This series of reproductions of paintings by artists who have given
particular attention to marine painting in its various aspects has been
made as comprehensive as possible so that it may illustrate adequately a
subject capable of the widest application. Examples belonging to
different periods have been included to show what have been the changes
and developments during a term of nearly two hundred years, and what has
been the nature of the appeal of the sea to men of widely differing
temperaments. The conventional arrangement, the poetic transcription of
fact, the realistic study, the decorative interpretation, and the frank
expression of the modern idea are all presented and are available for
intelligent comparison. The capabilities, too, of marine painting are
made clear, and the extent of opportunity it affords to the serious
student of art. There are illustrations which have a specially
instructive significance because of the technical knowledge of the
subject displayed in them; there are others which are interesting on
account of their imaginative quality; and there are others again which
reveal the inspiration of the sea life and reflect the spirit by which
it is guided. All these have their part in the record of British marine
painting, and are both valuable historically and worthy of consideration
for artistic reasons.
Rightly, an early place in this record must be assigned to Charles
Brooking, because in his works can be seen for the first time the clear
intention to study marine subjects with a perception of their inherent
characteristics. Brooking’s intimate knowledge of shipping, acquired
during his early days at Deptford Dockyard, is plainly shown in such a
picture as _The Calm_ (p. 35), which has an attractive truth and
precision of statement. It is a matter for much regret that his early
death should have cut short a career which was so full of promise, and
in which he accomplished so much that deserves to be remembered; but
honour is due to him as the painter who gave to our school of marine
painting its foundation of accurate observation and careful regard for
the actualities of the subject.
Other men carried on ably the tradition he had established, and in a
comparatively short time there grew up a by no means inconsiderable
group of painters who took an effective interest in the pictorial
material with which the sea provided them. Within half a century of his
death he had many successors, some of whom were true sea painters,
though, perhaps, the majority were landscape men who included the sea in
their study of nature’s manifestations, and only turned to it, more or
less frequently, in the intervals of their more usual work. Yet in this
latter class were counted some of the greatest British masters whose
achievements rank among the best by which our school is distinguished.
To the company of these masters certainly belongs George Morland, the
erratic genius who, ranging over a wide field of subjects, found that
the sea was often one of the most helpful sources of his inspiration.
His coast scenes--of which the _Fishermen Hauling in a Boat_ (p. 37) is
a good example--have a characteristic measure of strenuous vitality and
are painted with all the sureness of touch that marked his handling of
the rustic motives which occupied so much of his attention. Morland,
however, did not paint marine pictures so frequently as his
contemporary, John Wilson, who was a consistent student of the sea and
lived for some years at Folkestone. His capacity can scarcely be
questioned. The picture reproduced (p. 38) has a very modern freshness
of manner and shows exceptional knowledge of wave movement and
atmospheric subtleties, and though there is in it something of the
convention of the period, it certainly conveys the sentiment of nature.
Another master who made many digressions into sea painting was
Constable; a number of sea and coast pictures are included among his
more memorable performances. His _Chesil Beach_ (p. 39) has the better
qualities of his art, its strength and sincerity, its robust directness,
and its sense of rightly estimated reality. Without being in any way dry
or dull it is singularly faithful in its statement of the facts of the
subject and in its adherence to nature’s authority; and it bears
decisively the stamp of the artist’s personality.
Even more personal both in point of view and in manner of interpretation
are the pictures by Turner, that greatest of all painters of the sea. No
one but Turner could have attained such a height of dramatic power as is
reached in _Lowestoft_ (p. 45), and _The Shipwreck_ (p. 41), in which
the majesty and the tragedy of the sea are expressed with overwhelming
strength. Only a supreme master could have kept conception and execution
in such perfect relation, or could be so vehement in conviction without
lapsing into bombast. But Turner was a master without a peer, and in
these two pictures--and the extraordinarily suggestive and mysterious
_Farne Island_ (p. 44)--he is seen to rare advantage. Yet he was not
less evidently a master when he chose to deal with less ambitious
material, when he painted subjects like the _Yacht Racing in the Solent_
(p. 43), and _The Prince of Orange Landing at Torbay_ (p. 42), in which
no tragic note was needed, and no greater problem was presented than the
expression of the breezy freshness of a restless sea. Always, the
acuteness of his vision, the depth of his understanding, and the
consummate certainty of his method can be realized, whatever may have
been his mood or his intention.
