Augustus John
There are many instances of this among the old and modern masters. Among the latter there is Mr. Augustus John, who, while still at the Slade School, produced drawings that proved him to be a great draughtsman; and though his recent drawings may be the product of maturity—they may be finger-posts, as it were, to new and original fields of art—they have demonstrated the fact no more forcibly than did his early work.
Certain collectors, of course, have been fully alive to this point about the work of young artists, and those who acquired some of the early drawings of our greater men a few years ago must now be congratulating themselves on their discernment; also on their astuteness—for they probably acquired these masterpieces for absurdly small sums.
It is the public rather than the collector who has been slow to realize the decorative value and charm of drawings. Is it confusing them with the large, bloodless engravings of the Victorian dining-room? If so, it is a pity; for drawings are a most fitting form of wall decoration for small rooms: in their slight suggestion of subtle colour they harmonize admirably with plain distemper walls—decorating without being obtrusive—they take their place quietly in the scheme of the room.
Dürer
But to return to the old masters.... Dürer’s work is essentially and typically German, and reveals the old German spirit at its best—as it was in its romantic age before Luther. To study Dürer’s drawings is to become convinced of the truth of mediæval legend: mystical symbology—in passing through the crucible of his mind—issues thence established as historic fact; and it would be as true to say of him that historic fact—passing through the same crucible—becomes mystically symbolic. In everything he did one feels that the primary interest of each drawing for him lay always in a metaphysical, religious or philosophical idea. In all of them there is what Whistler condemned as out of place, in a picture, and called, “the literary quality.” If Taine, the Frenchman, be right, he puts Whistler’s argument out of court; for Taine is convinced that the artist’s whole raison d’être and mission is to present and interpret to the people in a simple language that they can understand the philosophical and other ideas they desire but cannot formulate for themselves. Under the old spirit of art the artist undoubtedly did recognize this as his mission, whereas to-day he often contents himself—like the modern playwright—by presenting the people with problems, in the hope perhaps that they will supply him with the solutions at which he has not yet himself arrived; and by believing that the intellectual exercise involved may be as educative for them as were the methods of the earlier masters. At any rate Dürer’s works stand as a formidable monument to the rightness of Taine’s theory. Certainly in the art of illustrating ideas it would be difficult to find anyone to surpass Dürer; or to surpass him in his fine sense of how to decorate a page. But throughout his work one feels a lack of any sense of humour; and also, perhaps of spontaneity. If genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains—then Dürer was a genius. In all his work there is an immense sincerity; and this carries him to great heights in some of his religious drawings—for instance in that superb wood-cut of his of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Leonardo da Vinci
It would be misleading to say that there was much in common in the outlook of Dürer and Leonardo and yet I am tempted to point out that there was a certain similarity, in spite of the fact that the vision of the latter was infinitely more gracious; at any rate they both included caricature and architectural draughtsmanship among their arts; and both were interested in mathematics and science.