Art

[WILLIAM BLAKE CENTENARY EXHIBITION AT THE BURLINGTON FINE ARTS CLUB.]

WE are prepared to understand William Blake's art to-day tier than his contemporaries, because we understand tter his temperament, and the two things cannot be sepa- ted. His temperament was so quiveringly poised that he as able at will to see whatever had happened, and to be a uman record of Nature's vast stores of memories. The gift not an unmixed blessing, and there is evidence that Blake tallied to serene vision only after much wrestling and many I's. His imagination came to his rescue by helping him to ve clear outline to what he saw. Henceforth outline was a .sity in his art, not because he found it in Nature, but _Cause he pierced through Nature to the definite reality hind, and used Nature as a mirror which reflected the City

Gad. -

Most of the pictures- at the Pine Arts Club have been repro- eecl and given to the public. But to see the actual work is

to be struck once more with Blake's delicate precision of outline, and delicate tinting in which every colour is chosen

for its spiritual significance. A perfect example is seen in No. 36, The Assumption of Our Lady. The lovely figure against a just intimated symbol of the Trinity ascends to her Child in the heavens, and in a simple way life's complex aspirations are shown in a transparent clarity.

IT inter and Evening (Nos.. 51 and 52) show the same mastery of outline. They were suggested by Cowper's Task. Under Blake's hand the figures with the bare bough, the poppy, the crescent moon, with all their loving precision, become revela- tions of what lies beyond.

For a fuller evidence of Blake's powers there is the richly tinted Canterbury Pilgrims. This in itself is beautifully deco- rative. A close inspection gives an added joy. Blake, unlike Stothard, whose rival picture had its charm, cared for each person of Chaucer's pilgrims, and began to draw only when he saw his personal and eternal state.

In all this there might be severity. But one has only to look at Our Lady with the Infant Jesus on a Lamb, or The River of Life, or Jacob's Ladder to see how tenderly Blake could deal with the primeval things of the Spirit, old yet ever new, and give them a freshness as if no one had ever ventured to touch them before.

This quality of freshness is found in those subjects that every artist has tried to paint. How many Flemish painters have tried to show the Christian consciousness in the face of Jesus as He emerges from the River Jordan ! Blake remem- bers that Jesus had said that henceforth the heavens should be opened ; and while he gives the stooping figures waiting to be baptized, he also gives a fair maiden who is looking up, and she alone sees the opened heavens with the ministering spirits.

The touch of originality is shown again in the Nativity, where Jesus is presented as an emanation from His mother. Blake thought of Eve as an emanation from Adam. Those who know his Prophetic Books will remember how much emanations meant to the seer. And here is Blake's great design of Elohim creating Adam. He must have seen repro- ductions of Michael Angelo's famous painting in the Sistine Chapel. The Florentine painter was preoccupied with the truth that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Line by line Adam corresponds to his Creator even to the reaching forth of his forefinger. Blake, too, remembers the old truth ; but he also instantly remembers how readily man falls from imagination to reason, from Los to Urizen. The Creator with passionate and agonizing force reaches over the prostrate and pitiful figure, and though we do not see him arise, we know that he will, and that it will be in the image and likeness of his Creator. CHARLES GARDNER.

AT 111A Cheyne Walk the " Emotionist Group '' are holding their first exhibition in the Hurricane Lamp Gallery. On the private view day, Mr. Rowe, a leading member of the Group, was still engaged in painting the I furricane Lamp, which will hang out and guide visitors to this storm-centre. Once inside, they will do well to ask for Mr. Rowe's drawings in chalk ; one conveyed with incredibly few lines, recurring like the twists of a rope, the languor of a female figure extended on the ground. Here was real beauty, and the rhythm of other drawings was supple and springy. But frankly I could make nothing of Mr. Rowe's paintings and still less of Mr. Dunlop's. Mr. Turvey, who shows three canvases, is a very capable painter, but if the others are "emotionist," then he is not. Nor did I derive any pleasure from the emotionist modelling. A novel feature was the inclusion of poems in the exhibition. They lay about on the table, typewritten sheets, in mildly decorated paper covers. Here is an emotionist portrait in verse, of Mr. Howe by Mr. Dunlop :—

" Square—square—edgey. A ramrod that quietens over

And gently puckers—

With tender eyes that hold quietness Under their softness. And blackness and firm dust • That slackens But then the square, squa:ieness."

If Mr. Dun!op were old enough to have used a ramrod he would realize how unsatisfactory one would be that puckered,

even gently_ LEMON GMIX.