Beside Turner, John Thomson of Duddingston can be assigned but a minor
place; yet, amateur though he was, he cannot be passed over as unworthy
to be reckoned among the more accomplished of the earlier sea painters.
Minister of a church in Scotland, he was able to practise his art only
in the intervals of his clerical duties, but as can be judged from his
_Fast Castle_ (p. 47) he had real ability and much command of technical
processes. He belongs to a period of great importance in British art, a
period which produced not only Turner and Constable, but other masters
of high rank, two of whom, Cotman and David Cox, painted marine pictures
frequently and treated them with delightful sympathy. Cotman’s broad,
dignified method is well seen in _A Galiot in a Storm_ (p. 48), a
composition finely designed and convincing in its large simplicity; and
David Cox’s exquisite perception of beauties of atmospheric effect is
rarely better evidenced than in his delicate and luminous _Calais Pier_
(p. 49), a study of sea and sky which can be unreservedly praised for
its sensitiveness and truth. It is as rightly seen as it is attractively
painted. There is much less freedom and spontaneity in Pyne’s _Totland
Bay_ (p. 51), and yet this picture has a scholarly quality that entitles
it to respect, though it is a little too formal and conscious. But at
the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a fashion for elegant
formality, and Pyne was, perhaps, induced to follow this fashion by his
study of Italian scenery. As a sea painter he can scarcely be compared
with George Chambers and Clarkson Stanfield, who were of the same date,
and both of whom had much professional experience of the sea before they
became artists. Chambers drew shipping with admirable accuracy--there is
ample proof of this in his picture, _Off Portsmouth_ (p. 52)--and knew
the ways of the sea intimately; Stanfield was also an excellent
draughtsman, but on the whole was more artificial than Chambers. Both
men were for some while successful scene painters, and in Stanfield’s
work particularly the influence of the theatre is apparent; there is an
obvious scenic quality in such pictures as the _Entrance to the Zuyder
Zee_ (p. 54) and _The Port of La Rochelle_ (p. 53); and his _Coast
Scene_ (p. 55) is planned and composed with the scene-painter’s feeling
for construction and distribution of detail. But, despite the theatrical
atmosphere of his art, Stanfield’s achievements are not to be despised,
because the foundation of them was sound and the knowledge he displayed
in them was acquired at first hand.
Dyce’s _Pegwell Bay_ (p. 57) is interesting for two reasons, as a
digression by a successful figure painter into open-air work, and as an
illustration of the influence exercised by the Pre-Raphaelite movement
upon the painters of the time. It is an extraordinary piece of precise
statement, photographic in its accuracy, and is painted with a careful
regard for reality that deserves recognition. Indeed, its simple honesty
makes it of more account than such a picture as Cooke’s _Dutch Boats in
a Calm_ (p. 58), which, capable though it is, has more than a suspicion
of artificiality; or than E. T. Crawford’s _Closehauled, Crossing the
Bar_ (p. 59), in which the spirited treatment of the sea is to some
extent discounted by a certain clumsiness in the drawing of the
sailing-boats and by the somewhat mechanical manner in which they are
used to help out the composition. There is artificiality, too, in the
design of Müller’s _Dredging on the Medway_ (p. 60), but it is more
cleverly disguised, and the handling is more accomplished. All three of
these men, however, contributed something to the sequence of paintings
which stands to the credit of the British school, and all were serious
observers of the sea.
So, too, was Copley Fielding, though other subject-matter than the sea
engaged much of his attention. But he spent a good deal of his time on
the coast and used his opportunities there with considerable discretion.
