the disturbed fold of some raiment, a moving shadow, are telegrams to us from hidden sources. In such ways the very things are expressed for which we commonly say there is no expression. Melville’s brilliant exercise of his art, its dazzling performance, answers in its own bravado to the bravery of life. His accomplishment makes that assault with skill which separates romantic from classic art, with its more gradual revelation.
There is contained in a work of art nothing less than all that it is capable of inspiring in ourselves of thought and imagination. Every thought it inspires belongs to it. Like nature, art can only
bring. In a sense all comes from within, nothing from without, for as we know that nothing exists for us except as it exists in our own minds, so art,
creating always from a life within, mirrors only one aspect of life itself; and our knowledge of any par ticular art comes to us only through learning the points at which our own acceptance of the beauty of life and that of the artist correspond. Only thus can we learn how much he has which we have not yet grown to ; and by what we ourselves have we can weigh and test, without impertinence the quality of his inspiration.
In the fairy-tale of art, Beauty asleep in nature awaits the kiss of genuis ; and there have been many princes. For everyone who knows some fine artist’s work well nature wears richer dress. Those who have many friends amongst the masters can out of their own mind vary the beauty of her wardrobe.
The recent Melville Exhibition showed how catholic was this one painter’s sense of beauty and to how many moods his art was tuned.
Those who visited the exhibition will remember The Blue Night,
with its subtly musical sense of colour and its wonderful management of light : light within light burning and shining, lamps before a lamplit wall, and people moving in a shadow as a low cloud of the night.
Has anyone ever had more power
over shadows than this painter of light ? Who has painted them with more remembrance of all that
is hidden in them ? A certain perishing grey light the artist has pursued in certain of his pictures so to rest himself from combat with
The greater art of oil painting entirely preoccupied Melville a few years before his death. Everything is in favour of the theory that he would
have raised himself to the height of subduing to his own personal ends its capacity for absolute and complete expression such as no other medium can give. It is easy to believe that his mastery was only limited through early death, that the medium would have yielded to his
ardent genius many hidden secrets. Almost his latest painting, Christmas Eve, points very clearly to this. A subject-painting, it is unlike the majority of subject-pictures, in that it has not an unrealistic studio finish or the meaner, more plausible
“SUNRISE ON SAN GIORGIO, LAGO MAGGIORE ” BY ARTHUR MELVILLE
There is contained in a work of art nothing less than all that it is capable of inspiring in ourselves of thought and imagination. Every thought it inspires belongs to it. Like nature, art can only
show us that which we are capable of seeing—only give back to us an answer to the questions that we
bring. In a sense all comes from within, nothing from without, for as we know that nothing exists for us except as it exists in our own minds, so art,
creating always from a life within, mirrors only one aspect of life itself; and our knowledge of any par ticular art comes to us only through learning the points at which our own acceptance of the beauty of life and that of the artist correspond. Only thus can we learn how much he has which we have not yet grown to ; and by what we ourselves have we can weigh and test, without impertinence the quality of his inspiration.
In the fairy-tale of art, Beauty asleep in nature awaits the kiss of genuis ; and there have been many princes. For everyone who knows some fine artist’s work well nature wears richer dress. Those who have many friends amongst the masters can out of their own mind vary the beauty of her wardrobe.
The recent Melville Exhibition showed how catholic was this one painter’s sense of beauty and to how many moods his art was tuned.
Those who visited the exhibition will remember The Blue Night,
with its subtly musical sense of colour and its wonderful management of light : light within light burning and shining, lamps before a lamplit wall, and people moving in a shadow as a low cloud of the night.
Has anyone ever had more power
over shadows than this painter of light ? Who has painted them with more remembrance of all that
is hidden in them ? A certain perishing grey light the artist has pursued in certain of his pictures so to rest himself from combat with
the sun, and such pictures have been painted with exquisiteness of execution hiding an almost spiritual deliberation.
The greater art of oil painting entirely preoccupied Melville a few years before his death. Everything is in favour of the theory that he would
have raised himself to the height of subduing to his own personal ends its capacity for absolute and complete expression such as no other medium can give. It is easy to believe that his mastery was only limited through early death, that the medium would have yielded to his
ardent genius many hidden secrets. Almost his latest painting, Christmas Eve, points very clearly to this. A subject-painting, it is unlike the majority of subject-pictures, in that it has not an unrealistic studio finish or the meaner, more plausible
“SUNRISE ON SAN GIORGIO, LAGO MAGGIORE ” BY ARTHUR MELVILLE