Cotmania. Vol. VI. 1930-31

Mr. Muirhead Bone, who is showing a
second series of drawings of Spain at
Messrs. Colnaghi's, 144, New Bond-street,
is such a superlatively good artist on his
own lines, and is so universally recognized
as such, that he can afford to have it said
that his characteristic virtues are, after
all, technical rather than artistic. This
odues not mean that his work is deficient
in feeling, or that he cannot compose a
picture; it is only to say that the pleasure
derived from a work of his depends to a
greater extent on seeing what it repre-
­sents and how it is executed than is the
case with work that possesses artistic
virtues in a high degree —that, of Cotman,
for instance.
Some such reservation is almost neces­sary if you are to keep your head at this
exhibition and not to pronounce Mr. Bone
the greatest landscape draughtsman that
ever lived. In all that lies within Mr.
Bone's limitations the second series of
Spanish drawings is more wonderful than
the first, with more variety in subject,
style, and medium, and a more perfect
co-ordination of detail in the general
effects. It is in this last respect that Mr.
Bone goes on advancing; from the very
nature of his powers and interests com­position was never his strongest point,
work so circumstantial as his being more
difficult to organize than are more "synthetic " statements; but his drawings
now leave little to seek from the point of
view of coherency. They do not, as some
drawings do, give you an easier welcome
than would the places represented, but
you have no difficulty in finding your way
about in them.

The Times. May 12, 1931.