Animals and Art
An Artist's Life. By Sir Alfred Munnings. (Museum Press. 2is.) THE old saying that animals and art have but 'the first letter in common was, I feel sure, coined by an art critic. The portrayal
of animals is none the less, if not peculiar to this country, at least a typical branch of the English school of painting and of con- siderable antiquity.— This school in -the past produced those great artists Stubbs and Ben Marshall (althOUgh contemporary critics do not seem to have -been unduly enthusiastic even about them). The positipn of an artist among his contemporaries is difficult to assess, but at any rate our critics have shown that they realised that in A. J. Munnings they discovered a great man. Do I not notice a slight reduction in their praise of late ? This I suspect is because Sir Alfred does not share their enthusiasm for modern art.
In the past horse-painters were content if they obtained a like- ness of an animal that was good enough to satisfy their patrons. The first artist really to tackle the subtlety of sunlight, with its lights and shades, ground' and sky reflections on the satin-like summer coat of a horse, was Ben Marshall. It is in this conveyance of light that Sir Alfred shines. In addition, his tone values in oil-paint are so true, that his pictures reproduce well in black-and-white. There are few more severe tests of an artist's work.
Of his own book Sir Alfred Munnings says: " In these pages
I have tried to paint pictures in another medium," and on the whole he succeeds, especially in recalling what, after all, is only yesterday. He started out in hiC.catpenter's shop studio in 1898 long before the days of mechanical farming. " Those were the days when farm workers ploughed, dug -drains, tended their horses, stock and sheep, wearing clothes in harmony with the soil." He adds: " Why I lost my chance of picture making with those splendid figures is easily explained, they were all around me. "—the lament of artists in any period, who, as they groW older, realise that the scenes they failed to put_. on canvas will -not be seen again. Munnings'i descriptions of sporting farmeri, artists, grooms, horse copers, gypsies and soldiers (in the 1918- War) show him to be a keen observer and certainly ! a good mixer " yet the sentences that most aypealed to me were about horses: " For all that I should not have sold her, I am making up frit: this now in keeping old friends, who have kept me. I have only sold four horses in my life."
But An Artist's LifCirt chiefly remarkabtp„ I think, for the illus-
trations. Munnings's very early work confirms 'a theory I have alwayS held that the early drawings of farnous artists give little clue to their future ability. In fact, in most cases artists develop late. The'illustrations opposite page 113, of Langham Mill Pool, confirni ntybelief that this artist would havelihieved fame even if he ha'd never depicted a horse. His studies of ponies (for example, those betweeti-pages 168=169) are, I personally think, better than his sporting scenes.. ThiS may be because his love of bright colour and sunlight with. long shadows does not quite connect up with our conception of the hunting field with its grey skies, rain, wind and mud. The late G. D. Armour was an expert at this effect, but not quite such a draughtsman as Sir Alfred, whose careful studies in pencil are not -the least attractive illbstrations in this book. Indeed the illustrations tell the story of " an artist's life " so well that words seem almost unnecessary. Unfortunately there are not many repro- ductions of watercolour drawings by this, artist,' whose skill in this difficult medium was, judging by the few I have seen, remarkable for their strength of colour. How they would stand out in a modern exhibition of watercolours ! The contemporary fashion in the medium seems to be a free use of water and a strict rationing of colour, so that the first impression of an exhibition is of acres of white mounts. Doubtless this fashion will pass like others. It is one of the virtues of Sir Alfred Munnings that he has never been led away by fashions. His is representationalism direct from nature with the freshness of the sun and wind, only occasionally lost in his larger or more carefully composed pictures. The early efforts here illustrated, his youthful studies, as well as his more mature work, should be of intense interest to any art student and should help him to realise that there is no short cut to success.
LIONEL EDWARDS.
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