainly enough in the work he has
achieved; he has done enough in a
variety of directions to prove decisively
what manner of artist he is. 0 0
249
DP
" ANDY BATTLE." PEN DRAW-
ING BY W. HEATH ROBINSON
motive needs, if it is to be satisfying, to
be treated with a full sense of its decorative
possibilities. In this his consistency is
as notable as it is commendable ; he has
a stability of conviction and a directness
of purpose which guide him surely in
everything he does, 0000
Indeed, it is because he is so consistently
a decorator that his work, when it is
properly analysed, reveals such a high
degree of artistic understanding. It is
by decorative simplification and by careful
attention to the balancing of pattern that
he is able to deal with complicated arrange-
ments like The Fair Day and Fishing
without making them too involved to be
intelligible ; it is by the considered spacing
of the various details in the design that
such fantastic absurdities as How to
Dispense with Servants and A New Use for
Old War Balloons acquire pictorial authority
and a quaint dignity of effect which
enhances their value as humorous efforts.
It is his consciousness of artistic responsi-
bility that enables him to play the fool
so persuasively and to give to his most
ridiculous imaginings an air of solemn
probability. If he tried to make his art
as funny in treatment as it is in motive,
much of its point would be lost and
certainly much of its influence over people
who, even when they do not know why,
respond to the unusual combination of
light hearted fancy and serious technical
expression that Mr. Heath Robinson offers
for their acceptance. 000
There is the same seriousness of ex-
pression in the pictures which he produces
to satisfy his love of imaginative invention
and to realise fancies in which humour
does not play the leading part—in The
Thief, for instance, the studious attention
he has devoted to the completion of a
decorative abstraction has far more to do
with the success of his design than the
fact that the beings introduced to fill out
the picture are actors in an amusing little
comedy intended to make people laugh.
There is the same insistence upon the need
for deliberate construction in those of his
works which record his observations of
nature and in which he transcribes her
realities with a full sense of their poetic
suggestion ; here again he recognises de-
sign as the indispensable foundation upon
which all else must be built up, if the
structure is to have its necessary air of
strength and solidity. Always he strives
for that exact adjustment of line and mass
which is the first essential in true decora-
tion, and always he aims at that beauty of
pattern which gives to a pictorial com-
position its most decisive charm. That
his aim has been rightly directed and that
his efforts have met with success can be
seen plainly enough in the work he has
achieved; he has done enough in a
variety of directions to prove decisively
what manner of artist he is. 0 0
249