International studio . ritic of reality; the paintedportrait is addressed to the eye as a channelof perception. 0000 LXX. No. 379.—May 1920 Portrait painting, in fact, is a branch ofpainting and not a form of mirror that the portrait painter holdsup to nature is not his canvas but his may seem a back-handed complimentto pay, but the great advantage of John as a portrait painter is thathe is not a specialist. He approaches thesubject not so much as a student of facesas a painter in the broader sense of theword. At a time when the young studentis being pressed, w
International studio . ritic of reality; the paintedportrait is addressed to the eye as a channelof perception. 0000 LXX. No. 379.—May 1920 Portrait painting, in fact, is a branch ofpainting and not a form of mirror that the portrait painter holdsup to nature is not his canvas but his may seem a back-handed complimentto pay, but the great advantage of John as a portrait painter is thathe is not a specialist. He approaches thesubject not so much as a student of facesas a painter in the broader sense of theword. At a time when the young studentis being pressed, with the promise ofimmediate gain, to take up special forms of art without general training, thisis a useful thing to bear in mind. TheWar, Peace Conference, and other portraitsat the Alpine Club Gallery are the work ofa man who is, before everything, groundedin the general principles of his art. 0 The first result is that Mr. John hascreated a gallery of living persons. Each 43 K MR. AUGUSTUS JOHN AS PORTRAIT PAINTER. LORD FISHER OF KILVER-STONE, , AUGUSTUS E. JOHN has a strongly marked individuality, butthey all hang together in the world ofpainting as the characters of a good nove-list hang together in his pages. They havean independent existence but, at the sametime, they are true to the context. Para-doxical as it may sound, the question oflikeness to life, as it strikes the eye, iscomparatively irrelevant. The importantthing is that you should believe in thepainted people themselves. There can beno question that you believe in the paintedpeople of Mr. John. They so convinceyou of their independent existence thatyou take their likeness to the originals on44 trust. Here and there your acquaintancewith one of the originals persuades youthat your confidence is not mistaken. 0The question of likeness to life is com-paratively irrelevant because it cannotreally be decided by the appeal to the you might say that you knowpeople in life by how they loo
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