The early work of Raphael . fore. Few things are more impertinent than the suggesting toa painter of some vital change in his work. Nine times out of ten itamounts to nothing less than asking him to make your individuality,and not his own, the modulus for his ideas. Still it is not impossible,with some experience and a vast amount of goodwill, to put oneselfbehind the artist, to see through his brain and eye, and occasionally tohit upon a notion which may have escaped himself, and yet wouldreinforce his own conception. It may be pure fatuity, but I fancythat if Orchardson had turned his young
The early work of Raphael . fore. Few things are more impertinent than the suggesting toa painter of some vital change in his work. Nine times out of ten itamounts to nothing less than asking him to make your individuality,and not his own, the modulus for his ideas. Still it is not impossible,with some experience and a vast amount of goodwill, to put oneselfbehind the artist, to see through his brain and eye, and occasionally tohit upon a notion which may have escaped himself, and yet wouldreinforce his own conception. It may be pure fatuity, but I fancythat if Orchardson had turned his young ladys back to us, reflectingthe effect of her song from her companions face only, his picture wouldhave profited. One difficulty would have had to be overcome—thatof keeping the two groups in effective proportion to each is done at present by pushing the couple away into a distantcorner, while the old man is brought down, as it were, to the foot-lights. Disturb this arrangement, and the balance would have to be. Music, when Sweet Voices die, Vibrates in the permission of Messrs. Hildesheimer and Faulkner. THE ART OF WILLIAM QUILLER ORCHARDSON 63 reconsidered, but the problem is by no means so insoluble as that ofpainting a singing mouth which shall be anything but a disfigurement. Orchardson is a great lover—I wont say admirer, for indeed his fancyis by no means of the kind which blinds its possessor to defects—of theEmpire style in furniture as well as other things. His house is filledwith it, and more than once the genesis of a picture is to be traced tothe purchase of a piano, or a sofa, or a set of chairs. In the series ofdomestic idyls which we are at present looking at you will find three ofthese. An Enigma, perhaps the finest of the three, would never haveexisted just as it is but for the introduction into the painters householdof the ample, curly-ended sofa, on which his man and woman, his jeunefemme and roue, are at some cross purpose not clo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookde, booksubjectraphael14831520, bookyear1895