As a result his sea paintings have a sympathetic quality that is
undeniably persuasive, and they derive an additional charm from their
dexterity of brushwork and from their pleasant management of colour and
tone. The _Coast Scene_ (p. 61) represents him well; it is an eminently
skilful technical exercise, and it conveys correctly an impression of
gathering storm and of the force of a rising wind. The suggestion, also,
of cold, gleaming light when the sky is partly veiled by dark clouds is
sufficiently true and is made with due restraint--without that
over-accentuation of tone contrasts which is so apt to destroy breadth
and unity of effect.
From Copley Fielding to Edwin Hayes is a wide step--a jump from the
methods of the past to those of the present day. Yet in actual time the
two men were not so widely separated, for Hayes was born some while
before Fielding died, and counted several of the earlier British masters
among his older contemporaries. Fielding, however, was brought up in a
tradition which had a strong hold upon the painters who were working at
the beginning of the nineteenth century, and he made no real effort to
break away from it, though in his interpretation of it he was, in some
respects, less narrow than his fellows. But the formula influenced him
as it did nearly all the other men of that date, and it gave a sort of
set pattern to the paintings even of those artists who had the sincerest
possible desire to be faithful to nature and to study her seriously and
persistently.
The effect of this formula was to regulate the composition and to
prescribe the introduction of shipping in certain specified positions so
as to conform to an accepted pictorial convention. To its dominance is
due the general similarity which can be perceived between the works of
John Wilson, Chambers, Crawford, and Müller, here illustrated, and which
could be followed out in many other pictures by the lesser painters of
the time--a similarity which was neither accidental nor unconscious, but
directly induced by adherence to what were held to be the correct
principles of picture designing. Moreover, there seems to have been a
belief then that a painting of the sea must have some added interest to
assure it of popularity, for a sea without shipping prominently placed
upon it was hardly ever attempted; an incident was almost always
introduced or a story suggested.
When Edwin Hayes began his career the earlier tradition was losing its
authority and was being replaced by a less limited conception of the
sea-painter’s mission. To some extent he came under it in his youth, but
he was naturally responsive to new ideas and kept pace with the more
modern developments. Anyhow, in his _Sunset at Sea_ (p. 63) there is no
hint of the old convention, and there is no trace of the belief that an
added interest was required to make a sea picture attractive. He was
content to give faithfully his impression of the sea as it appeared
before him, to tell no story save nature’s own, and to take for his
incident the gleam of sunlight upon tossing waves stirred into movement
by the wind--a poor subject, perhaps, according to the old standards,
but one which to-day appeals to us as admirably satisfying and
essentially complete.
From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards there has been a
steadily growing tendency to enlarge the scope of marine painting and to
allow to the men who practise it more and more freedom in the assertion
of their personal feeling in art matters. That is why so much material
of the most varied character is available now for the illustration of
this branch of pictorial production, and why so many artists seek in it
opportunities for the display of their capacities. They can approach it
from the point of view that suits them best, they can interpret what
they find there in the way that seems to them most appropriate, and they
can, if their study is sincere, get most closely into touch with
nature’s secrets.
One entirely legitimate point of view is given adequate demonstration in
the two pictures, _The Kyles of Bute_ by C. Parsons Knight (p. 65), and
_From the Dorsetshire Cliffs_ by John Brett (p. 67). Both pictures are
records, plain and uncompromising statements of fact, and in neither of
them is anything unaccounted for or any detail left for the imagination
of the spectator to supply. Frankly, the intention of both painters was
to put in everything that the most acute vision could detect in the
scene represented and to attain completeness by painstaking effort; and
undeniably both painters have justified themselves by the thoroughness
with which they have carried out this intention. Yet to many people so
much labour to prove the sincerity of the artist would seem to be
unnecessary and to savour somewhat of pedantry; knowledge so lavishly
displayed--and with such scrupulous regard for accuracy--is not always
persuasive. But such pictures have every right to exist, and there is a
place for them in art.
