## The Project Gutenberg eBook of British Marine Painting

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Title: British Marine Painting

Editor: C. Geoffrey Holme

Contributor: A. L. Baldry

Release date: May 29, 2021 [eBook #65466]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRITISH MARINE PAINTING ***

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# BRITISH MARINE PAINTING
WITH ARTICLES BY A. L. BALDRY

1919

EDITED BY GEOFFREY HOLME
“THE STUDIO” Lᵀᴰ· LONDON · PARIS · NEW YORK

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## CONTENTS

ARTICLES BY A. L. BALDRY
| PAGE
British Marine Painting | 9
Notes on the Illustrations | 24
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
Bayes, Walter, A.R.W.S.
The Timid Bather | 113
Brangwyn, Frank, R.A.
In Port | 75
Brooks, I. W.
In Cymyran Bay | 129
Constable, John, R.A.
Chesil Beach | 39
Cox, David
Calais Pier | 49
Everett, John
Breakers | 119
Fielding, Copley
Coast Scene | 61
Flint, W. Russell, R.W.S.
The Fane Islands | 93
Lavery, Sir John, A.R.A., R.S.A.
Evening—The Coast of Spain from Tangier | 79
Moore, Henry, R.A.
A Breezy Day | 8
Nevinson, C. R. W.
The Wave | 123
Pears, Charles
The Needles | 107
Simpson, Charles W., R.I., R.B.A.
Landing Fish | 85
Stanfield, W. Clarkson, R.A.
Coast Scene | 55
Turner, J. M. W., R.A.
Lowestoft | 45
Whistler, J. McNeill
Marine | 69
Wilkinson, Norman, R.I.
The Wave | 101
ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOTONE
Allan, Robert W., R.W.S.
Off to the Fishing Grounds | 84
Allfree, G. S.
Motor Launches | 127
Bayes, Walter, A.R.W.S.
The Red Beach | 112
Brett, John, A.R.A.
From the Dorsetshire Cliffs | 67
Brooking, Charles
The Calm | 35
Brooks, I. W.
Coast Scene | 128
Coast Scene | 131
Brown, W. Marshall, A.R.S.A.
The Sea | 109
Burgess, Arthur J. W., R.I.
The Watch that never ends | 116
The Scarborough Fleet | 117
Chambers, George
Off Portsmouth | 52
Cooke, E. W., R.A.
Dutch Boats in a Calm | 58
Cotman, John Sell
A Galiot in a Storm | 48
Cox, E. A., R.B.A.
Elizabeth Castle, Channel Islands | 134
The Good Ship “Rose Elizabeth Novey” | 135
Crawford, E. T., R.S.A.
Closehauled, Crossing the Bar | 59
Draper, Herbert
Flying Fish | 87
Dyce, William, R.A.
Pegwell Bay, 1858 | 57
Emanuel, Frank L.
The Ancient Port of Fêques | 133
Everett, John
The Deck of a Tea-Clipper in the Tropics | 118
Flint, W. Russell, R.W.S.
Passing Sails | 95
Hardy, T. B.
A Change of Wind: Boulogne Harbour | 77
Hawksworth, W. T. M., R.B.A.
Low Water, Penzance | 125
Hayes, Edwin, R.H.A., R.I.
Sunset at Sea: from Harlyn Bay, Cornwall | 63
Hemy, C. Napier, R.A., R.W.S.
A Boat Adrift | 78
Holloway, C. E.
The Wreck | 68
Hook, J. C., R.A.
The Seaweed Raker | 71
Hunter, Colin, A.R.A.
Farewell to Skye | 73
King, Cecil
H.M.S. “Wolsey” in the Ice at Libau | 97
Regatta Day at Appledore | 98
Knight, C. Parsons
The Kyles of Bute | 65
Lindner, Moffat, A.R.W.S.
The Storm-Cloud, Christchurch Harbour | 91
McBey, James
Margate | 121
McTaggart, William, R.S.A.
The Sounding Sea | 74
Moore, Henry, R.A.
A Break in the Cloud | 72
Morland, George
Fishermen Hauling in a Boat | 37
Müller, William J.
Dredging on the Medway | 60
Murray, Sir David, R.A., P.R.I., A.R.S.A.
The Fiend’s Weather | 89
Olsson, Julius, A.R.A.
The Night Wrack | 110
Heavy Weather in the Channel | 111
Pears, Charles
The Yacht Race | 105
The Examination | 106
Pyne, J. B.
Totland Bay | 51
Robertson, Tom
Where the Somme meets the Sea | 90
Smart, R. Borlase, R.B.A.
Wet Rocks, St. Ives | 126
Smith, Hely, R.B.A.
Windbound | 104
Somerscales, Thomas
Off Valparaiso | 82
Before the Gale | 83
Stanfield, W. Clarkson, R.A.
The Port of La Rochelle | 53
Entrance to the Zuider Zee, Texel Island | 54
Thomson of Duddingston, The Rev. John, R.S.A.
Fast Castle | 47
Tollemache, The Hon. Duff
Storm on the Cornish Coast | 115
Tuke, Henry S., R.A., R.W.S.
August Blue | 88
Turner, J. M. W., R.A.
The Shipwreck | 41
The Prince of Orange landing at Torbay, November 5, 1688 | 42
Yacht Racing in the Solent | 43
Farne Island | 44
Wilkinson, Norman, R.I.
Etretat | 99
Plymouth Harbour | 100
Up Channel | 103
Williams, Terrick, R.I.
Clouds over the Sea, Holland | 132
Wilson, John H., R.S.A.
Seapiece | 38
Wyllie, W. L., R.A.
Blake’s Three Days Engagement with Van Tromp | 81

THE EDITOR DESIRES TO EXPRESS
HIS THANKS TO THE ARTISTS, COL-
LECTORS, AND THE AUTHORITIES
OF PUBLIC GALLERIES WHO
HAVE KINDLY ASSISTED HIM IN THE
PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME BY
PERMITTING THEIR PICTURES TO BE
REPRODUCED. THEIR NAMES AP-
PEAR UNDER THE ILLUSTRATIONS

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“A BREEZY DAY.” BY HENRY MOORE, R.A.

(In the possession of the Right Hon. Lord Leverhulme)

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## BRITISH MARINE PAINTING

TO most people it will seem quite natural that British artists should give much attention to marine painting. The sea plays a very important part in our national affairs, influences the character of the people, and affects the political policy of the country, so almost as a matter of course it has its place among the sources of inspiration for our native art. Sea painters of the higher rank have come with scarcely an exception from countries which have an extended coast-line and in which the seafaring habit has been developed by centuries of maritime activity—countries in which the use of the sea for purposes of commerce or communication has been a necessity. Dutch artists have painted the sea and shipping and incidents in the life of the dwellers on the coast with skill and distinction; there have been sea painters in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, some in France, a few in Italy and Spain; but it is in the British Isles most of all that the possibilities of marine painting have been recognized and the pictorial material that the sea provides has been turned to full account.

No doubt this is partly due to the fact that British art has concerned itself very greatly with what may be called the physical characteristics of the country. A considerable proportion of our painters have been devoted students of nature, and have occupied themselves with records of British scenery, and of those subtle effects of atmosphere and illumination which are the product of the variable British climate. Responsive themselves to the charm of their surroundings, they have catered for a public which appreciates the beauties of nature and likes to see them realized pictorially; lovers themselves of the land in which they live, they have striven to please the many people who are possessed by a similar sentiment and wish to have about them pictures in which this sentiment is agreeably reflected. No record of British scenery could be complete, and no appeal to British sentiment could be effective, if our artists ignored the wide variety of subjects which the sea offers them.

