ART.
THREE PICTURE EXHIBITIONS.
AT the Exhibition of the Old Water Colour Society the contrasts of old and new styles is as marked as in other places, but the new is not so much of a revolutionary kind as a return to the early tradition of English water-colour. - Among the painters who use the medium in the old way is Mr. L. A. Hunt. In his delightfully composed picture of some industrial works (138), with the tall chimney rising against the sky, he does not use his dark shadows merely to give an impression of solidity and roundness, but rather because the mass of dark is wanted just there to make the design of picture coherent and beautiful. Mr. Oliver Hall's reticent drawing of an estuary (34) is another example of beautiful work founded not on imitation, but on the understanding of the past. Mr. Theisen Flint is too good a painter to become an imitator, Probably by now he is wearied by being advised not to produce Melville at second hand, but anything is worth doing to prevent him from repeating a picture like his Spanish exercise (71), hung here in the post of honour. However, he shows us something very different and very much better in his finely grouped houses and trees (102). This work is one which satisfies by its quiet mastery without bravura. Here, too, is an example of how beautiful the water-colour medium can be in itself when it is unforced and unworried. Mr. Munnings, on the other hand, forces his paint to its limit : his dashing style is not to be realized except by the most vigorous methods. This painter's great natural gift never seems to be quite enough to extend to the boundaries of his pictures. Rossini said that the music of Wagner contained des novagnts brillant el des meuvais quarts d'heure ; we might say of Mr. Munnings that his pictures often have splendid main incidents and very tiresome backgrounds. His picture (121) of the gipsy woman and the white horse by which she is standing is a noble conception, a real piece of design, The two are fused into a pictorial whole after the manner of the Venetians, or perhaps we should say Lady Waterford. But when he gives us such a splendid group, why could the artist find nothing better to surround it with than inferior stage dress like fringe supported on poles? Of course the background had to be generalized and subdued, but not to this point of tasteless absurdity. The good work here is not all by the younger men, for Mr. Adrian Stokes's idyllic shore of the west coast of Scot- land (1) leaves a memory of lovely colour and accomplishment. Mr. Matthew Hale has given us a colour harmony of great beauty and distinction in his picture of sea and mountains, in which dull orange and dull purple blue are made to sing together in full and satisfying harmony.
Nowhere do pictures look better than in the Alpine Club Gallery. It is light and spacious, not meretricious in decoration, nor pontifical in air, as are some other places of exhibition. Pictures look well here, for the surroundings have the good taste of those who maintain a well-bred and sympathetic reticence while others talk. The pictures here are many of them well worth attention; and even if we feel that Mr. William Rothen- stein is but very moderately gifted with pictorial impulse, his scholarly dealing with facts makes him take the place of the well-informed person who, though he may never inspire, is sometimes interesting. Mr. John is different ; he has command of all the facts, but he.only occasionally lets them dominate him. There are two unfortunate examples here of servitude, the worst
being the portrait of Mr. W. B. Yeats (5), which, though a sound piece of work, is uninteresting. Quite otherwise are two small idylls (8 and 16). It is just because there is so little in either of them, just a figure out of doors of the type the artist so often paints, that these two pictures, and especially the first one, are so wonderful. All the qualities of form, colour, and execution are balanced and help one another, and above all is that quality which makes us feel that here has been a creation and not
something imitated. The same qualities appear in Eljland (32), v-ali its sunny Weir and children. Sir William Orpen is as brilliant as ever, but he should keep away from Mr. John, as the contact makes Sir William Orpen appear rather too matter. of-fact and too obviously competent. There is much to interest in the works of Mr. Gerald Brockhurst. He shows a scholarly appreciation of early Italian Renaissance work. His modelling of heads is after the manner of those followers of Leonardo who encountered blackness in their search for projection. But Mr, Brockhurst has a masterly hold on form, and in a head—Mer- cedes (35)—he shows that he can be a colourist too. Sincerity and force characterize Mr. Lamb's peasant's head (6) ; and the same qualities are evident in Mr. Eric Kennington's portrait studies, though here the force is sometimes pushed to the point of nearly being grotesque.
Among the American pictures being shown at the Grafton Gallery, the works of two artists stand out as being original. In both cases the works are unequal, but at their best both painters are good. The group of pictures hung together by Mr. Arthur B. Davies show that besides qualities of colour and drawing this artist has the rarer gift of combining his material into a coherent design. He also has that delightful quality of being able to conjure up a romance before our eyes—the title in the catalogue has nothing to do with it, for the poetry is in the rhythmic form and harmonious colour, which affect us in the same elemental way as does instrumental music. The other interesting painter is Mr. Rockwell Kent, whose book recording his stay in Alaska—which was reviewed in the Spectator—made one wish to see the writer's pictures. They have qualities of imagination and colour and possess a distinctive individuality.
H. S.
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