So there is, too, for conceptions of such a totally different type as
_The Wreck_ by C. E. Holloway (p. 68), and the _Marine_ by Whistler (p.
69). These go to the opposite extreme, eliminating detail, avoiding
precise and careful explanations, conceding nothing to the unimaginative
man who can only believe what is made perfectly clear to his limited
vision. They demand from every one who sees them a full measure of
thought and intelligent analysis so that the shrewd understanding which
controls their apparent carelessness of method can be estimated at its
proper worth. Holloway’s painting is, in fact, only a rapid note in
which he has visualized a momentary impression, but visualized it so
surely that he has been able to make other people see just what he
himself saw in the subject. Whistler’s _Marine_ is an impression, too, a
summary of movement and wave action; but it is something more than a
simple realization of the fundamental things in nature because into the
treatment of it a decorative intention has been definitely admitted. By
the painter’s skill the formality of the design has been cleverly
concealed, and by the spontaneity of his method the deliberate processes
of his art are kept from being too apparent; but formality and
deliberation have both contributed to the successful evolution of a very
significant picture.
Quite a different kind of sentiment pervades Hook’s vigorous canvas,
_The Seaweed Raker_ (p. 71). He was not concerned with subtleties of
suggestion or with problems of decorative adjustment, but with the
robust representation of nature’s ruggedness, and there was a simple
honesty in his virile, forcible work. He understood the sea, and though
he looked at it in rather a literal way he never made his paintings of
it commonplace. Partly this was due, no doubt, to the unaffected
directness of his executive devices and to the frankness of his
craftsmanship--he never resorted to any graceful artifices to soften off
the bare facts of his subjects--but there came in also the influence of
a temperament which was by no means insensible to the romance of the sea
and to the sombre poetry of the seaman’s life. That Hook was one of the
greatest of British marine painters can fairly be claimed.
But greater still was Henry Moore, greater because his insight was even
more acute and because, while he equalled Hook in robustness, he used
his powers with more reserve. He was a finer colourist, a truer judge of
tone relations, and more sensitive to refinements of atmospheric effect;
and as an executant he had a lighter and more flexible touch. A lifelong
painter of the open air, he began to study the sea almost at the outset
of his career, and for some years alternated between landscapes and
marine pictures, but eventually devoted himself almost exclusively to
the branch of practice in which, as he plainly proved, he was without a
serious rival. The particular charm of his work--a charm that is very
apparent in the two examples reproduced--is in its suggestion of space
and wide expansiveness, and of the recession of the surface of the sea
to the far horizon. From such a picture as _A Breezy Day_--which forms a
frontispiece to this article--many lessons are to be learned in the
management of tone values to express distance, and in the treatment of
clouds not as a background but as an overhanging canopy in true
perspective; and both this and the _Break in the Cloud_ (p. 72) show
most clearly the certainty with which he could draw the form of
different kinds of waves and give to them their proper movement. And all
this he did without appearance of labour and without exaggerated display
of technical facility, but invariably with the quiet confidence that
comes from exact and well-tried knowledge.
Colin Hunter’s _Farewell to Skye_ (p. 73) seems, somehow, to have about
it a touch of sentimentality and to be lacking in force. Perhaps this
impression comes partly from the title, but it is encouraged also by the
sweetness of the composition with its flow of curving lines and its
carefully balanced distribution of lights and darks. But as a study of a
picturesque coast scene the picture is pleasing, and as a note of an
effect of evening illumination it has much merit. It represents well an
artist who possessed his full share of the Scottish feeling for romance
and whose methods were sound, and it can justly claim a place among the
more popular of modern marine paintings. There is a place, too, for W.
McTaggart’s _Sounding Sea_ (p. 74), a picture very different in
inspiration and technical manner and yet as definitely expressive of the
Scottish temperament. Like all McTaggart’s works, it arrests attention
by the strength of its personal conviction and by the characteristic
method of handling that he has employed, and to this attention it is
fully entitled.