For the sea is with us a tradition, and the love of the sea is one of the strongest of our national instincts. Because we live on an island the sea is at the same time our protection from those who might seek to do us harm and our means of communication with the rest of the world; it safeguards us against dangers to which other less fortunately situated countries are constantly exposed, and yet it puts us directly in touch with even the most remote and apparently inaccessible peoples. Therefore we regard it naturally as a friendly influence in the lives of us all. But we owe it a debt of gratitude also for the effect it has had upon our British art. It is from our insular climate, from the mists and moisture which the sea brings, that those atmospheric qualities come which make the study of nature in the British Isles such a never-ending delight. It is the surrounding sea that encourages the rich growth of our vegetation, and that gives to our landscape its wealth of detail and its ample variety of colour. As the sea influences the manner of our national life, so it influences the quality, the sentiment, and the method of our art, helping us to build up a school which is insular in its merit and its expression, and national in its feeling and its intention.

Yet, curiously enough, in the earlier period of British art history the names of few painters are recorded who perceived the pictorial interest of the sea or tried to realize its beauties. Indeed, at the beginning no attention was given{10} to the study of open-air nature; landscape painting was not attempted seriously, and the study of atmospheric effects was generally disregarded. The artists of that time occupied themselves mainly with portraits—digressing occasionally into figure compositions—and took little account of anything but the purely human interest in art. They worked for the glorification of their patrons, to adorn the houses of the great, or to prove themselves good sons of the Church, not to bring about the conversion of the people who were insensible to nature’s charm.

It would be scarcely fair, however, to accuse the earlier British artists of insensibility because they worked in this manner within circumscribed limits; they only followed, after all, what was the fashion of the schools in other countries. In Italy, for instance, during the splendours of the Renaissance, the study of landscape for its own sake was as little thought of as it was in Great Britain at the time of the Tudors. Many of the Italian masters introduced landscape backgrounds in their figure compositions, but it was landscape of a formal and conventionalized kind, a weaving together of details to form a pattern which was used merely to fill space or to add something to the point of the pictured story. It was never landscape seen and set down as the motive of the painting; at best it was only a sort of still life.

But in Italy at that period the mission of the artist was very exactly defined, and even if he had been inclined to escape from the limitations imposed upon his activities, the custom of the time would have been too strong for him. He was the servant of the great noble and the obedient assistant of the Church, he decorated palaces, and he painted altar-pieces, he recorded scenes from ancient or contemporary history, and incidents in the lives of the saints. Neither the noble nor the churchman wanted from him studies of Italian scenery, or desired that he should show how he was impressed by the brightness of sunlight or by the glory of an evening sky. The severest discouragement would have awaited him if he had attempted anything so unconventional; he might even have incurred penalties as a man of unseemly and heterodox opinions.

For a long while British artists worked under restrictions hardly less rigid. What was demanded of them they supplied, but the demand that they should show to the public what nature is like was slow in coming. Word pictures of nature there were in plenty; a chorus of poets extolled her charm, but no one seemed to perceive that what they found so inspiring in their verse could be visualized and made apparent by the painters. When Herrick wrote:

“I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers”

British artists were looking to Van Dyck as their leader, and were striving, as he did, to immortalize their contemporaries or to tell in paint purely human stories. The brooks and blossoms, birds and flowers did not claim their consideration or provide them with material for popular canvases, and it did not occur to them to paint the groves and twilights, the damasked meadows and the pebbly streams, which Herrick loved so well.

In fact, it was not until the eighteenth century that the representation of landscape subjects began to be recognized as a legitimate sphere of artistic activity. Even then what was required was a very dry and commonplace kind of topographical illustration—a certain number of people had developed an interest in British scenery and in the archæological relics which were to be found in{11} different parts of the country, and accordingly it became the fashion to collect pictures of famous “views” and of ruined abbeys and other ancient buildings. But in producing these pictures little scope was allowed to the artist for the exercise of his imagination or for the expression of any æsthetic sentiment. The more precise and careful he was in his statement of fact, the more accurate his paintings were as portraits of the places or objects chosen, the better were his clients satisfied. He had to do what photography does now—he had to make a more or less literal diagram of his subject with as much of the detail as he could contrive to set down and with as little display as possible of his personal taste or fancy.

However, out of this limited and mechanical beginning grew very quickly a school of landscape practice which substituted the wider study of nature for the record of topographical realities. A number of artists broke away from restrictions by which they felt themselves to be hampered, and they found a considerable section of the public prepared to countenance them in their effort to attain freer and more significant expression. They brought a new spirit into the art of the country, a spirit of inquiry and investigation, and they taught people to look more closely at nature’s manifestations and to interest themselves intelligently in her elusive suggestions. In other words, they destroyed a convention which had been generally accepted, and in securing freedom for themselves to follow their personal inclinations towards a more rational treatment of nature they gained the sympathetic support of the many art lovers who had discovered how cramping the convention was, and how seriously it stood in the way of the right kind of development and progress.

The new school of landscape was deficient neither in enthusiasm nor energy. Men of marked originality and brilliant capacity rallied to it in large numbers, and with the vigorous initiative of pioneers in a land of promise set to work to make their discoveries effective. They wrested nature’s secrets from her one by one, secrets of colour, secrets of illumination and light and shade, secrets and mysteries of ever-changing atmospheric effect. There were still “views” to paint, but instead of being treated as matters of dry topography they were used as subjects for pictures in which the painter’s temperamental response to the inspiration he received was plainly manifested, and in which the impression made upon him by the motive in its various aspects was appropriately summed up. In a very short time the British landscape school became under the stimulus of the new thought and the new methods the most important in the world, and the most independent and progressive in its practice.

But, even then, few painters had realized the wonderful pictorial possibilities of the sea. There were some who attempted marine subjects and coast scenes but only as occasional diversions from their ordinary course of study—as illustrations of their capacity to deal with nature in any phase or mood, or it may be to gain experience in what was to them a novel kind of material. Probably in the eighteenth century an excursion to the coast was something of an adventure for men who lived inland; facilities for travel were very limited, and it was easier for an artist to record the subjects which were conveniently within his reach than to struggle against difficulties to reach places remote from his home. Moreover, his clients were mostly stay-at-home people, too, who knew the sea only as a sort of vague abstraction, as something they had heard about, but of which they had no personal knowledge, and therefore their interest in it was too indefinite to be remunerative to him. It was more to his{12} advantage to paint the things they knew than to make them realize what seemed to them strange and surprising.

Anyhow, nearly all the earlier painters of marine subjects were men who had some particular reason for taking to this line of practice. One of the first—Charles Brooking, who was born in 1723—was brought up in Deptford Dockyard, and as a not unnatural consequence acquired considerable skill in the representation of shipping and naval incidents. During the latter part of his short life—he died at the age of thirty-six—he gave some instruction to Dominic Serres, a Frenchman by birth, who was a foundation member of the Royal Academy and was appointed to the post of Marine Painter to the King. Serres had been a sailor, and was captured by an English frigate in the war of 1752 when he was in command of a trading vessel; he settled in this country, and with Brooking’s assistance and a good deal of hard work on his own part became a painter of repute. In his choice of the direction he followed in his art he was, like Brooking, influenced by his earlier associations and by the desire to treat pictorially material with which he was thoroughly conversant.

