Exhibition of Early British water-colours: Exhibition "M"

INTRODUCTION. Watercolour has become a peculiarly British Art. The fluid transparent medium readily sugests the efects of the change- able island climate, and is easy to manipulate under the moist 0 atmospheric conditions. British artists, of course, were not the first to practise the art, n o r t o p r a c t i s e i t with charm and distinc- tion. The tradition of the Chinese masters of watercolour had been established for many centuries; in Europe also artists like Durer, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Claude, Van Ostade and Holler, produced excellent wash or watercolour drawings; but the full possibilities of the medium as a means of individual artistic expression were not explored until the beginning of the 19th N o . 6 6 " G O D A L M I N G C H U R C H " Thomas Girtin century in Britain. The characteristic art of watercolour painting, seemingly so The earliest of the British watercolourists, following the well established, almost disappeared during the Victoria Era, lead given by Wenzel Holler - the Bohemian who came to Eng- when fondness for exhibition pieces in heavy gilt frames forced land in 1635 - used the method chiefly for recording purposes, painters to niggle and stipple, careless of the beauty of the lumi- for the making of portraits of places. Hearne, the two Maltons, nous stain of watercolour wash. It was not until the early years Sandby, Francis Towne, J. R. Cozens and many others developed of this century that artists of integrity and understanding, like a characteristic British style of watercolour drawing, with an emphasis on line. A. W. Rich, Brabazon, Wilson Steer, and D. S. McColl, together with other members of the New English Art Club re-established From 'this humble topographical beginning sprang the dig- in public favour that combination of line and freshly applied nified and powerful art of Girtin and Cotman, the sensitive wash which is undoubtedly the traditional British approach to naturalism of Cox and De Wint, and the gorgeous, fanciful the art of watercolour painting. imagery of Turner. No better watercolour landscapes have been painted than the masterpieces of these men. Whilst this Exhibition does not extend into the later period it provides an excellent survey of the establishment and develop- Though it is impossible in a short note of this kind tc do ment of British watercolour during the formative years of the more than indicate the lines of general development, mention 18th and 19th centuries. must be made of two fine artists who stood apart, Rowlandson, the social commentator, and Blake, the mystic, the two chief ROBERT CAMPBELL, figure draughtsmen of the British Watercolour School in the ART GALLERY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, early 19th century. PERTH, 4 5