England -- Pictorial works; Watercolor painting, British
created in the same way. The advantage is seen at once. There are no
badly pencilled outlines, and the blooms blend amongst themselves and
grow naturally out of their foliage.
[Illustration:
59. STUDY OF A ROSE BUSH
_From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist._
Painted about 1887.]
A very interesting series of studies of various kinds might have been
included in this volume, which would have shown the thoroughness
with which our artist works, and it was with much reluctance that we
discarded all but two, in the interests of the larger number of our
readers, who might have thought them better fitted for a manual of
instruction. The Gloire de Dijon rose, however, is such a prime old
favourite, begotten before the days of scentless specimens to which
are appended the ill-sounding names of fashionable patrons of the
rose-grower, that we could not keep our hands off it when we came
across it in the artist's portfolio.
This rose tree, or one of its fellows, will be seen in the background
of two of the drawings of Mrs. Allingham's garden at Sandhills, namely,
Plates 61 and 64.
[Illustration:
60. WALLFLOWERS
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. F. G. Debenham._
Painted about 1893.]
Of the denizens of the garden there is perhaps none which appeals to
a countryman who has drifted into the city so much as the wallflower.
His senses both of sight and smell have probably grown up under its
influence, and it carries him back to the home of his childhood, for it
is of never-to-be-forgotten sweetness both in colour and in scent, and
it conjures up old days when the rare warmth of an April sun extracted
its perfume until all the air in its neighbourhood was redolent of it.
If my reader be a west countryman, like the author, he may best know it
as the gilliflower, but he will do so erroneously, for the name rightly
applies to the carnation, and was so used even in Chaucer's time--
Many a clove gilofre
To put in ale;
and again in Culpepper--
The great clove carnation Gillo-Floure.
But as a "rose by any other name would smell as sweet," every true
flower-lover cherishes his wallflower, which returns to him so
bountifully the slightest attention, which accepts the humblest
position, which thrives on the scantiest fare, which is amongst the
first to welcome us in the spring, and, with its scantier second bloom,
amongst the last to bid adieu in the autumn, sometimes even striving to
gladden us with its blossom year in and year out if winter's cold be
not too stark.
Old names give place to new, and in nurserymen's catalogues we search
in vain for its pleasant-sounding title, and fail to distinguish either
its reproduction in black and white, or its designation under that of
cheiranthus.
[Illustration:
61. MINNA
_From the Water-colour in the possession of the Lord Chief Justice of
England._
Painted about 1886.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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