Another artist of this period who was almost exclusively a marine painter was Nicholas Pocock, born in 1741. He, too, had been at sea, and had commanded a sailing vessel before he adopted the profession of painting. Yet another was John Cleveley, born 1745, who is supposed to have been the son of a draughtsman in Deptford Dockyard, and who in his youth held some post there himself; and there was another Cleveley, Robert by name, born about the same time, who gained distinction by his pictures of naval engagements. He, again, had had previous experience at sea. Then there was Clarkson Stanfield, born at Sunderland in 1793, who went to sea in his boyhood, and was for a while in the Navy, until an accident cut short his career; his particular place in art was determined by the knowledge of his subject which he had gained before he turned to the profession of sea painter. And to the list can be added George Chambers, born at Whitby in 1803, the son of a seaman, and himself a sailor when he was not more than ten years old.

That men like these should have specialized in sea painting is not surprising. It is evident, by their later success as artists, that they had the faculty of observation and the capacity to visualize their impressions, and almost as a matter of course they were inclined to put into a pictorial form the matters with which they were so well acquainted. The sea had become a part of their lives, and of shipping they had an exact and technical knowledge; and they were in touch with people who were no strangers to the sea, and who in consequence demanded that it should be represented with fidelity and understanding. Everything combined to make them the leaders in a branch of practice which requires close and accurate insight, and their works in the early days of the nature study development set a standard of accomplishment which was helpful in the highest degree; a standard which might never have been reached if sea painting had been nothing more than the diversion of the landsman who now and again went for a sketching trip to the coast. The marine painters of our modern days who work with conscience and a love of completeness owe, perhaps, more than they realize to these predecessors of theirs who established the tradition of serious effort to get things right, and who built this tradition upon first-hand knowledge.

But to some extent it is to the example of these specialists that must also be ascribed the skill in sea painting that, as time went on, was attained by many{13} of their contemporaries who did not deal systematically with this class of subject. The habitual landscape painter, accustomed to fixed forms and effects that followed more or less regular rules, might easily have drifted into a conventional representation of the sea if he had not been shown the way to look at it by the men who knew it intimately, and if works by these men had not existed to provide him with the means of testing his own achievement. For his own credit, however, he had to strive to compete with them in knowledge of the sea, and had to measure an understanding of it acquired by deliberate and conscious effort against theirs which had been obtained by prolonged and personal contact; and to uphold his reputation as a painter of capacity he had to prove that he could grasp the essentials of whatever type of material he might elect to handle. Therefore, the adoption of a convention, the inadequacy of which could have easily been demonstrated, would have been a confession either of want of conscience or of deficient intelligence, and would have reflected upon his claim to rank as an artist of distinction.

That is why at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth the number of men who, without specializing in the subject, painted the sea with undeniable ability, had become considerable. By that time artists were moving about much more freely in search of motives, and many of them made frequent visits to the coast with the particular intention of mastering the problems of sea painting, and of studying at first hand phases of nature which were to them comparatively new. Moreover, the interest taken by the public in sea pictures had grown in a marked degree, and there was a demand which the popular artist was called upon to satisfy. So most of the landscape men alternated regularly between inland views and coast scenes, and painted both with the same sincerity and the same strength of purpose. Constable, David Cox, De Wint, Copley Fielding, Edward Duncan, J. S. Cotman—to quote a few of the more notable names—added important records of sea and coast subjects to the list of their more memorable productions; and there was, of course, Turner, who might with justice be claimed as the greatest of all marine painters despite the fact that his sea pictures make up only a small proportion of his total achievement.

Turner was supreme because he, and he only, estimated at its full value the poetry and the majesty of the sea; because he alone could grasp its immensity and its tragic strength and yet be exquisitely in sympathy with its smiling serenity and placid calm. Turner saw and understood the drama of the sea, and by the largeness of his vision and the depth of his understanding he was enabled to present this drama in all its varieties of action. But then, Turner had not only “the eye of an eagle”—as Ruskin said of him—he had, too, the gift of imagination by which realities are transmuted into poetic suggestion. Accuracy of detail and plain statement of fact were the foundations on which his art was built (and no one made more sure of his facts or looked more closely into details), but the superstructure he erected was designed and arranged to express his own large conception of his motive as a whole, and to illustrate the workings of his own emotion. Therefore, when he painted the sea it was the appeal that his subjects made to his imagination that directed and established the final result; and how strong this appeal was can be judged from the amazing beauty and power of his accomplishment as a marine painter. Although it has been given to no other artist to rival or approach Turner in mastery of accomplishment, although it is difficult to believe that there can{14} ever be another painter who will be able to claim equality with him in the same sphere of art, the stimulus of Turner’s example must always be vividly felt by every true student of nature, and especially by every one who aspires to paint marine subjects in the right manner. For, certainly, the poetry of the sea and the drama of the sea are among the most salient of its characteristics, and there is surrounding it an atmosphere of sentiment that must be sympathetically perceived. A commonplace and matter-of-fact statement of wave forms would be about as worthless artistically as an architectural elevation of a mountain range, and the more coldly and scientifically correct it was the less would it convey of the spirit of the sea. The frame of mind in which the painter must assume his task must be akin to that of Thomson when he wrote:

“Thou, majestic main
A secret world of wonders in thyself!”

and in this world of wonders he must be prepared always to find some new secret which will deepen his sense of the mystery of the sea and make him feel that with all his striving he has touched only the fringe of its romance. At no stage in his study will he be in a position to say that he has learned enough and that his subject has no more to reveal; every fresh discovery will open up to him new matters for investigation, and suggest other lines of thought.

Turner, at all events, never came to the conclusion that his knowledge of the sea was complete, for to the end of his life he maintained the freshness and variety of his interpretation. He gave to it, year by year, a deeper note of sentiment, responding always more directly to the impression he received, and eliminating everything that did not help in the attainment of his pictorial purpose. Detail at the last he almost entirely disregarded, concentrating the whole of his attention upon the main effect by which temperamentally he was inspired; but the things essential for the construction of his picture and for making clear the meaning of his motive he observed with the most scrupulous care. Even in his slightest and, seemingly, most casual notes of the sea there was the subtlest accuracy of vision, and there was the truest summing up of the story that was told by the particular phase of the subject he had chosen for the exercise or his powers as an interpreter of nature’s message. Never did he descend to a formula or use a set convention to gain his dramatic result. It was partly for this reason that he stood so sublimely apart from his contemporaries; he did not repeat himself, while they were too often content to follow rules and to do over again things that they had discovered to be attractive to the public. Yet many of the artists of Turner’s period were men of distinction and their sea paintings had satisfying merit and no small measure of inspiration. Stanfield suggested well the movement and action of the sea and was sensitive to its atmosphere; Copley Fielding saw and took the opportunities that the sea offered him for arranging graceful compositions and charming studies of light and shade, and he, too, had a sound understanding of wave movement; De Wint and David Cox, both masterly students of nature, painted the misty subtleties of the coast with masculine power and with the knowledge that comes only from prolonged and thoughtful observation; and others not less observant showed that the pictorial possibilities of the sea had by no means escaped them. But none of them arrived at Turner’s magnificent disregard of limitations or approached him in dramatic strength, and certainly none of them had the courage to abandon, as he did, detailed reality for the sake of presenting a higher and more impressive truth.{15}

Indeed, that is one of the mysteries of Turner’s genius—that he could distort facts and leave out apparently essential details and yet make his realization of nature perfect in its truth—and what is still more mysterious is that this system of distortion and elimination was not a matter of convention but a universally applicable principle of practice and one which in his hands was capable of infinite variation. By an infallible instinct he grasped instantly the meaning of his subject as a whole and decided what he should accentuate or omit to make that meaning clear, and all his devices of technical treatment were as infallibly directed by an exact understanding of the way in which they could best be made to serve his end. Paradoxically, he left things out to gain a greater completeness of result, and he departed from strict correctness to secure more absolute reality. But all this he did by the aid of an extraordinary insight into nature’s facts and under the guidance of a judgment which was never at fault.

