CRONE.*
A HUNDRED years have passed since the death of Crome, and during this time the art of English landscape painting has changed very greatly. It flamed up in the great manifestation of Turner, and then sank in the latter part of the nineteenth century to the realistic and commonplace, though now there is a reversion apparent towards the essentials, and nothing will be more helpful than a proper appreciation of the great and enduring qualities manifested in Crome.
Born at Norwich in 1768, the future painter was lucky when young in coming in contact with one of those enlightened in- habitants of the East of England who had a collection of good pictures, Dutch as well as English. He became a friend of Beechey, whom he used to visit in London and in whose studio he learned some of the technical part of his art. It was as a drawing master that Creme, like Cotman and others, made a living, and
* Creme. By C. H. Collins Baker. London : Methuen. if.6 Si, net.]
was thus enabled to work out the artistic ideas which made his work of such importance. Norwich, although not a large place, must have been artistically far ahead of other provincial towns, and Crome and others founded a society which held regular exhibitions where their works were to be seen. They had the great advantage of having a local school, which is impossible in London where aims get divided ; indeed, it was perhaps the only school of painters there has ever been in this country.
Creme was undoubtedly greatly indebted to Wilson, and retained throughout his life many of this master's qualities, but he was of a more robust nature and never quite caught Wilson's exquisite lyric cry, though in other directions he opened up new paths and discovered fresh provinces in the kingdom of art.
Mr. Baker in his book has arranged his material so that it is easy to find what we want. The facts of the life of Creme are treated simply and clearly, being given under each year ; after this follows a chapter on the painter's development, and one on the imitations and forgeries, which are unhappily numerous, and finally a discussion of the master's place in art. Mr. Baker takes two pictures, both in the National Gallery—The Poring- land Oak and Mousehold Heath—as types. The former he says "is the apotheosis of the great tradition, reaching from Cornelis Vroom, Hobbema, and Ruisdael. The 'Mousehold' is the forerunner and in some ways in that while expressing unsurpassed plein air, it retains the repose and mural breadth of old, the most perfect attainment of modern landscape ambition." Mr. Baker also insists on Creme's wonderful economy of means, and this is exemplified in the splendid Moonlight on the Marshes of the Yare in the National Gallery, which for simplicity and grandeur Is unsurpassed. Surely the painter who wrote to his friend about "giving dignity to whatever you paint" had here put into practice what he taught, and in the noblest way.
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