i8 
Land & Water 
June 27, 1918 
A Topographer: By Charles Marriott 
LET it be said at once that no disrespect, but 
rather a comphment, is intended in describing 
Mr. WiUiam T. Wood's water-colours of the 
Salonika Front, at the Leicester Galleries, Leicester 
Square, as topographical in character. Splendid 
as are some of the results of impressionistic and romantic 
treatment of landscape, all but the very greatest of them 
suffer from some lack of stability in the one case, and some 
taint of "the pathetic fallacy"— the reading of human 
emotions into inanimate nature — in the other : and, speaking 
generally, the famous landscape paintings of the world have 
a topographical basis. . 
There is a reason for this that is worth examining. It is 
because they are inspired by something more than "art." 
They are, in fact, as 
all great art finally is, 
utilitarian. On the 
technicaj side, art can- 
not be too severely 
"art for art's sake" ; 
but in purpose and 
application, in order 
to be great it must 
have some sanction in 
universal human re- 
quirement. 
Without pretending 
to be great, the water- 
colours of Mr. Wood 
have the merit of 
sticking to the busi- 
ness in hand and 
ministering to the 
natural human craving 
to know what the 
Salonika Front is like. 
So many artists 
would have given us 
"impressions" of the 
Salonika Front ; witji 
the disappointing and 
irritating effect of 
poetry in a guide-book. 
Anybody who has 
grasped the fact that 
a well-written and 
trustworthy guide- 
book, without a single 
quotation, may be 
hterature is on the 
way to understand 
that Mr. Wood's water- 
colours are art. There 
is evidence enough in 
them that Mr. Wood. 
if he had hked, might have gone directly for "effects" 
and "atmosphere" with considerable success; but he has 
more wisely and modestly allowed them to happen as a result 
of intelligent fidelity to the facts. 
"Intelligent" fidelity because Mr. Wood is considerably 
more than an accurate observer and draughtsman. A topo- 
graphical landscape is, in fact, a portrait of a place, and, 
hke the portrait painter, the topographical' artist needs to 
know or, at any rate, to feel a great deal more than the 
appearance of the subject. He must know something of 
history, geography — both physical and political^— arcliitec- 
ture, agriculture, and domestic economy. I do not mean 
that he need know these subjects out of books or by deliberate 
observation but, what is much more important, that he 
must have the sense of them. Without it, he may be full 
to the neck with the facts of the subject, and yet go wrong. 
In architecture, for example, knowing all about styles is 
much less important than feeling the mechanical problems 
whose effective solution resulted in a particular style. 
There is a passage in Captain Mann's introduction to the 
catalogue of the exhibition which seems to me to indicate the 
great merit of Mr. Wood's drawings. "His pictures per- 
petuate . . . the great natural disadvantages our Army is 
face to face with in the Balkans." In order to do that, the 
artist must have shared in sympathy the "engineering feats," 
and felt in his own person, if only by imagination, the "ter- 
rible climate." Accurate observation and technical skill 
alone arc not enough for the business ; and I am inclined to 
believe that a moral and physical "sense" of things is the 
most valuable possession of any artist in any medium. As 
the portrait-painter must feel how the man came to look like 
that, so the landscape painter must feel how the landscape 
or the city grew, and the advantages or disadvantages they 
present to human activity. 
If this power is necessary in any place, it is particularly 
necessary in a place like Salonika ; a museum of successive 
civilisatiohs, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Semitic, and Slav, peopled 
with the drainings, if not the dregs, of Europe, Asia, and 
Africa. The architecture, like the language "Ladino"— the 
corrupt Spanish of the Jews, who form nearly half of the 
population—is not so much a mixture as a transformation 
of several elements into something with a texture and colour 
of its own ; a tapestry 
of styles. To draw 
the architecture sym- 
pathetically, a man 
must have lived many 
lives in many periods; 
must feel his classics 
and be romantic — all 
that is implied in the 
word "Levantine." 
That, in Mr. Wood's 
drawings, the war 
seems to take a second- 
ary place is really a 
tribute to their vera- 
city. War in Mace- 
donia is war subject 
to Macedonian 
conditions ; not spec- 
tacular, but a matter 
of " restless vigilance," 
of watching and 
countering intrigue, of 
consolidating positions 
and pouncing when 
you can. Mr. Wood's 
pictures bring this 
home and help us to 
understand that the 
more dramatic effects 
of the war in Mac- 
edonia must happen 
elsewhere. There is 
hardly a drawing that 
does not show some 
incident of war, but 
the great value of 
the series is to show 
how the incident is 
modified by the 
conditions. 
William T. Wood 
Salonika 
Not the most striking, but 'one of the most informing of 
the pictures, and one that shows best Mr. Wood's perception 
and skill as a topographer, is the pencil drawing of "Salonika 
from the Minaret of St. Sophia." It gives you the "hang" 
of the place as a whole, and at the same time enables you to 
appreciate, its architectural character in detail. Together 
with such pictures as the church interiors, with their painted 
wall decorations, and " Rupel Pass from Gumusdere," which 
-give Mr. Wood his opportunity as a colourist, it suggests 
the range of the technical powers that with admirable self- 
restraint have been devoted to the business in hand. 
The value of the series is enhanced by the fact that several 
of the pictures are bird's-eye views, done from an observation 
balloon, combining the advantages of a map with the vision 
of an artist. Such is the picture of the Great Fire, reproduced 
on this page. If our army in the Middle East is engaged in 
consolidating positions, Mr. Wood has fulfilled the useful 
task of consolidating the Balkan Front in the imaginations 
of those of us who read the verbal dispatches. " Operations" 
themselves are easily followed when once the scenes of them 
are clearly visualised — a fact that war artists would do well 
to bear in mind. Even Mr. Wood's pictures of air-fighting 
— good as they are— may be looked upon as a holiday from 
his real task. An aeroplane is an aeroplane all the world 
over, and " Brought Down in Flames " is a sight not unknown 
even in England. Still, these pictures serve to' show that 
Mr. Wood is as happy in dealing with movement and atriio- 
sphere as he is in explaining the lie of the land. 