That is why Turner’s manner of representing the sea cannot be applied by lesser men. Without any disparagement of the many able marine painters who have practised since his time it can safely be said that on none of them his mantle has fallen. Certainly to none of them has been granted his rare endowment of intimate vision and profound imagination; certainly none has possessed that combination of exhaustive knowledge and perfect confidence which made him so consummately a master of his craft. There have been in the recent past, there are at work to-day, artists who have studied the sea in the most sympathetic spirit and whose seriousness of effort deserves the highest praise, artists whose accomplishment would be wholly satisfying if Turner had not shown so brilliantly the greater possibilities of sea painting; but theirs is a limited and specialized view beside that of their great predecessor. It is as well, however, that they do not try to do too much. To paint the abstract drama of the sea in the only way that can be made convincing, the possession of a temperament is absolutely essential, but this temperament must be schooled and disciplined by lifelong study or the drama will degenerate into incredible fantasy. Turner was temperamentally fitted to attempt the highest flights, and with his perfect technical equipment nothing was beyond his reach. Other artists must be content to admire his poetic power without aspiring to rival it. But, after all, honest, well-educated, serious prose is better than incoherent poetry, no matter how well-intentioned that may be; and certainly the prose of many of our modern sea painters is very good indeed—clear, logical, and distinguished by a true sense of style—and into much of it comes that touch of poetic feeling that gives charm and picturesqueness to the descriptive statement.

To illustrate the difference between these two types of sea painting the work of Henry Moore can appropriately be instanced. He was, next to Turner, the most learned and accomplished student of marine motives and the finest exponent of the facts of the sea whom any school has produced. But beside the dramatic poetry of Turner his art was prose, fine prose, persuasive and dignified, but never rising into inspired fancy. In other words, he saw nobly and beautifully, but Turner saw and imagined as well, and the more he saw the more splendidly did he use his imagination.

Yet Henry Moore has indisputably his place among the masters because his art, though not profoundly imaginative, was as able in achievement as it was accurate in observation. Moreover, he was acutely responsive to the senti{16}ment of nature, and interpreted her in her many moods with exquisite discretion. Frank and straightforward as his work always was, it never lacked the direction of a sympathetic mind; its strength was controlled by a singularly correct sense of artistic propriety and was never allowed to degenerate into mere display of executive cleverness. Certainly Henry Moore was a fine craftsman, and was not hampered by technical difficulties in the practice of his art; indeed, one of the most salient characteristics of his pictures, as we see them to-day, is the confidence of the handling by which they are distinguished.

This confidence, this directness of method, was the outcome of a not less confident understanding of the material with which he was accustomed to deal. The things he knew were to him matters of such complete knowledge that he was able to concentrate himself entirely upon the pictorial realization of them without having to make experiments or calculations to prove whether or not his assumptions were correct. Wisely, too (not having the Turner temperament), he did not aim at possibilities which he honestly recognized as being beyond his reach. Facts and realities he could grasp, subtle shades of fact and delicate variations of reality he could express with discriminating subtlety and sensitive delicacy, but to conceive a vision in which actual nature would be turned into a gloriously fanciful abstraction was outside the range of his personality. So he kept to the path which it was right that he should tread, and made no excursions into strange places in the domain of art, proving himself thereby a master of himself as well as of his art.

We have every reason to be grateful to him for his solid and well-balanced common sense. Henry Moore as an imitator of Turner, following in the wake of a leader whom he could never overtake, would have been a wasted force in art. Henry Moore as a painter true to his own convictions, striving earnestly to set before us his extraordinarily intimate view of the sea, has established a standard against which the achievements of our modern sea painters can be measured most instructively, and has pointed out the principles on which these painters must work if they are to justify their effort. Knowledge such as Turner possessed is by its very vastness incomprehensible to the ordinary man; but knowledge like that which Henry Moore gathered is possible to other artists, though to few of them is given his capacity to express it, and to fewer still his sureness of touch and his command of executive method.

What is particularly to be learned from Henry Moore’s pictures is the wide variety of matters which have to be studied by the men who aspire to paint the sea with a sufficient measure of artistic fitness. There are, of course, many ways of representing the sea pictorially—as a background or setting to some nautical incident; as an accessory in a scene which has humanity for its main interest; as a generalized scheme of colour or tone; as a decorative motive with conventionalized forms; or as a poetically indefinite fantasy in which nearly everything is left to the imagination of the beholder. But the most scholarly and serious way—Henry Moore’s way—is to analyse and dissect; to account for every variation in form and every changing gleam of colour; to find the reasons for each of the many kinds of wave movement; to learn the connexion between certain conditions of the weather and certain states of the sea; to know how to produce a sea picture which will be logical throughout and without contradictions of atmospheric effect which are calculated to excite the protests of the marine expert who knows his subject and is not inclined to{17} take artistic licence into consideration. Henry Moore spared himself none of these exhaustive preparations and had the technical skill to make the outcome of them wholly attractive in artistic quality; that is why he ranks as a master at whose feet it is good for the would-be sea painter to sit in all humility.

If a series of his pictures is examined it will be seen at once that in each one some special problem is dealt with and some definite phase of the sea is taken as the motive. Unthinking people are apt to say that sea paintings are monotonous because they lack incident and variety of subject, because they are nothing but waves and sky, but this objection implies an unobservant habit of mind. Henry Moore did not repeat himself, and among the most personal characteristics of his work was its breadth of outlook, a breadth of outlook which was developed by his constant search for fresh impressions. Although he had not had, like Stanfield or Chambers, a professional connexion with the sea, he was frequently afloat and always trying to enlarge his experience of his subject. He had, too, the gift of very rapid technical expression which enabled him to set down what he saw while the impression was vividly in his mind, so that his first clear conviction was not modified or obscured by mechanical causes—by that prolongation of effort which leads to an ill-assorted mixing of ideas and an indecisive manner of statement.

