WATER COLOUR ART

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1935, Page 9

WATER COLOUR ART

MASTERS OF THE MEDIUM. CHRISTCHURCH ARTIST'S TALK. An interesting address on the significance and appreciation of water-colour painting by Mr. James Fitzgerald, a well known Christchurch artist, was read at a meeting of the Y.W.C.A. Business and Professional Girls’ Club at New Plymouth this week. “Water-colour painting is undoubtedly a great art,” stated Mr, Fitzgerald, “and it is an art which can be and is practised by such a large number of people that it has become almost as familiar as writing. It is so well understood that the approach to appreciation is neither long “From 1750 to 1825 we find water-colour painting developing from the art of merely topographical craftsmen, through the hands of a number of able arid brilliant artists including Cozens, Hearne, Girtin, Gainsborough and others, terminating in the overpowering, genius Of Turner. Artists of the Renaissance as well as artists of the early English school of water-colour painters would probably be accused to-day of a want of idealism and of pandering to the popular taste. Yet working in the accepted practise of their day and within the limitations prescribed, they nevertheless reached a degree of excellence which somehow or other seems to be denied to a later generation, embarrassed it Would seem by a too wide field and too diversified a choice of methods. “A study of English water-colour painting will show that in some respects art still retains great vitality. English artists have always taken kindly to watercolour painting. . This does not imply that the process and methods of watercolour are an English invention. Watercolour paintings by Albert Durcr in the 15th century, Rubens and Jbfdaens m the 16th century and Vandyke and others in the 17th century show that Continental artists were familiar with the full resources of this medium some time before an English school of painters had come into existence. The English painters developed their art principally along the lines of landscape painting. In their hands it became a wonderful medium for the expression of atmospheric effects which had never been attempted before. . In addition to this many of the early painters in England were men saturated with a love of nature and endowed with a natural genius which enabled them to discover a whole world of unsuspected loveliness in the common scenes bf their

native country. ¥ “The first really great artist was John Robert Cozens whose work waS done during the latter part of the 18th century. At his best his water-colours become original and unique works of art-pro-ductions which take their place beside the greatest of oil paintings, Turner an Girtin studied his wdrk. Turner 1S reported to have said that he learned more from one of CoZen’s paintings than from any other source. Constable wrote him as the greatest, genius that eve touched landscape. His works are fu of a subtle beauty. A number of them are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. "The next great exponent of watercolour was Thomas Girtin He worked largely from nature and his paintings show a wonderfully sure and vigorous technique. An interesting comparison has been made between Girtm and_his , contemporary Turner by Mr. A. J. Fin ; “Turner does not seem to have regarded his sketches as an end to themt selves but merely as memoranda to b« t used later on as a considered composi- ; tion. For the most part in working out [ of doors he was content to Wdrk With a ■ pencil only, adding a few washes of ; colour from memory in the studio. A s richly stored memory took the place oi • prolonged work in a particular sp6t.,. “One of the chief glories Of English i water-colour painting is its exploitation » of the sky as field for pictorial matterr t This, I think, is due in part to the ever- • changing aspects of the English sky. Nowhere is the genius of Turner more evident than in his marvellous rendering of the sky. In his paintings it is no longer a flat surface diversified by cloud forms but an enveloping atmosphere through which all things are in Which we are conscious of depth beyond depth. y “Speaking of this Ruskin says, None e before Turner had lifted the veil from the :. face of Nature; the majesty of the hiUS - and forests had received no interpretation - and the clouds passed unrecorded from the face of the heaven which they adorriy ed and of the earth to which they ministered? 3, “Water-colour painting still holds & d place in the culture of to-day and the - best water-colour painters ate never tired Of reverting to the old traditions ii and finding inspiration in the works of j. the pioneers.”