Studio: international art (89.1925)

THE ART OF MR. W. S. HORTON

a nutshell, it seems to me that Mr. Horton
has never ascribed to these questions more
importance than they deserve, and I
hasten to add that this has never prevented
him from painting good pictures, from
being as original as possible, and from
gaining the good opinion of the connois-
seurs. To give unity and cohesion to his
studies he has been in the habit of con-
centrating on a particular motive, to which
he felt drawn for a certain period, and I
think that this method has served him
singularly well. I remember a series of
beach scenes, painted at different times
in the day, showing the shore at one
moment almost deserted and at another
swarming with movement. He had with
charming ease succeeded in catching the
gestures of the bathers, the many-coloured
crowd, the children and the pierrots, and
the sparkling sunshine over beach and sea.

I have recently seen at his studio the
majority of the pictures which he is to
exhibit at the Leicester Galleries, and I
was greatly impressed by them, a 0

The series which he modestly entitles
Chansonnettes embodies fugitive impressions
of his stay in Switzerland—river-banks,
snow on the mountains, impressions of
rare grandeur and charm ; and I was not
less impressed by the series he calls
he Roi Soleil, in which he has succeeded in
capturing the splendour of the sun on the
snowy heights with a brilliance, a freedom
in technique and a boldness which call
to mind these qualities as expressed by
Turner. a 0 a 0 a

Mr. Horton has also studied Venice, and
here he has secured undoubtedly novel
effects. In another subject, The Skaters,
he shows the figures in a snowstorm,
through an atmosphere full of white