Beautiful Wales

by Edward Thomas

By Alexander J. Finberg

When Rudyard Kipling's stories first gripped the imagination of the reading public, it became the fashion among a certain set of profound thinkers to go about asking whether such writings could really be regarded as works of art. The author's extraordinary powers of observation, his insight, his skill in telling his story and in impressing the imagination of his readers, could not be gainsaid; yet the thin shrill voices kept on repeating: "But is it art?"

I do not wish to pretend that the artist whose paintings have been reproduced in this volume can fairly be compared with Mr. Kipling. Mr. Robert Fowler does not aspire to fill such a place in the world of art as Mr. Kipling fills in the world of politics and letters. But incidentally there happen to be some few points in common between the two men. Neither of them cares a brass button for the formulas of the critics. Neither is oppressed by the weight of precedent and authority. They both look at things with their own eyes and weave the texture of their works out of their own thoughts, feelings, and sensations. They draw their inspiration from life rather than from the books or pictures of other men. They seem to hold that almost any material is capable of treatment. The one has boasted that he has found nothing "common or unclean," and the other that he has never seen an ugly thing in his life. And the parallel will be complete enough for my purpose when all the art critics of the kingdom begin to gird at Mr. Fowler's landscapes for their lack of artificiality, and to ask, as the book-reviewers asked of the Kipling stories: "But is it art?"

It may perhaps seem strange that I should imagine that Mr. Fowler's vivid and accomplished paintings are likely to provoke such an objection. But the temptation to judge by precedent, to test new things by their likeness to the old, is a very strong one. This is especially the case in matters of pictorial art. A picture that does not startle us out of our conventional grooves of thought seems to us to be the most natural thing in the world. We reward it for its complaisance by saying that it is like nature. But when we are confronted by an unconventional rendering of nature, we give expression to our ruffled feelings by saying, either that it is unnatural, or that it is not art. At the present time so much attention has been given to the careful study of nature's aspects that few are likely to overlook or deny the astonishing accuracy of Mr. Fowler's transcripts. On the other hand, those who have a great fondness for pictures are apt to feel that his work is too much like nature and not enough like other works of art. The design in his pictures is often so subtle and elusive that it either seems accidental or else is overlooked. The art is often so artfully concealed that the astonished critic is tempted to ask, "But is it art?" I know the temptation is very real, because—I may as well confess it—because I have succumbed to it myself.

When first I saw some of Mr. Fowler's paintings—it was at the end of 1903, in the Goupil Gallery in London—I was struck by the accuracy with which Mr. Fowler had reproduced his visual impressions of nature. The work didn't look as though it had been done by a human being. "If I had been told that these results had been produced by some new process of colour photography I should have believed it," I wrote on the spur of the moment. The artist seemed to have cut himself off so completely from the art of the past, to have de-humanised himself, so to speak, that it was perhaps natural for me to compare his methods of work with the cold impassivity of a machine. But, though natural enough, such an impression touches only on the most superficial aspect of Mr. Fowler's art. Unless it is treated merely as the first step towards a more intimate investigation, it is likely even to be misleading.

In the rough and tumble of everyday life we are often enough compelled to act upon our first hurried impressions. It is one of the greatest privileges of art to give us opportunities for correcting these first impressions, for disciplining and training our very faculties of perception. The art critic who understands his business will therefore be jealous of his right to amplify his first impressions of an artist's work by a more searching investigation. He will not overvalue a reputation for consistency, if only he can develop his half-truths into more fully articulated conceptions; he will be courageous enough to say to-day what he thinks to-day, and to-morrow what he thinks to-morrow.

What, then, is the result of a more prolonged experience of this artist's work? what are the essential qualities that I find in his work, when I have done what I can to rid myself of the conscious and unconscious prejudices that colour so inevitably one's first impressions?

In the first place, I think it is evident that Mr. Fowler is a painter who loves nature more than pictures—a much rarer thing than many people would suppose. Most painters learn to be original by imitating other artists. Mr. Fowler never seems to give us echoes of other men and of other men's works. His paintings are the immediate outcome of an overpowering desire to embody his own feelings and sensations. To many artists nature is interesting only in so far as she furthers their business of making pretty pictures. But the man who painted "The Stacks, Tenby," regarded nature as something more than the mere raw material of art. He seems to have said to himself, "Nature is greater than all our artifices," and to have abandoned himself to the might and splendour and incommensurability of the great mother. The tricks of the trade are all forgotten or abandoned. Here is no cunning artifice of line, no obvious formula of design. The scene itself speaks to us from the canvas: the art and the artist are forgotten.

It is the same with canvas after canvas. In the early morning scene of "Conway from Benarth" we forget that it is a painted scene that we have before our eyes, so resistless is the eloquence of the sleeping towers and hills. But this concealment of himself is the very triumph of the artist.

How rare is this power of self-suppression only those who have passed much of their time in the company of artists and pictures can fully realise. You will meet hundreds of clever, dexterous artists before you will find one sincere enough to efface himself in his work, to stand aside and let his subject speak to you for itself.