. International studio. e rather say of Daumier? The thingis never quite tangible. One looks closer, tofind that it is after all mainly anothers gesture,while below all is Strang himself. He adapts,but never apes; he absorbs, but never to theclouding of his individuality. He discoursespleasantly with these artists, adopts some of theirideas or opinions where they fit in with his own,and remains essentially himself. This self-centred responsiveness is matched by a breadth ofinterest that led him to turn to many subjects. whom all may legitimately derive—Rembrandt;portraits of dignity and a rest
. International studio. e rather say of Daumier? The thingis never quite tangible. One looks closer, tofind that it is after all mainly anothers gesture,while below all is Strang himself. He adapts,but never apes; he absorbs, but never to theclouding of his individuality. He discoursespleasantly with these artists, adopts some of theirideas or opinions where they fit in with his own,and remains essentially himself. This self-centred responsiveness is matched by a breadth ofinterest that led him to turn to many subjects. whom all may legitimately derive—Rembrandt;portraits of dignity and a restrained vitality;illustrations of such widely varying subjects asare afforded by Kipling, Lessing, Milton, Cer-vantes. And all of it, always, with adaptation tothe subject in hand, and yet loyalty to his ownpersonality and attitude. In seeking for words or phrases with which tocharacterise his art one finds stern seriousness,reticence, an austere shyness in the expression ofbeautv, a grim humour, a directness of manner. THE RlINEIi i \-ll I. » » ^ -s IV WILLIAM STRANG without ever a surrender to that care-free facilitywhich is apt to make our use of the word vers-atility carry with it a suggestion of debonairirresponsibility. Fanciful subjects he has done,such as the series The Earth Fiend and Death andthe Ploughmans Wife; scenes from life, even thelife of the streets (a vendor selling manikin toys,the Salvation Army, a glimpse of a bookstall atnight); bits of life of the poor (pictures of bleakestpoverty, drab despair, sordid death); Biblicalscenes of simple dramatic power; landscapes ofthe directness and sympathy of Legros, and withreference to that master of etched landscape from that finds no place for bravura, for pyrotechnics,for the mere gesture as such. For the rest, atechnical skill employed with full understandingof the medium employed in each case (etching,line engraving, mezzotint, sand-paper mezzotint,aquatint, wood engraving, lithography) as itadapts itself to
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