DOI Heft:
No. 303 (June 1925)
DOI Artikel:Victor Burnand
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21402#0323
VICTOR BURNAND
3—i
VICTOR BURNAND. 00a
MR. VICTOR BURNAND is one of
the many water-colour painters who
have given the greater part of their life's
work in the helping and teaching of others.
That seems the inevitable fate of the water-
colour painter in England. The British
public cares for art sufficiently for a vast
number of persons, young and old, to seek
instruction in the rudiments of drawing
and painting, but this public does not
care quite sufficiently to buy pictures and
support its masters. A large public,
however, is trained in some standard of
taste, if not a very high one, and it is the
drawing masters who have made the
English school of water-colour, a 0
Mr. Victor Burnand paints in the tradi-
tion of that school, in the tradition
which was largely founded by David
Cox, who was one of the first to paint in
water-colour as opposed to washing in
the coloured drawing. By drawing with
a broad brush of liquid colour Cox im-
" CORFE CASTLE." WATER-COLOUR
BY VICTOR W. BURNAND
provised a method which enables an
artist to express his emotions quickly in
the presence of nature; and that is
recognised now to be the most suitable
function of water-colour as a medium.
Mr. Burnand shows his appreciation of
this truth, and his work has nothing of the
laborious woolliness which comes of over-
working and of more attention to irrelevant
facts than to values and design. He dis-
claims any particular creed, and simply
strives to express the feelings induced in him
by the study of the varying seasons of
nature; and, while his interpretation is not
the drastic treatment of a stylist like Cotman
or of many moderns, the subject is always
well chosen with a view to composition.
One of our illustrations shows a bold
design in silhouette with a beautifully
luminous silver cloud thrown across the
sky behind the hill. Another illustration,
Evening Stillness, is so successful that we
would almost prefer it without a name,
so obviously happy it is in expressing the
mood of evening. The figures in his
317
3—i
VICTOR BURNAND. 00a
MR. VICTOR BURNAND is one of
the many water-colour painters who
have given the greater part of their life's
work in the helping and teaching of others.
That seems the inevitable fate of the water-
colour painter in England. The British
public cares for art sufficiently for a vast
number of persons, young and old, to seek
instruction in the rudiments of drawing
and painting, but this public does not
care quite sufficiently to buy pictures and
support its masters. A large public,
however, is trained in some standard of
taste, if not a very high one, and it is the
drawing masters who have made the
English school of water-colour, a 0
Mr. Victor Burnand paints in the tradi-
tion of that school, in the tradition
which was largely founded by David
Cox, who was one of the first to paint in
water-colour as opposed to washing in
the coloured drawing. By drawing with
a broad brush of liquid colour Cox im-
" CORFE CASTLE." WATER-COLOUR
BY VICTOR W. BURNAND
provised a method which enables an
artist to express his emotions quickly in
the presence of nature; and that is
recognised now to be the most suitable
function of water-colour as a medium.
Mr. Burnand shows his appreciation of
this truth, and his work has nothing of the
laborious woolliness which comes of over-
working and of more attention to irrelevant
facts than to values and design. He dis-
claims any particular creed, and simply
strives to express the feelings induced in him
by the study of the varying seasons of
nature; and, while his interpretation is not
the drastic treatment of a stylist like Cotman
or of many moderns, the subject is always
well chosen with a view to composition.
One of our illustrations shows a bold
design in silhouette with a beautifully
luminous silver cloud thrown across the
sky behind the hill. Another illustration,
Evening Stillness, is so successful that we
would almost prefer it without a name,
so obviously happy it is in expressing the
mood of evening. The figures in his
317