This combination of instantaneous apprehension and unhesitating expression is, indeed, a necessity for the artist who wishes to avoid a merely conventional rendering of the sea and who is anxious to suggest properly its really infinite variety. There is so much that must be done quickly, there are such incessant changes of effect and condition, that the deliberate worker, thinking slowly and using his appliances unreadily, is always in danger of being left with his intention unrealized. He sees something that appeals to him as a good subject and he begins to study it in all seriousness; but before he has grasped its meaning, and before he has more than the first few careful touches on his canvas, the effect that stirred him has gone, and in its place there is something else that is surprisingly different. No wonder if unable to keep pace with nature’s elusive tricks he becomes after a while hopelessly bewildered and gives up the struggle in despair. Possibly, being a conscientious person, he decides to paint one aspect only of the sea and to specialize in one type of subject which he can master by long and laborious practice; or, being less particular, he builds up a pretty convention which will help him to turn out superficially attractive things that will please a none too critical public. But in neither way is the great sea painter made, the painter who can tell the story of the sea and convey to us its sentiment and its character.

What makes the problems of marine painting so complex is, first of all, the fact that the sea is never in absolute repose, and therefore its surface forms are constantly undergoing some degree of change. Another difficulty is that the sea-water seems to vary in composition and consistency according to the conditions under which it is viewed; at one time it is solid, opaque, ponderous, and sombre in colour, and at another it is light, transparent and full of delicate tints. As it is a reflecting substance as well as one through which light can pass it alters in appearance in the most surprising manner under the incidence of sunlight or in response to the variations in atmospheric effect; and as it is a moving body it appears to be subject to no laws of construction and to have no sort of method in its restlessness. Most people, indeed, would hold that the cynical comment on womankind, “Toujours femme varie, souvent elle est{18} folle,” could be applied with particular appropriateness to the sea, so feminine is it in its charming irresponsibility.

Yet the student of the sea can, if he sets to work in the right way, discover the sources of its irresponsibility and the reasons for its lapses into insanity. He can dissect its forms and learn its anatomical construction, and he can find out what regulates and determines its movements. He can establish a direct agreement between the apparent texture of the sea and the bottom over which it flows, as well as between its surface character and the nature of the weather. And having dissected and analysed, having investigated and arranged his discoveries in the proper order, he can solve pictorial problems which ordinary men would count as puzzles to which there was no key. With this knowledge at his disposal he would be able, too, to paint pictures which would show the sea as it is and as it can be, not as an erratic and unaccountable phenomenon acting contrary to all natural laws, which is the view given of it by the artists who are incautious enough to paint it without having learned its ways.

For instance, the painter properly equipped would make the right distinction, both in colour and wave form, between the deep sea and that in shallow places; between the transparency of waves breaking on a rocky coast and those on a sandy beach; between the wave action in a tidal current moving with or against the wind; or between the seas that are penned in a narrow channel and those that are running free in wide spaces. These are elementary matters, perhaps, in the study of marine painting, but elementary or not they are only too often misapprehended by the careless observer; and they are typical of a host of others which are not less likely to become pitfalls for the unwary. Neglect of them leads to slovenly and unsatisfactory production and to a kind of work that may be cheaply effective but that has actually no justification for existence.

One mistake very often made by men who have not carried their studies far enough is to miss the necessary connexion between the state of the sea and the accompanying condition of the atmosphere; another is to paint in a sea picture a sky that is in wrong relation to the wave movement. Both these errors arise from the failure of the painter to study his subject as a whole, from his inexperience of what may be called the technical peculiarities of his material. He has by him a sea note that seems worth treating on a more ambitious scale, and he finds in his portfolio a sketch of a sky that composes nicely and is quite attractive in its general character; so he mixes the two together and calls the compilation a marine painting. But, really, unless by some lucky chance the two sketches happened to have been done under similar weather conditions the picture would be no more true to nature than the laboured effort of the “art” photographer who prints his sky from one negative and his landscape from another; or who grafts a studio-lighted figure on to a background photographed out of doors.

The sea painter must, for the credit of art, keep clear of such silly tricks and mechanical devices. He must be logical both in his observations and in the use he makes of them, and he must be consistent in his statement of the facts before him. A picture in which the sea suggests half a gale while the sky is one which would be seen only in a dead calm is an obvious absurdity, and it would be not less ridiculous to paint the full colours of sunlight in an atmosphere of mist and driving rain; yet these things are done by artists from whom more regard for truth is to be expected. Lapses of this sort cannot be{19} forgiven; they imply a shirking of responsibility that is beyond excuse, and a failure to grasp the first principles of nature study. They would never occur if the men who paint the sea would regard it as a living reality which responds to the influence of its surroundings and varies its appearance as circumstances dictate, and if they would recognize that it has its own anatomical structure by which its movements are controlled. There is a reason for everything it does and there is a way of accounting for every aspect it assumes, but the reason has to be sought for, and the way to necessary knowledge must be pursued with painstaking effort. There is no place in marine painting for the man who wants to take things easily.

But any one who is interested in executive problems which demand concentrated attention and sustained investigation will find plenty to tax his fullest energies—problems of drawing, of colour and tone management, of imitative suggestion, and of technical application. As an example of a complex motive which would present a series of difficulties a picture might be imagined of the sea washing in among rocks, some of which are submerged while others stand up above the surface, the water clear and transparent and neither smooth nor much agitated. Through the water the objects beneath would be clearly seen and the surface would reflect the rocks above and catch gleams of light from the sky, and the movement of the small waves swinging towards the rocks and rebounding from them, and eddying over the shallow places, would make a pattern of lines and planes set at all sorts of angles. To realize such a subject adequately an almost perfect balance of observation would be needed. Too much attention given to the under-water details would destroy the suggestion of the surface; too much concentration on the surface lights and reflections would make the water seem opaque; exaggeration of the lines and planes of the ripples would diminish the breadth of effect and alter the character of the subject. The painter must perceive that this problem has many sides, and that each one must receive exactly its right amount of consideration if the pictorial solution is to be correct; if he has to make a compromise with reality the most subtle judgment will be required of him to create an illusion that will look like truth.

To multiply such examples would be easy, for there is no phase of sea painting in which difficulties do not abound. It is difficult to paint a breaking wave, to preserve its architectural quality of design and its appearance of massive strength, and yet to show that it is a moving and momentary thing disappearing as quickly as it is formed. It is difficult to represent the confusion of a stormy sea, churned into foam and tossing in the wildest turmoil, and yet to make intelligible the order and regularity of its movement and the right sequence of its changing forms. It is as difficult to render the smoothness of calm, quiet water without making it look solid and opaque, dull and lifeless, as it is to suggest the liveliness of a breezy day without lapsing into meaningless repetition and restless pattern-making. Every successful sea picture is a difficulty overcome and a problem solved, and every successful sea painter is a man who has struggled earnestly with intractable material and has built his achievement on a foundation of laboriously acquired knowledge. Probably that is why there have been comparatively few great sea painters; it is certainly a reason why the few who can be accounted great should be regarded as masters of the highest rank with places of distinction in the history of art.

Next in importance to the study of the sea itself comes the acquisition of a{20} capacity to paint shipping, the two do not necessarily go together. There have been many capable painters of the sea who could not draw a ship and did not know how to set it on the water; and there have been many men with an accurate technical knowledge of shipping whose treatment of the sea from the pictorial point of view left much to be desired. As a matter of fact, a ship provides one of the severest tests of draughtsmanship; it is such a complicated collection of lines and curves and so hard to put in proper perspective that it makes exceptional demands upon the artist’s powers. Moreover, every ship has its own individuality, a character peculiar to itself, and to express this individuality as much analytical effort is needed as to draw the right distinction between the differing types of humanity. Details which to the unprofessional eye seem of no significance must be carefully attended to because each one of them contributes something to the sum total of fact and helps to make the character intelligible, and to slur over these details is a fatal mistake. A ship treated conventionally and without personal insight is as uninspiring pictorially as a portrait which has missed all the little human characteristics which made the sitter interesting.

