Royal College of Art: Painting and Life School
under Prof. Moira
Time Studies of Figures in Action.
By H. Parr
For art is not an independent accidental unrelated phenomenon, but is the result, as we find it in its various manifestations, of long ages of growth, and co-operative tradition and sympathy.
Seeking beautiful art, organic and related in all its parts, we turn naturally to places and periods of history which are the culminating points in such a growth. To Athens in the Phidian age, for instance; to almost any European city in the Middle Ages; to one of our own village churches, even, where the nineteenth-century restorer has not been; to Venice or Florence in the early renascence, rather than to modern London or Paris. But even limiting ourselves to our own day we have got to expect far more from the man who has worked from his youth up in what we call “an atmosphere of art,” even if it is only that of the modern painter’s studio, than from a mill hand, say, trained to some one special function, perhaps, in some process of machine industry, whose life is spent in monotonous toil and whose daily vision is bounded by chimney-pots and back-yards.
A pinch of the salt of art and culture at measured intervals, will never counteract the adverse and more prominent influence of the daily, hourly surroundings on the eye and mind. It is hopeless if one hour of life’s day says “yes,” if all the other twenty-three say “no” continually.
Royal College of Art: Painting and Life School under Prof. Moira
Time Studies of Figures in Action
Royal College of Art:
Architectural School
under Prof. Beresford Pite