The development of British landscape painting in water-colours — John Shaqi
The development of British landscape painting in water-coloursFinberg, A. J. (Alexander Joseph)
History
The development of British landscape painting in water-colours
Finberg, A. J. (Alexander Joseph)
Landscape painting, British; Watercolor painting, British
By age, W. Russell Flint and D. Murray Smith belong to the group of
younger Scottish painters, and otherwise, similarly, both artists have
been resident in England for a considerable time. It is only within
recent years that their work has appeared, as it were, anew in the
Scottish exhibitions. W. Russell Flint (Plate XIX) was born in Edinburgh
in 1880; originally studying in the art school there, he made his home
in London in 1900, where, after a short course at Heatherley’s Academy,
his name and work came rapidly into prominence. In 1913 he was awarded
the silver medal for his water-colours in the Salon des Artistes
Français. The following year he was elected an associate of the Royal
Society of Painters in Water-Colours, and a full member in 1917. As an
artist both figure and landscape equally reveal his versatile ability.
As an illustrator, too, he can claim no less distinctive recognition by
his charming imagery expressed in that phase of his talent in the
publications of the Riccardi Press. Thoroughly acquainted with the
medium of water-colour, he applies it with no special mannerism other
than the choice his vision dictates and the subjects of his mind most
emotionally demand.
Though less varied paths tempt the outlook of D. Murray Smith (Plate
XXII), his spacious conceptions of landscapes are uncommonly
interesting. The admirable characteristics of largeness and freedom,
which earlier prophesied a coming artist in the Scottish capital where
he was born, have altered little. As an etcher of illustrative
landscapes in those days he gained no meagre reputation, which he has
vastly enhanced in England, where he settled some twenty-four years ago.
In all his works there pervades a strong affection for flat expanses of
Nature, unhampered in the composition by the human element, save for
friendly wayside cottages or distant villages. It is, however, those
examples where even such features are the least prominent, like his
unpeopled roads, that have a most abiding charm, manifesting at times a
vision and technical qualities akin to the rare landscapes by the old
Dutch and early English masters, and to the French in their Corotesque
and lyrical love of trees. And it is, perhaps, to the lyrical aspects of
Nature that water-colour is most closely allied, and in such of her
voiceless poems most expressively lives the spirit of the medium.
[Illustration: PLATE XV.
“THE MAPLE IN AUTUMN.” BY ROBERT W. ALLAN, R.W.S., R.S.W.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.
“BEN MORE.” BY A. K. BROWN, R.S.A., R.S.W.
(_In the possession of J. Whitelaw Hamilton, Esq., A.R.S.A._)]
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.
“A MOORLAND.” BY JAMES CADENHEAD, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.
“AUTUMN IN STRATH TAY.” BY D. Y. CAMERON, A.R.A., R.S.A., R.W.S., R.S.W.
(_In the possession of R. Skinner, Esq._)] [Illustration: PLATE XIX.
“APRIL EVENING, RYDAL WATER.” BY W. RUSSELL FLINT, R.W.S., R.S.W.
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