The painter of shipping has, too, a very wide field to cover. He has to range from the yacht to the warship, from the liner to the rusty, weather-beaten tramp; he has to show how the lively movement of the sailing ship differs from the steady, methodical progression of the steamer; he has to understand the behaviour of all sorts of craft under all sorts of weather conditions; and to make this varied assortment of knowledge intelligible in his pictures he has to depend almost entirely upon his powers of drawing. By bad drawing he will not only miss the specific character of the ship, but he will also fail to explain the part that this ship is intended to play in the story which his picture seeks to tell. The introduction of shipping into a painting of the sea is usually to increase the dramatic strength of the subject, but if through technical inefficiency the added incident does not carry conviction or explain itself properly the point of the drama is obscured rather than accentuated.

Unfortunately it is rather too easy to produce instances of the wrong handling of ships in sea pictures, which otherwise are quite acceptable, and of imperfect understanding of the action of vessels afloat. Some of the earlier masters who had studied the sea and knew its ways well made curious mistakes when they brought in a ship as a central feature in their composition. They would fairly often poise a craft of much solidity and considerable tonnage on the very crest of a wave where there was certainly not a sufficient body of water to support it; or they would put a ship so close to a gently shelving beach that there was an obvious and immediate danger of its running aground, a position that would alarm even the boldest of sailors. They were as a rule cheerfully ignorant of the intricacies of rigging and of the set of sails, and occasionally they seemed to credit a ship with an uncanny power of progressing at full speed in the teeth of a stiff breeze. All this resulted from inadequate study of technicalities that a seafaring man would treat as a matter of course—from insufficient acquaintance with things that, after all, scarcely came within the scope of a landsman’s experience.

But the present-day painter is expected to be more precise; and if he does not fulfil this expectation he will find that there are plenty of people who are ready and willing to call him to account. He has to face a more critical generation than his predecessors knew, a generation which travels more and has much{21} wider opportunities of acquiring knowledge of many subjects, and he has to reckon with a familiarity with marine details that has become an eminently British characteristic. Picturesque improbabilities would not be left unquestioned now; there would be scathing comments by nautical experts, and even the ordinary man would not hesitate to voice his doubts. Perhaps we have grown a little pedantic in this demand for strict reality, but, all the same, it is not unreasonable to require from the painter who puts a ship into his picture evidence that he knows a fair amount about that ship’s construction and how it should behave in the situation he assigns to it. Even a piece of imaginative fantasy is none the worse for being based judiciously on solid fact.

Beside the purely marine painting, the picture that is concerned solely with the sea and ships that sail on it, there is a place for the coast subject. It is true that the coast scene is, more often than not, only a landscape into which the sea is introduced as a subsidiary interest, but under this heading can be included also those views of harbours, estuaries, cliffs, and beaches, which many painters have treated with distinction of style and charm of sentiment. Yet even the coast scene in which the actual nearness of the sea is only suggested owes its character to the sea. Only the sea could have carved those cliffs into their impressive shapes, or could have piled up those masses of huge rocks. Only the winds which blow in from the sea could have moulded that range of sand dunes or could have twisted those stunted trees into their curiously picturesque forms. Only as a protection against the savage strength of the sea has that breakwater been built behind which the fleet of fishing boats lies in shelter. And from the sea come those driving mists and slow-moving banks of fog which throw a veil of mystery over the landscape and give a new aspect to even the most familiar objects. The scent of the sea is in the air, the sound of its waves is unceasing, its influence is all about; the coast is, indeed, but the subject of the sea and owes to it allegiance.

It is in this spirit, unquestionably, that many artists have painted the coast, with a sense of the dominating power of the sea and a conscious acknowledgement of its influence. They have appreciated the dramatic value of the persistent struggle between the sea and the land, a struggle of which the evidences are not to be mistaken; and they have felt the nature of the resistance which the land, an unwilling subject, offers to the encroachments of its tyrant. Even in pictures which represent the coast in its most peaceful moments, when the sea ripples lazily round the rocks under the light of the summer sun, the scars left by the assaults of waves driven by past storms cannot be concealed. Fragments torn from the cliffs strew the shore, the wreckage of the land is heaped up waiting for the inevitable moment when the sea, renewing its attack, will swallow up what it has already half destroyed. The note of tragedy is always present, there is always a suggestion that the sea is merely waiting its opportunity and that when the time comes it will rend and overwhelm and assert its ruthlessness without mercy or restraint.

The same kind of sentiment marks the picture of the harbour subject in which man’s conflict with the sea is illustrated. Humanity is perpetually at war with the forces of nature, and is always seeking to keep them in check, with, at best, only partial success. Incessant watchfulness is necessary, constant effort to repair what is as constantly wrecked and overthrown, unwearying patience and unceasing toil. Often man sees something he has done blotted out utterly by nature’s act, and he has to start again and build up anew from the very begin{22}ning, knowing as he builds that he is defying a power stronger than himself, more patient than he is and more serenely confident of ultimate success. Yet he goes on with his work, patching, renewing, rebuilding, and fighting stubbornly every step forward or back.

That is why there is an element of romance in the picture which has for its motive something that men have constructed to protect themselves against the inroads of the sea, some piece of work that suggests the shifts and contrivances used to secure a measure of shelter from the violence of the waves and the fury of the storm. The story which such a picture has to tell is full of significance because the facts presented by the artist sum up a series of human activities and throw light upon the conditions under which these activities have been carried on. It is a story, too, with an appeal because it shows a phase of human endurance which deserves sympathy and respect, sympathy for the difficulties encountered, and respect for the way in which they have been overcome; and it has its full measure of picturesqueness and artistic fitness by which its claim to serious treatment is amply justified.

Indeed, the paintings of the fringe and surrounding of the sea which have been produced by British artists uphold worthily the best traditions of our school; they include much that proves indisputably the powers of our greater masters, and certainly they are more numerous than the pictures of the open sea. That this should be is scarcely surprising for, after all, the painters who risk the perils of the deep even for brief excursions are much fewer than those who wander along the coast in search of material, and to most men the combination of land and sea offers more attractive problems than the less-known waste of waters. Moreover, there is a wider public for the coast scene (and few artists can afford to disregard the popular demand), because the great majority of people gain their impressions of the sea by looking at it from the land and but rarely seek for experiences afloat. The purely marine subject seen intimately and interpreted finely offers opportunities for a higher type of achievement, and in some respects calls for more concentrated study; but where the land and sea meet there is a more obvious variety of pictorial suggestions and the touch of romantic sentiment is more apparent. It is not given to many people, artists or laymen, to feel the profound mystery and the dramatic grandeur of the open sea; there are plenty, however, who can sense the appeal of the broken and battered coast and find romance in the harbours and tidal inlets.

