Cotmania. Vol. IX. 1933-4

{Kitson annotation}

Burlington Magazine
Feb 7 1934

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{Burlington clipping}

English water-Colours. By Laurence Binyon. xii + 200 pp. + 25 plates. (The Library of English Art Series.) (Black.) 7s. 6d.

Mr. Binyon's survey of the development and practice of our peculiarly national art of water-colour painting begins with John White—named "forerunner "—draughtsman in 1585 to Raleigh's expedition to Virginia, and ends among the contemporaries and juniors of Mr. Steer—the supreme practitioner of modern times. One main characteristic distinguishes his book sharply from so many of those called into being by great exhibitions. Instead of having "mugged up " his subject in the library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in a brief round of public collections, and from photographs, Mr. Binyon has written from long familiarity with his material, from an acquaintance with innumerable works in private hands as well as of those publicly owned, and from the impersonal viewpoint of a scholar and connoisseur whose sense of proportion is not for a moment to be hocussed by his enjoyment and enthusiasm.
The result is a digest and epitome, as masterly as it is condensed. A satisfying feeling of direct contact with the artistic material under review and with the minds that produced it is a natural product of his criticism, of his freshly minted impressions and independent analyses. His interest is least engaged by those Victorian purveyors of ready-made romance on whom Ruskin squandered [such ill-considered praise- Prout, Roberts, Harding and their like : which is a reminder that in addition to his solid work on English drawings in the mass and his contributions to our knowledge and appreciation of such particular artists as Blake, Girtin and Cotman, Mr. Binyon has long been a wholesome corrective to Ruskin, not as a controversialist or reformer, but merely by the way. Ruskin, as he remarks, never once I mentions John Sell Cotman (we doubt indeed if Ruskin ever spent a breath on that unhonoured name !). Though the tradition may descend from the late Sidney Colvin, Mr. Binyon's reaction has obviously been the natural outcome of that wholly independent and austere judgment which invests his writings with such authority.

H. ISHERWOOD KAY

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{Kiston annotation}

From an article on oil painting at British art exhibition by Herbert [Finest] 'Apollo' Feb 7—1934

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{Apollo clipping}

FIRST, one word about Nationality in Art—(as also in the rest of what we call civilization). It is time that we accustomed ourselves to the thought that Art is a super-national affair. There is neither British nor any other national Art ; there is only Art in Britain, in France, in Italy and the rest. Wherever Art is found, it is always the same old tree, with its roots perchance in Egypt or Mesopotamia, and its shoots, its trunks, its branches, its twigs, its aerial roots—a veritable Banyan covering the world. Thus when, for example, a critic of this exhibition notices John Sell Cotman's water-colour " The Waterfall " as " that masterpiece which so strangely and uconsciously betrays a deep affinity between British Art and the Art of Asia," he is viewing the truth from an oblique angle ; the " deep affinity " exists not only between Asia and Britain, but between Asia and all Europe, more clearly seen in that " expression " that was not
tainted with the doctrines of the Italian Renaissance.
If, nevertheless, we are determined to distinguish national characteristics and to that end divest ourselves of all prejudice, all theory, that is, based on appearances which the Renaissance first invented and obtruded, then it will be found, I think, that British Art comes out of the contest with the Art of other nations, with flying colours.
We must, however, be prepared for a certain shock to our most treasured convictions about aesthetics, our most " sacred " beliefs about Art. Owing to the nature of that " Banyan tree " I have alluded to, national peculiarities are difficult to discover in British Art before the XVIIIth century; they are a matter for antiquarians, open to doubt and dispute, the more so as nationality is, in any case so vague a term that lawyers still disagree as to its precise interpretation.