England -- Pictorial works; Watercolor painting, British
I cannot refrain from drawing attention to this reproduction as one
of the wonders of the "three colour process." If my readers could see
the three colours which produce the result when superimposed, first
the yellow, then the red, and lastly the blue--aniline hues of the
most forbidding character--they would indeed deem it incredible that
any resemblance to the original could be possible. It certainly passes
the comprehension of the uninitiated how the differing delicacies of
the violet hues of the flowers to the left could be obtained from
a partnership which produced the blue black of the flowers in the
foreground, the light pinks of the Shirley poppies, and the rich
reds of the sweetwilliams. Again, what a marvel must the photographic
process be which refuses to recognise the snow-white campanula, and
leaves it to be defined by the untouched paper, and yet records
the faint pink flush which has been breathed upon the edges of the
sweetwilliam. It is indeed a tribute to the inventive genius of the
present day, genius which will probably enable the "press the button
and we do the rest photographer" before many days are past to reel off
in colour what he now can only accomplish in monochrome.
[Illustration:
65. BY THE TERRACE, BROCKET HALL
_From the Water-colour in the possession of Lord Mount-Stephen._
Painted 1900.]
Portraiture of time-worn cottages where Nature has its way, and
cottars' gardens where flowers come and go at their own sweet will, is
a very different thing from portraiture of a well-kept house, where the
bricklayer and the mason are requisitioned when the slightest decay
shows itself, and of gardens where formal ribbon borders are laid out
by so-called landscape gardeners, whose taste always leans to
bright colours not always massed in the happiest way. In portraits of
houses license is hardly permissible even for artistic effects, for not
only may associations be connected with every slope and turn of a path,
but the artist always has before him the possibility that the drawing
will be hung in close proximity to the scene, for comparison by persons
who may not always be charitably disposed to artistic alterations. It
speaks well, therefore, for Mrs. Allingham in the drawing of the garden
at Brocket that she has produced a drawing which, without offending
the conventions, is still a picture harmonious in colour, and probably
very satisfying to the owner. There are few who would have cared to
essay the very difficult drawing of cedars, and have accomplished it
so well, or have laboured with so much care over the plain-faced house
and windows. As to these latter she has been happy in assisting the
sunlight in the picture by the drawn-down blinds at the angles which
the sun reaches. The scene has clearly been pictured in the full blaze
of summer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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