From a purely technical standpoint the coast picture is also more convenient than the painting of the open sea; it is easier to compose satisfactorily and to arrange in proper order. As a matter of space-filling and pattern-making it is much less difficult to construct a design with the vertical or sloping lines of cliffs or rocks contrasting with the horizontals of the sea than it is when the picture is divided into sea and sky with nothing to break the severe simplicity of the composition. This technicality has evidently perplexed many sea painters, and has not infrequently led them into rather strained devices to obtain variety—into exaggeration of the tones of the sky and over-accentuation of cloud forms, or into the introduction of shipping where the subject was already too complicated to require an added interest. Such evasions of a difficulty by artificial means are, however, not to be defended, and the artist who feels that the purely marine picture is too great a tax upon his powers had better not stray from the coast where there is plenty of more amenable pictorial material at his disposal. He is a wise man who recognizes his own limi{23}tations and does not invite trouble by trying to conceal his deficiencies in a branch of practice for which he is unsuited.

There is another type of art which can be brought legitimately under the heading of marine painting—the representation of the life of the people who have dealings with the sea and obtain from it their means of existence. The sailors, the fisher-folk, the many who work by and on the sea have their part in its story and provide the artist with ample matter by which this story can be appropriately illustrated. They live picturesquely and they are admirably in harmony with their surroundings; they work hard, but in the freedom of the open air, and they are not cramped within the walls of the shop or factory. In their occupation there is always the spice of adventure and there are many moments of danger, many tragic happenings, and many incidents which test severely both mind and body. But all this develops character and sets its stamp upon the seaman’s personality, marking with signs that cannot be mistaken his place in the community.

Of the figure pictures by British artists which are popular to-day, and for which continued appreciation can safely be prophesied, a large number have for subject something that refers to the sea. The North-West Passage, by Sir John Millais, is, for instance, an inspiring reminder in its spirit and sentiment of a series of sea adventures which must for ever stand to the credit of the British race; and Bramley’s Hopeless Dawn tells eloquently the story of a tragedy only too sadly common where men seek a precarious livelihood on the treacherous sea. Other pictures like the Hon. John Collier’s Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, and H. S. Tuke’s All Hands to the Pumps, give us full opportunity to judge the nature of the dangers to which seamen are exposed; while others again, like Napier Hemy’s Pilchards, and Colin Hunter’s Their Only Harvest, show us what kind of work occupies the fisher-folk and the other coast dwellers whose necessities the sea supplies. Another aspect of the subject is seen in Tuke’s August Blue, and C. W. Wyllie’s Digging for Bait, which suggest those pleasanter moments when life by the sea has its genial and enjoyable side and the stress and turmoil of the winter storms are for a while forgotten.

These particular pictures are quoted because, being all in a national collection, they are accessible to every one and are permanently available to illustrate the varying relation of humanity with the sea. They represent a class of production within which is comprehended a wide range of subjects and to which a host of distinguished artists have made important contributions; they point the direction in which there is still much to be found that is worthy of the most serious consideration and the most carefully applied treatment; and they mark the lines along which men who have the faculty of observation and a capacity for personal interpretation can travel to great accomplishment. There is, indeed, hardly any kind of sentiment that does not, in this connexion, lend itself well to the artist’s purpose: tragedy, domestic drama, romance, pure fantasy, comedy even, are all permissible, and often a picture with the most attractive qualities can be made out of a plain statement of everyday facts, so picturesque is the setting which the sea life provides for the people who lead it. During recent years, indeed, many painters have established themselves by the sea with the express intention of seeking there material for important works, and many others have paid long visits to our coasts for the sake of studying at close quarters the subjects which are so plentifully available; and these{24} men have not found it necessary to depart from strict reality to give interest and convincing strength to their pictures. By being true to fact, by recording faithfully what they saw around them, they have added to British art much that is well worth possessing, and they have proved that realism under suitable conditions is a factor of infinite value in pictorial production. They have had ample scope for the exercise of their selective sense and for the use of their powers of observation, and even though they have chosen to deal with a clearly defined class of material they have not been hampered by limitations which checked the free expression of their temperamental preferences. This is because the sea life is so abounding in action, and because the people who lead it are of so many types and so unstereotyped in their ways, that to the painter who works by the sea a constant succession of new motives is presented, and motives, too, which by their picturesqueness and human interest satisfy completely the artistic demand.

Clearly, in marine painting there is no lack of opportunities. In its various branches it offers to the artist room for the most divergent activities and it allows him a spacious field for the exercise of his powers. If he aspires to conquer difficulties they are there in plenty, difficulties which have to be met with courage and handled with discretion. If he is content with simple tasks there are many which will occupy him agreeably and be well worth working out. If he is a serious student of nature’s manifestations they are set before him in profusion, and the whole array of her mysteries is paraded for his instruction; and if humanity is his subject, all the actors in the drama of sea life are there to inspire him with their doings and to stir his imagination with the record of their achievements. Always the contact with the sea brings him something fresh that leads him into new trains of thought and suggests to him new ways of applying his technical skill; but always the demand is made upon him that he should put forth the whole of his effort to reach and maintain the highest standard of artistic practice. There is no place in marine painting for the man who, taking the line of least resistance, seeks by compromise and convention to gloss over his want of knowledge and tries by superficial cleverness of handling to divert attention from the incompleteness of his analysis. An artist of this sort had better let the sea alone and choose something simpler and less abounding with pitfalls for his inexperience.

## NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS

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{25} 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{26} 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.{27} 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 autho{28}rity 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;{29} 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{30} 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{31} 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{32} 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{33} 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,{34} 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

{35]

“THE CALM.” BY CHARLES BROOKING

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery, London)

{36}

{37]

“FISHERMEN HAULING IN A BOAT.” BY GEORGE MORLAND

Photo, Mansell

(In the Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

{38]

“SEAPIECE.” BY JOHN H. WILSON, R.S.A.

(In the possession of Messrs. Arthur Tooth & Sons)

{39]

“CHESIL BEACH.” BY JOHN CONSTABLE, R.A.

(In the possession of John Levy, Esq., New York)

{40}

{41]

“THE SHIPWRECK.” BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

{42]

“THE PRINCE OF ORANGE LANDING AT TORBAY NOVEMBER 5, 1688.” BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

{43]

“YACHT RACING IN THE SOLENT.” BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

{44]

“FARNE ISLAND.” BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

(In the Collection at Barbizon House)

{45]

“LOWESTOFT.” BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

(In the possession of R. W. Lloyd, Esq.)

{46}

{47]

“FAST CASTLE.” BY THE REV. JOHN THOMSON OF DUDDINGSTON, R.S.A.

(In the Collection at Barbizon House)

{48]

“A GALIOT IN A STORM” BY JOHN SELL COTMAN

Photo Woodbury Co.

(In the National Gallery, London)

{49]

“CALAIS PIER.” BY DAVID COX

(In the possession of Messrs. Thos. Agnew & Sons)

{50}

{51]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“TOTLAND BAY.” BY J. B. PYNE

{52]

(In the possession of A. T. Hollingsworth, Esq.)

“OFF PORTSMOUTH.” BY GEORGE CHAMBERS

{53]

(In the possession of Messrs. Arthur Tooth & Sons)

“THE PORT OF LA ROCHELLE.” BY W. CLARKSON STANFIELD, R.A.

{54]

Photo, Mansell

“ENTRANCE TO THE ZUYDER ZEE, TEXEL ISLAND” BY W. CLARKSON STANFIELD, R.A.

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

{55]

(In the possession of Messrs. Thos. Agnew & Sons)

“COAST SCENE.” BY W. CLARKSON STANFIELD, R.A.

