Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/551

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BRITISH]
PAINTING
501

first in the Slade School under Professor Legros and afterwards in Paris, whose early death removed a master of his art; and others like Walter Osborne, Richard Jack, Glyn Philpot and Gerald Kelly. In the class of figure painters, who are individual in their work, and owe little or nothing to the suggestions of foreign teachers, a number of artists can be enumerated who have in common little besides a sincere desire to express their personal conviction Individual Figure Painters in their own way. Among them are some of the most distinguished of modern artists, who stand out as the unquestioned chiefs of the school. Sir John Millais occupies a place in this group by virtue of his admirable pictorial work, and with him are W. Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, G. f . Watts, Sir Edward Burnc-Jones, Albert Moore and Ford Madox Brown, each one of whom may be regarded as a leader. There are also J. M. Strudwick (b. 1849), R. Spencer Stanhope (d. 1908) and Evelyn de Morgan, followers of Burne-Jones, and J. W. Waterhouse (A.R.A. 1885; R.A. 1895), in many ways the most original and inspired of English imaginative painters; and, again, M. Greiffenhagen, F. Cayley Robinson and Mrs Swynnerton. Into this class come also the decorative painters, Walter Crane Decorative Painters. (b. 1845), a prolific illustrator and picture-painter and producer of an extraordinary amount of work in branches of decoration; Frank Brangwyn, whose pictures and designs are marked by fine qualities of execution and by much sumptuousness of colour; and several others, like H. J. Draper, Harold Speed, R. Anning Bell, Gerald Moira and G. Spencer Watson. As a branch of the decorative school, a small group of artists who have revived the practice of tempera-painting must also be noted. It includes Mrs Adrian Stokes, J. D. Batten, J. E. Southall, Arthur Gaskin, and a few others with well-marked decorative tendencies.

During recent years a movement has begun which apparently aims at the revival of Pre-Raphaelitism. It is headed by a few The New Pre-Repahelite School. young artists, whose methods show a mingling together of the precision of the 19th-century Pre-Raphaelites and a kind of decorative formality. The influential of the artists concerned in the formation of this new school is J. Byam Shaw (b. 1872), whose originality and quaintness of fancy give to his pictures a more than ordinary degree of persuasiveness. A strong colourist and an able draughtsman, he possesses in a high degree the faculty of imaginative expression, allied with humour that never degenerates into farce. His strongest preference is for symbolical subjects which embody some moral lesson. Other prominent members of the group are F. Cadogan Cowper (A.R.A. 1907) and Miss Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, who is in manner much like Byam Shaw, but yet does not sink her individuality in mere imitative effort.

The painters of landscapes and sea-pictures have for the most part been little affected by the unrest which has caused so many Landscape Painters new departures in figure-work. A love of nature has always been one of the best British characteristics, and it is proved itself to be strong enough to keep those artists who seek their inspiration out of doors from falling to any great extent under the control of particular technical fashions. Therefore there is in the school of " open-air " painting little evidence of any change in point of view, or of the growth of any modern feeling at variance with that by which masters of landscape were swayed a century or more ago. Impressionism has gained a few adherents, and the French Barbizon school — itself created in response to a suggestion from England — has reacted upon a section of the younger artists. But, on the whole, in this branch of art the British school has gained in power and confidence, without surrendering that sturdy independence which in the past produced such momentous results. The absence of any common convention, or of any set pattern of landscape which would lead to uniformity of effort, has left the students of nature free to express themselves in a personal way. The most devout believers in the value of French training, and in the infallibility of the dogmas which emanate from the Paris studios, have not, except in rare instances, demanded any radical remodelling of the British landscape school on French lines, as local conditions affecting the practice of this branch of art make impossible all drastic alterations. Most workers in the front rank can claim to be judged on individual merits, and not as members of a particular coterie. Still, it is convenient to divide the members of the landscape school into such classes as realists, romanticists and subjective painters of landscape.

Among the most notable of the first class are H. W. B. Davis (b. 1883; A.R.A. 1873; R.A. 1877), the painter of a long series of Realistic Landscape. dainty scenes which suggest happily the charm of rural England; Peter Graham, elected an Academician in 1881, who has alternated for the greater part of his working life between Scottish moorland subjects, with cattle wandering on bare hillsides and pictures of coast scenery, with sea-gulls perched on dark rocks; David Murray (b. 1849; A.R.A. 1891; R.A. 1905), an artist whose career has been marked by consistent effort to interpret nature's suggestions with dignity and intelligence; Sir Ernest A. Waterlow (b. 1850; A.R.A. 1890; R.A. 1903), trained in the Royal Academy and afterwards President of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, a graceful painter, with a tender colour feeling and an excellent technical style; Yeend King (b. 1855), trained partly in England, and partly in Paris under Bonnat and Cormon, a sound craftsman who made a reputation by landscapes in which are introduced groups of figures on a fairly important scale; Alfred Parsons (b. 1847), elected an Associate in 1897, who paints rich river scenery with careful regard for actuality and with much minuteness and exquisiteness of detail, especially in the rendering of llowers; and Frank Walton (b. 1840), who chooses, as a rule, landscape motives which enable him to display unusual powers of accurate draughtsmanship. To the same class of realists belonged Vicat Cole, R.A.; Birket Foster, J. W. Oakes, A.R.A.; Keeley Halswellc, and perhaps Alfred W. Hunt, though in his case realism was tempered by a delicate poetic imagination.

