20 
LAND & WATER 
January lo, iyi8 
Pcilace of Cintra. containing an early sixti-enth century state- 
ment o: e^p nditurem vvliidi t\\ painters are lunped to- 
carted wood from Lisbon" 
L'l tiler with "the men wlio , ,, 
■ ■ ■ • • stones for the rabbit-warren. Nor 
fnrni'^Ii 
iniliewn 
j:n jnnui^iiou of the Chenil 'jaidr.n 
Kathleen Dillon 
were these painters merely artisans, for some of tlieir name 
are included in histories of the arts in Portugal. 
Without the privilege of his acquaintance, it is impossibU 
to say how Mr. John regards the business of art, but from the 
look of his work I am confident that he would be well content 
with Rossetti to call himself " only a painter," differing only 
in skill from the man who paints a garden fence. It does not 
need an artistic education to feel this continuity of painting. 
Most of us can remember our childish disappointment at tlu 
results of painting on canvas or paper as compared with th" 
glory of the colours in the pan or tube. We were told to 
admire the colouring in this or that picture, but in our hcan 
of hearts we preferred the colours, neat or as they were spread 
frankly upon our toys. The instinct was perfectly sound 
artistically, though, of course, it needed development, and 
one great' advantage of the work of Mr. John is that it vin- 
dicates this childish appreciation of paint by showing that it 
is compatible with an imaginative interpretation of Nature, 
scholarly design, and the highest degree of skill in execution. 
Many pictures deny its compatibihty ; and in order to 
appreciate the qualities of the artist we have to renounce our 
instinctive enjoyment of paint, just as in order to appreciate 
much of what is called " literature " we have to regard it as 
."something different not merely in degree, but in kind 
from the nursery rhyme and the racy conversation of 
the man with the coster's barrow. The writer or painter 
who makes us feel this is a great writer or painter, 
whatever the subject he writes about or paints. His 
ideas are as God pleases, but he knows his job. The 
lesson that wc learn from him is much more than a technical 
lesson ; it is a lesson in the singleness, the wholeness, oi 
luimm faculty, in its full range from the bodily appetite to 
the spiritual aspiration ; and the man who cannot enjoy 
art and literature in tha same way as he enjoys his dinner, 
but has to shut off his appetites and rise to the occasion, has 
never learnt what they mean. Dinner is for bodily 
!V)urishment, and art is for spiritual refreshment, but to make 
those the conscious aim is not to elevate but to degrade 
enjoyment, as it degrades love to aim at offspring in 
loving a woman. " There's a Divinity," Nature has her 
own way of securing results, and by way of practical warning 
against distraction there is the first chapter of Tristram 
ShaiiJy. 
As a inittcr of practical convenience, having regard to 
the limitations of human faculty, painting does wisely 
concern itself with natural appearances : but they are not 
essential to the art ; and if a painter could communicate 
with us directly by arrangements of abstract forms and 
colours, as the musician does with sounds, there is no reason 
whatever why he should not do so. „ , , 
On the whole it is an advantage to art that Mr. John does 
not attempt such experiments. They are interesting and 
promising in tliemselves— particularly the new attempts to 
inltuisifv the reahtv of space, volume and energy— but while 
they enlarge the scope of painting they are apt to hinder 
its actual exercise. Prospecting and intensive cultivation 
:rc not generally done at the same time or by the same person. 
Hy keeping to the same sort of subject-matter as the nine- 
teenth century painters, but treating it in a more scrupu- 
lously painter-like way, Mr. John becomes a useful link 
between the old and the new." By practice and not by 
theory he emancipates the art ; bringing it once more into 
line with the humble efforts of cave and van dwellers and at 
the same time leaviui,' the way open to the most abstract 
application of- which the human mind is capable. As may 
be seen at the Alpine Club Gallery, his art is remarkably free 
from opinions and at the same time remarkably full and 
sensitive in its reaction to life. .It is the " testament " of a 
painter in his character of painter, leaving his opinions as a 
man to be taken for granted. Such portraits as " Admiral 
Lord Fisher of Kilverston," '.' Madame Rejane," " Robin." 
"Kathleen Dillon," "Arthur Symons," and "The 1-at 
.Artilleryman " are enough to indicate the range of the reaction 
. in response to human personality. The examples reproducc'd 
here are particularly well contrasted. They represent the 
.\rtist. the Soldier and the Poet ; a Vd it would be difiicult 
to find in any one of them a trace of partiality beyond the 
natural interest of the painter in suitable material for his 
brush. Yet each of them is a real interpretation of per- 
sonality, and not a mere impression of external appearance. 
They are as far from sentimental idealisation as from carica- 
ture. Even in. the remarkable study of Mr. Arthur Symons 
there is no assumption of psychological insight outside the 
painter's craft. It is as if he "said : "This is what I feel, as a 
painter, about this man " ; and what he feels convinces us 
of its truth. In the same disinterested — though far from 
uninterested — way the vcrv spirit of the British Army to-day 
is summed up in " The Fat Artilleryman." Nothing written 
helps us better to understand w'lat our fighting men have 
done, and how they have done it ; but it leaves the subject 
a credible human being, as you might meet him in the Tube. 
But takin" all this into account, and the response to the 
Uy pcrmiision of the Chcnil Galleiiei 
Arthur Symons. 
spirit of place in landscape and to basic humanity in " The 
Tinkers," Mr. John has no higher claim to our gratitude 
and admiration than his constant and consistent appearance 
as " only a painter." 