Frank Brangwyn’s _In Port_ (p. 75) has a story to tell, the story of a
voyage ended and of the safe arrival of a homeward-bound ship. The
artist has not embroidered his subject with any touches of fancy; he
has dealt with it as a simple matter of fact and as an everyday incident
in the concerns of a seaport town--an incident which excites hardly more
than momentary interest among the idlers on the quay. Yet by this very
reticence he seems to give point to his story and to emphasize the
British attitude towards sea life as something to which the people are
accustomed and which they treat as an obvious part of the national
heritage. It is, perhaps, because he has been at sea himself that he has
no inclination to be either sensational or sentimental in painting what
a sailor would regard as a very ordinary occurrence; it is undoubtedly
to his experience afloat that can be ascribed the air of intimacy which
pervades the picture and the sterling accuracy with which every detail
of it is rendered. Of course, as a painter he is exceptionally
distinguished, but even the painter of distinction is none the worse for
possessing an expert technical understanding of the material which he
proposes to depict upon his canvas. In this instance the combination of
nautical experience and high artistic ability has been productive of
unusually satisfying results.
It is questionable whether to T. B. Hardy has as yet been assigned the
position among British artists which is due to him on account of the
merit of his work. A prolific and popular painter he possibly spread his
energies over too wide a field and fell into the habit of
over-production. But in his best pictures he reached a very high level
of accomplishment, and as a sea painter he was especially successful. _A
Change of Wind, Boulogne Harbour_ (p. 77), which has been chosen to
represent him, ranks among the best things of its class, on account of
its accuracy of observation and its powerful realization, not only of
the action of the sea, but of the weather conditions, too, by which this
action was induced. In design the picture is to some degree a reversion
to an earlier type, but in spirit and manner of execution it is
essentially a modern effort, and brings a past tradition logically up to
date.
Napier Hemy’s _Boat Adrift_ (p. 78) owes none of its inspiration to the
older sea painters, or at all events to none earlier than Hook. There is
a hint of Hook’s robustness and solid realism, but the character and
quality of the handling, the constructive sense, and the observation of
the lift and sweep of the waves are all Hemy’s own. He took his subject
far too seriously to depend upon any one else for his inspiration, and
he studied it afloat under all aspects and in all sorts of weather, not
as a landsman who limited himself to what he could see from the shore.
His thoroughness had its full reward, for it is by his marine paintings
that his reputation as one of our leading artists has been established,
though in his early days he was a figure painter and made some success
with landscape as well.
Another instance of a figure-painter’s judicious dealing with the
subtleties of the sea is to be seen in Sir John Lavery’s _Evening--the
Coast of Spain from Tangier_ (p. 79). He has found something here well
worth recording, an effect of warm evening light over still waters which
ripple gently on a flat beach, a subject full of colour and delicate
aerial suggestion. He has interpreted it with tenderness and sympathy,
but without descending into mere prettiness, and without losing the
strength of the subject. A picture so happily conceived deserves the
sincerest welcome.
An entirely different class of work is exemplified in W. L. Wyllie’s
ambitious composition, _Blake’s Three Days Engagement with Van Tromp_
(p. 81). This is neither a simple piece of nature nor a representation
of a normal incident in our modern life, but an imaginative
reconstruction of an historical scene. To build it up a vast amount of
research and consultation of authorities were needed, to carry it out
convincingly a very thorough acquaintance with the sea was
indispensable--both conditions have been excellently satisfied by the
artist. His picture is entirely credible: he makes us believe that he
has put before us what actually happened, and he treats the whole motive
with a seamanlike understanding that clears it of all suspicion of
artificiality. Compositions of this type were popular a century ago,
when the sea painters had opportunities to witness such picturesque,
yard-arm to yard-arm naval actions; the sea-fights of to-day do not lend
themselves so well to the artist’s purposes. A good deal of the drama
must inevitably be lost when miles of water intervene between the
opposing fleets.