{56}

{57]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“PEGWELL BAY, 1858.” BY WILLIAM DYCE, R.A.

{58]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“DUTCH BOATS IN A CALM.” BY E. W. COOKE, R.A.

{59]

Photo, Annan

(In the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh)

“CLOSEHAULED, CROSSING THE BAR.” BY E. T. CRAWFORD, R.S.A.

{60]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“DREDGING ON THE MEDWAY.” BY WILLIAM J. MÜLLER

{61]

(In the possession of Messrs. Arthur Tooth & Sons)

“COAST SCENE.” BY COPLEY FIELDING

{62}

{63]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“SUNSET AT SEA: FROM HARLYN BAY, CORNWALL.” BY EDWIN HAYES, R.H.A., R.I.

{64}

{65]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“THE KYLES OF BUTE.” BY C. PARSONS KNIGHT

{66}

{67]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“FROM THE DORSETSHIRE CLIFFS.” BY JOHN BRETT, A.R.A.

{68]

(In the possession of Messrs. William Marchant & Co.)

“THE WRECK.” BY C. E. HOLLOWAY

{69]

(In the possession of Mrs. Lewis Hind)

“MARINE.” BY J. McNEILL WHISTLER

{70}

{71]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“THE SEAWEED RAKER.” BY J. C. HOOK, R.A.

{72]

(In the possession of Messrs. Arthur Tooth & Sons)

“A BREAK IN THE CLOUD.” BY HENRY MOORE, R.A.

{73]

Photo, Annan

(In the Corporation Art Gallery, Glasgow)

“FAREWELL TO SKYE.” BY COLIN HUNTER, A.R.A

{74]

(By permission of Messrs. J. Maclehose & Sons, Publishers of Mr. James L. Caw’s “William McTaggart, R.S.A.”)

“THE SOUNDING SEA.” BY WILLIAM McTAGGART, R.S.A.

{75]

(In the possession of Mr. John A. Cooling)

“IN PORT.” BY FRANK BRANGWYN, R.A.

{76}

{77]

Photo, Mansell

(By permission of the Leeds Art Gallery Committee)

“A CHANGE OF WIND: BOULOGNE HARBOUR.” BY T. B. HARDY

{78]

Photo, Mansell

(By permission of the Oldham Art Gallery Committee)

“A BOAT ADRIFT.” BY C. NAPIER HEMY, R.A., R.W.S.

{79]

“EVENING.” THE COAST OF SPAIN FROM TANGIER. BY SIR JOHN LAVERY, A.R.A., R.S.A.

{80}

{81]

“BLAKE’S THREE DAYS ENGAGEMENT WITH VAN TROMP.” BY W. L. WYLLIE, R.A.

{82]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“OFF VALPARAISO.” BY THOMAS SOMERSCALES

{83]

“BEFORE THE GALE.” BY THOMAS SOMERSCALES

{84]

“OFF TO THE FISHING GROUNDS.” BY ROBERT W. ALLAN, R.W.S.

{85]

“LANDING FISH.” BY CHARLES W. SIMPSON, R.I., R.B.A.

{86}

{87]

“FLYING FISH.” BY HERBERT DRAPER

{88]

Photo, Mansell

(In the National Gallery of British Art, London)

“AUGUST BLUE.” BY HENRY S. TUKE, R.A., R.W.S.

{89]

“THE FIEND’S WEATHER.” BY SIR DAVID MURRAY, R.A., P.R.I., A.R.S.A.

{90]

“WHERE THE SOMME MEETS THE SEA” BY TOM ROBERTSON

{91]

(In the possession of the Barcelona Corporation)

“THE STORM-CLOUD, CHRISTCHURCH HARBOUR” BY MOFFAT LINDNER, A.R.W.S.

{92}

{93]

(In the possession of The Fine Art Society)

“THE FANE ISLANDS.” BY W. RUSSELL FLINT, R.W.S.

{94}

{95]

(In the possession of The Fine Art Society)

“PASSING SAILS.” BY W. RUSSELL FLINT, R.W.S.

{96}

{97]

(By permission of the Imperial War Museum)

“H.M.S. ‘WOLSEY’ IN THE ICE AT LIBAU.” BY CECIL KING

{98]

“REGATTA DAY AT APPLEDORE.” BY CECIL KING

{99]

“ETRETAT.” BY NORMAN WILKINSON, R.I.

{100]

“PLYMOUTH HARBOUR.” BY NORMAN WILKINSON, R.I.

{101]

“THE WAVE.” BY NORMAN WILKINSON, R.I.

{102}

{103]

“UP CHANNEL.” BY NORMAN WILKINSON, R.I.

{104]

“WINDBOUND.” BY HELY SMITH, R.B.A

{105]

“THE YACHT RACE.” BY CHARLES PEARS

{106]

“THE EXAMINATION.” BY CHARLES PEARS

{107]

“THE NEEDLES.” BY CHARLES PEARS

{108}

{109]

“THE SEA.” BY W. MARSHALL BROWN, A.R.S.A.

{110]

“THE NIGHT WRACK.” BY JULIUS OLSSON, A.R.A.

{111]

“HEAVY WEATHER IN THE CHANNEL.” BY JULIUS OLSSON, A.R.A.

{112]

“THE RED BEACH.” BY WALTER BAYES, A.R.W.S.

{113]

“THE TIMID BATHER.” BY WALTER BAYES, A.R.W.S.

{114}

{115]

“STORM ON THE CORNISH COAST.” BY THE HON. DUFF TOLLEMACHE

{116]

(In the possession of Capt. W. N. McClean)

“THE WATCH THAT NEVER ENDS.” BY ARTHUR J. W. BURGESS, R.I.

{117]

“THE SCARBOROUGH FLEET.” BY ARTHUR J. W. BURGESS, R.I.

{118]

“THE DECK OF A TEA-CLIPPER IN THE TROPICS.” BY JOHN EVERETT

{119]

“BREAKERS.” BY JOHN EVERETT

{120}

{121]

“MARGATE.” BY JAMES McBEY

{122}

{123]

(In the possession of Messrs Ernest Brown & Phillips, The Leicester Galleries)

“THE WAVE.” BY C. R. W. NEVINSON

{124}

{125]

“LOW WATER, PENZANCE.” BY W. T. M. HAWKSWORTH, R.B.A.

{126]

“WET ROCKS, ST. IVES.” BY R. BORLASE SMART, R.B.A.

{127]

(By permission of the Imperial War Museum)

“MOTOR LAUNCHES” BY G. S. ALLFREE

{128]

“COAST SCENE.” BY I. W. BROOKS

{129]

“IN CYMYRAN BAY.” BY I. W. BROOKS

{130}

{131]

“COAST SCENE.” BY I. W. BROOKS

{132]

“CLOUDS OVER THE SEA, HOLLAND” BY TERRICK WILLIAMS, R.I.

{133]

“THE ANCIENT PORT OF FÊQUES” BY FRANK L. EMANUEL

{134]

“ELIZABETH CASTLE, CHANNEL ISLANDS” BY E. A. COX, R.B.A.

{135]

(In the possession of H. A. Lay, Esq.)

“THE GOOD SHIP ‘ROSE ELIZABETH NOVEY.’” BY E. A. COX, R.B.A.

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