Part 5

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.

A. L. BALDRY