A sailor’s acquaintance with the sea gives a particular point to the
work of Thomas Somerscales. His pictures, _Off Valparaiso_ (p. 82) and
_Before the Gale_ (p. 83), have an unpretentious reality that can be
accepted in perfect good faith. They are distinguished by an unusual
straightforwardness, and by a simplicity of manner and method that is
curiously effective; and they tell us, because they are so simple and
straightforward, more about the sea than we can learn from paintings
which are much fuller of detail and accessory incident.
R. W. Allan’s _Off to the Fishing Grounds_ (p. 84), and C. W. Simpson’s
_Landing Fish_ (p. 85), have to do with life in home waters instead of
the adventuring of ocean-going ships, but they are none the less
interesting on that account. In the first picture, indeed, the chance of
working out a very agreeable line composition has been used by the
artist with the best of judgment, and he has entered thoroughly into the
spirit of his subject. In the _Landing Fish_, a good illustration is
given of the way in which a perfectly literal statement of a scene, for
which almost any fishing-port would provide a setting, can be made
artistically important by a painter who looks at it sympathetically and
who can induce other people to look at it through his eyes. There are
few occupations carried on so picturesquely as that of the fisherman or
among surroundings so full of varied pictorial possibilities; and there
are fewer still which offer so many picture subjects ready-made.
To turn from works such as these to Herbert Draper’s _Flying Fish_ (p.
87), is to change abruptly from fact to fancy, from a frank rendering of
things as they are to a fantastic suggestion of something that never
existed save in the artist’s imagination. But the realities of the deep
often seem so fantastic, even to the people who have had long experience
of them, that the artist may surely be forgiven for building upon them
fancies of his own. Indeed, this water nymph at play in the element to
which she belongs appears much more credible than many of the sea
monsters which have been proved to be actually in existence; and by the
artist’s skill she is presented as a very pleasing embodiment of the
spirit of the sea--sportive, irresponsible, and ruthless too, but
beautiful and intensely alive. It is not good for us to be always
material-minded and matter-of-fact, so we can allow to the mermaid a
place in art even though we know that she has been classified by science
as merely a species of sea-cow--a most unpoetic translation of an
ancient myth.
There is nothing either mythical or fantastic about H. S. Tuke’s _August
Blue_ (p. 88); on the contrary it is a purely realistic painting of a
most ordinary subject--some boys bathing from a boat on a calm sunlit
sea. But out of this quite ordinary material he has built up a picture
with an exceptional degree of dignity, largely felt, and with a kind of
classic distinction of manner. But there is in it no coldness or want of
human interest; it is living, animated, and essentially of to-day, and
wholly right in its fresh, unforced naturalism. Easy, fluent
draughtsmanship and strength of design help to make it a memorable
exercise in descriptive painting.
The next three pictures, Sir David Murray’s _The Fiend’s Weather_ (p.
89), _Where the Somme meets the Sea_, by Tom Robertson (p. 90), and
Moffat Lindner’s _The Storm-Cloud, Christchurch Harbour_ (p. 91),
provide a sufficiently striking contrast in effects of atmosphere. The
first suggests the turmoil of a gathering storm, threatening ruin and
destruction to everything in its path and sweeping irresistibly over
land and sea. In his treatment of it the artist has made the most of a
dramatic opportunity to show how thorough has been his study of nature
and how well he understands her ways, even when she is in one of her
most perverse moods. The second picture finds her at her gentlest
moment, exquisitely calm and peaceful and perfectly in repose; the third
at a time when beneath her smile lies a threat, and when almost without
warning a sudden outburst may break the quiet of a summer evening. All
three paintings deserve attention, for they represent artists who are
prominent amongst us to-day and whose work is with justice widely
appreciated.
Another painter who handles coast subjects with notable ability is W.
Russell Flint. His two water-colours, _The Fane Islands_ (p. 93) and
_Passing Sails_ (p. 95), have a breadth and distinction of manner and a
brilliant directness of brushwork that can be unreservedly admired. His
simplified method of dealing with nature’s facts is very effective, as
it gives plainly the real essentials without any labouring of detail and
without diverting attention from the things that he wishes to emphasize.
