Sidewalk Artists Bring Colourful Touch to London

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 111, 12 May 1936, Page 10

Sidewalk Artists Bring Colourful Touch to London

j LONDON. —A bag of broken crayons. I a duster, ami an imagination, combined with a talent for line and colour, constitute the sole equipment of tne pavement artist. With his humble assortment he may be found any day in the residential sections of London or along the Thames Embankment. There he may be seen with the footpath for an easel, chalking in the white cliffs of Dover or adding an emerald hue to the sloping lake shores of Killarney, apparently oblivious of the beauty of the river which flows on the other side of the wall. Keeps to Own Field. No Waterloo Bridge in a fog for him, no slender appeal of the Whistler line. No radiance of a floodlit Battersea station softened by the murk of a great city. Enough for him that he do landscapes, portraits oi perhaps the image of a dog, which wearily rests by a hat near his side. These are the studies to which his art has turned. Tne pavement artist is a law unto himself. An ordinary citizen may not loiter on the sidewalks. Nor may he ornament or deface the flagstones. But the pavement artist stands supreme, for custom,, born of a pleasant fancy, has declared that he alone of street entertainers is entitled to be regarded as an exception. Often a mere stripling of no I settled occupation, he is on the other I hand frequently a veteran whose ambiI tion has failed to find a better outlet in | the harsh school of painting. Two Classes of Artists. I Lavement artists fall into two classes. One the industrious, producing a new set of drawings each day and changing the effects according to the | wiiint of the moment, the other relying upon a fixed accomplishment, a set of framed pictures, which he brings out in I the morning and takes away at night, I reversing the order of the shopkeepers I with his shutters, and making his exhibits do service month after month. The choice spots of London are not by any means the busy parts. One man parks beside a church in the neighbourhood of Kensington Gardens and draws his subjects from buildings in the street near by. A church is conspicuous when In is in service, his sense of perspective j in drawing being equalled by his judge- ■ incut in making an appeal to his public. Some Excellent Work. ; It is, of course, well known that some • f the street artists have won commen- • ib’iis from men in circles of art. One i it if even went so far as to say that the exhibition of the works by pavement artists in one of the London Galleries excelled some examples of art which might be found in shops nearby. It is only on occasion, of course, that originality is expressed. The street

artist who extends “New Year Greetings” to the passer-by, or employs his talents upon a member of royalty who at the moment happens to be very much in the public eye is all too common. Varied Audience. But there is, nevertheless, to be found an occasional artist with an original talent, which seldom fails to win a measure of encouragement. No common public is the pavement artist’s audience, for a peer of the realm is as likely to linger by a glow of colourful drawings as the ordinary man-in-the-street. Whether the street artist makes his pitch in Gloucester road or Bussell square, or whether he be a youth whose resistance to art will not be downed, or a veteran whose talents are worthy of a better vocation, there is always a public generous and respectful toward the members of his “profession.” Nor are his rights to a particular vocation ever challenged. Street vendors may elbow each other out of a place. The street artist remains secure.