William Quiller Orchardson - Portrait of Professor Dewar

William Quiller Orchardson: Portrait of Professor Dewar
Identifier: earlyworkofrapha00adyj (find matches)
Title: The early work of Raphael
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Ady, Julia Mary Cartwright, d. 1924
Subjects: Raphael, 1483-1520
Publisher: London : Seeley and Co., Ltd. New York : E.P. Dutton and Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University



Text Appearing Before Image:
r place than the best work nowbeing done by any French painter. This does not mean that I want toput our English master on a level with Rembrandt, but simply that theessential principles on which they work are the same, and that thoseprinciples alone lead to the highest art. Look at the Sir Walter Gilbey,or the Mr. Moxon, or the Mrs. Joseph, or at a still quieter conceptionwhich was at the Academy some ten years ago, Mrs. Ralli, or even athis more decorative and less closely organized performances, such as theSir Andrew Walker and the Professor Dewar. In these creations youwill find a grip on the personalities before him, an instinctive determina-tion to make those personalities his keynotes, and a power to compelevery touch he puts upon the canvas to at once give vivacity to theexpression of the sitters character, and to prove, subjectively, that thusand thus only the artist intended to present him, which approach thepainter of the Syndics, and excel anything of the same kind we ever
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53> Oh 5s * THE ART OF WILLIAM Q.UILLER ORCHARDSON 73 now see at the Salon. For the Dutchman and the Englishman objectivetruth is a medium for the strongest possible enforcement of a subjective,aesthetic conception, while the French school is apt to concentrate itsattention mainly on the objective qualities, using the subjective onesmerely for control and restraint. On the one side we have passionate,on the other dispassionate, statements ; on the one side science in a richrobe of art, on the other science to which art has granted a scanty ragto veil her nakedness. And this brings me back to the theory from which I started, that allfine art which works through imitation must be a happy mixture ofobjective and subjective qualities. The imitation or reproduction ofobjects is the medium through which the personal conceptions have to bemade visible, and so it must be good enough not only to avoid givingoffence or betraying weakness, but even to give a certain amount ofpleasure for its