It has a decorative value, too, and adds a quality of style to his work.
During the last few years he has produced many paintings of this
type--coast scenes with figures--and he has kept them consistently at a
high level of accomplishment.
Cecil King’s delightful _Regatta Day at Appledore_ (p. 98) has to do
with the lighter side of sea life, and his _H.M.S. “Wolsey”_ (p. 97)
with matters much more serious. The _Regatta Day_, as its subject
befits, is a lively and brightly treated study, full of incident, and
attractively irresponsible in composition. It has both power and
originality, and it puts beyond question his capabilities as a
draughtsman because it presents a difficult problem in perspective which
he has solved most happily. But much of its charm comes from the holiday
spirit in which it is conceived and carried out. The _H.M.S. “Wolsey”_
is more sober, and conveys well the idea of the grim simplicity of the
practical fighting machine built for use, not ornament.
Norman Wilkinson is a versatile artist who does many things well, and
who yields to no one at the present time in knowledge of the pictorial
chances which the sea provides. He is shown here under more than one
aspect--as a painter of interesting realities in his panoramic _Plymouth
Harbour_ (p. 100), as a very acute student of wave movement in _Up
Channel_ (p. 103) and _The Wave_ (p. 101), and as a maker of rapid and
suggestive notes in his sketch _Etretat_ (p. 99). Of these examples the
most arresting in many ways is _The Wave_; it has such an unusual amount
of vitality, it is so seriously observed and yet so free and unlaboured,
and it is so correct not only in action but also in matters of lighting
and reflection and of colour variation as well. This is an instance of
the happy alliance of the science and the art of marine painting to
bring about a perfectly balanced result.
_Windbound_ (p. 104), by Hely Smith, and _The Needles_ (p. 107), by
Charles Pears, are inshore studies, notes of incidents which, though
they are undramatic, lend themselves well to the painters’ purposes.
_The Needles_, with its sense of breeziness and of the rough-and-tumble
of a tide-race, is a picture that excites a distinctly pleasurable
emotion, so much is there in it of the joy of living when the sun shines
brightly and the wind blows briskly and the sea is sparkling and full of
colour. The other two pictures by Charles Pears, _The Examination_ (p.
106) and _The Yacht Race_ (p. 105), make a contrast of grave and gay--a
contrast between the dark moments of war and the happy times of peace.
Neither W. Marshall Brown in _The Sea_ (p. 109), nor Julius Olsson in
_The Night Wrack_ (p. 110) and _Heavy Weather in the Channel_ (p. 111),
seek to make their pictures more attractive by adding to them any
subsidiary incident. They are content to depend for success upon the
plain statement of things they have seen in the sea itself and to be
painters of the sea, and the sea alone. But both of them have found
stirring subjects, impressively strong and calling for a particular
decisiveness of method, and both have proved fully equal to the
occasion. Of these three canvases perhaps the most largely seen and the
finest in its grasp of the motive as a whole is the _Heavy Weather in
the Channel_, which has really monumental breadth and dignity.
Between these powerful paintings and those of the Hon. Duff Tollemache
and A. J. W. Burgess, which have a similar æsthetic intention, come in
the sequence of the illustrations two very interesting works of Walter
Bayes, _The Timid Bather_ (p. 113) and _The Red Beach_ (p. 112). These
make an intelligent compromise between realism and abstract decoration;
they are designs worked out with a sound idea of pattern-making and in
accordance with a pre-conceived scheme of arrangement, but the details
of which they are composed have been studied from nature with serious
and observant vision. They are fancies with a solid foundation of fact,
while _The Watch that Never Ends_ (p. 116) and _The Scarborough Fleet_
(p. 117), by Burgess, and the _Storm on the Cornish Coast_ (p. 115), by
Tollemache, are pure fact all through, and fact stated with
well-justified confidence.