The romanticists and pastoral painters have in many cases been perceptibly affected by the example of the Barbizon school, but they owe much to such famous Englishmen as Cecil Lawson, Romantic and Pastrol Painters. John Linnell (both of whom died in 1882), George Mason (A.R.A. 1868; d. 1872) and Frederick Walker (A.R.A. 1871; d. 1875). The most prominent later member of the group is, perhaps. Sir Alfred East (b. 1849), trained first in the Glasgow School of Art and afterwards in Paris, elected an Associate in 1899, a painter endowed with an exceptional faculty for suggesting the poetry of nature and with an admirable sense of decorative arrangement; but there are, besides, Leslie Thomson (b. 1851), whose art is especially sound and sincere; J. Aumonier, a pastoral painter with very refined appreciation of subtleties of aerial colour; C. W. Wyllie, a painter of delicate vision and charm of presentation; J. S. Hill, whose sombre landscapes are distinguished in design and impressive in their depth of tone; R. W. Allan (b. 1852), who uses a robust technical method with equal skill in landscapes and coast subjects; J. Buxton Knight (b, 1842; d. 1908), a vigorous manipulator, with a liking for rich harmonies and low tones; Joseph Knight (b. 1838; d. 1909), whose well drawn and broadly painted pictures in oil and water-colour have been for many years appreciated by lovers of unaffected nature; Lionel P. Smythe (A.R.A. 1898), a colourist who handles exquisitely the most delicate atmospheric effects and is unusually successful in his rendering of diffused daylight; J. W. North (A.R.A. in 1893), a painter of fanciful landscapes in which definition of form is subordinated to modulations of decorative colour; Claude Hayes, who studied in the Royal Academy Schools, and carried on the tradition established by David Cox and his contemporaries; J. L. Pickering, a lover of dramatic light-and-shade contrasts and a student of romantic mountain scenery; A. D. Peppercorn, who gives breadth and dignity with sombre colour and delicate gradation of tone; Adrian Stokes (b. 1854; A.R.A. 1910) and M. Ridley Corbet (who died in 1902, only a few months after his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy), a classicist in landscape, in whose pictures can be perceived a definite reflection of the teaching of Professor Costa, the Italian master. There must also be noted, as leaders among the pastoral painters, George Clausen (b. 1852), trained first in the South Kensington School and afterwards in Paris under Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury, and elected an Associate in 1895 and R.A. in 1908, who began as a strict realist and afterwards developed into a rustic idealist; H. H. La Thangue, trained in the Royal Academy Schools and in Paris, elected an Associate in 1898, an artist of amazing technical vigour and an uncompromising interpreter of rural subjects; Edward Stott (A.R.A. 1906), trained in Paris under Carolus Duran and Cabanel, who paints delicately the more poetic aspects of the life of the fields; J. Arnesby Brown (b. 1866; A.R.A. 1903); Oliver Hall, Albert Goodwin, A. Friedenson and others.

The painters of landscape subjectively considered, who conventionalize nature with the idea of giving to their pictures a kind Subjective Landscape. of sentimental as distinguished from emotional sug- gestion, are most strikingly represented by B. W. Leader (b. 1831), trained in the Worcester School of Design and in the Royal Academy Schools, and elected an Academician in 1898. He became a strong favourite of the public, and his academic and precise technical methods were widely admired by the many people who are not satisfied with unaffected transcriptions of natural scenes and of the passion of nature.

In marine painting no one has appeared to rival Henry Moore, perhaps the greatest student of wave-forms the world has seen; Marine Painting. but good work has been done by the late Edwin Hayes, an Irish painter, whose powers showed no sign of failure up to his death in 1904. after some half-century of continuous labour; W. L. Wyllie (b. 1851; A.R.A. 1889; R.A. T907), trained in the Royal Academy Schools, who paints sea and shipping with intelligent understanding; T. Somerscales, a self taught artist, with an intimate knowledge of the ocean derived from long actual experience as a sailor; and especially C. Napier Hemy (b. 1841; A.R.A. 1898; R.-A. 1910), trained at the Antwerp Academy and in the studio of Baron Leys, a powerful manipulator, with a preference for the dramatic aspects of his subject. J. C. Hook (d. 1907), retained into old age the subtle qualities which made his pictures notable among the best productions of the British school. Mention must be made of John Brett (1830-1902; A.R.A. 1881), the one Pre-Raphaelite sea painter, and Hamilton Macallum