A decorative purpose is very definitely apparent in John Everett’s _Deck
of a Tea-Clipper in the Tropics_ (p. 118) and _Breakers_ (p. 119), but
this purpose has been fulfilled with excellent judgment and eminently
good taste. There is an obvious formality in both pictures, and yet this
formality does not detract from their charm--indeed, in the _Breakers_
it adds strength to a sensitive note of an afterglow effect in which
there is a delightful perception of tone subtleties and of varieties of
curiously related colour.
Two absolutely opposed points of view are illustrated in _The Wave_ (p.
123), by Nevinson, and _Margate_ (p. 121), by James McBey. _The Wave_ is
an exposition of a modern theory of pictorial expression; it is set
forth with unhesitating clearness of manner and method, and allows the
artist’s attitude to be estimated at its full value. In such a series as
this it fittingly has its place because it presents an aspect of marine
painting that has to be considered. The _Margate_ sketch, like W. T. M.
Hawksworth’s clever _Low Water, Penzance_ (p. 125), and the _Wet Rocks,
St. Ives_, by R. Borlase Smart (p. 126), is frankly naturalistic,
professing to be nothing more than a plain record of things as they
are, and propounding no new theories about the development and
evolution of art. Its spontaneous delicacy of handling is one of its
most evident merits.
_Motor Launches_, by G. S. Allfree (p. 127), is an example of a type of
work which seeks to combine actuality and fantasy in carefully studied
proportion, and to produce by this combination something that will be
more significant than an absolutely imitative transcription of nature.
Certain features of the picture are exaggerated and given marked
emphasis so that they may point more definitely the meaning of the
subject and increase the strength of its dramatic suggestion. When this
method is employed with sane understanding--and with the necessary touch
of imagination--it has excellent results. In this case the artist has
seen correctly how far it would be expedient for him to go and has not
spoiled his picture by making it too audacious.
Yet another phase of modern thought in art influences the work of I. W.
Brooks, whose desire is not so much to tell a story or to hold the
mirror up to nature as to produce an ornamental abstraction. When the
methods he employs to attain this end are not too much defined the
outcome of them is a picture like _In Cymyran Bay_ (p. 129), which has a
most agreeable restfulness and decorative balance and is inspired by a
feeling of serious reality. When he is more explicit in his processes he
arrives at results like the two coast scenes (pp. 128 and 131), which
have the arbitrary expression of a Japanese print and go as far in their
elimination of everything save the fundamentals of the design. But such
methods are undeniably legitimate because where they are used with due
discretion they make possible the working out of decorative schemes
which have both distinction and beauty.
A number of notable paintings of marine subjects stand to the credit of
Terrick Williams, who has for some years past devoted himself to this
branch of art with conspicuous success. Some idea of the grace and
delicacy of his work can be obtained from the example shown, _Clouds
over the Sea, Holland_ (p. 132); but naturally it does not reveal the
character of his colour. As a colourist he is more than ordinarily
endowed, he has the real colour emotion, and it is always delightfully
in evidence in everything he does, and always it is controlled by an
unerring taste. He has, too, an acute perception of refinements of tone
by which he is guided surely in his treatment of the luminous
atmospheric effects to which he especially inclines. His right to a
place among the chief of the British marine painters of the present day
is indisputable.
The last two artists on the list are very unlike one another, so this
series of illustrations ends with an effective contrast of styles. The
picture by Frank Emanuel differs widely in intention and manner from
those by E. A. Cox. _The Ancient Port of Fêques_ (p. 133) shows
affinities both in style and manner with the early nineteenth-century
sea painters and follows their tradition in composition and
light-and-shade arrangement. Still, the artist has chosen good material
and has made skilful use of it. The other painter, E. A. Cox (pp. 134
and 135), is a decorator with a faculty for seeing things largely, and
for setting them down confidently. His use of broad, flat tones is most
effective, and the vigorous precision of his drawing gives a convincing
quality to his performances. He seems always to know just what he wants
to do and to be able to do it without a moment’s hesitation--and that
implies very assured knowledge acquired by the most thorough training.