George J. Pinwell and His Works (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...of a struggle and the preparation for greater work that, alas was never to be done; and they leave upon the mind an impression of sadness, coupled with great admiration, and with a curious speculation as to what might have been his future had he lived. Considered by themselves his coloured works are in technique extraordinary. He could not content himself with the ordinary manner of expres sion or with the use alone of water-colour. From student-days he had been attracted by the controversies as to the vehicles and pigments used by the old masters, and the recollection is still vivid in the mind of one of his companions of an animated conversation that he pursued with a friend on the respective merits of chinese white and madder yellow in a picture, and of the use of such pigments as produced these colours in early Italian work. For the latter colour he had a peculiar fondness, using it freely for grounding; and chinese white he used most freely in almost every one of his more ambitious pictures, producing with it, and not with the usual glazing, a strange opalescent effect of light which was very characteristic of the man, and which by reason of its mystery and varied beauty appealed very strongly to him. There is at times a certain mothery result in his pictures, which is caused by his odd combinations of ordinary water-colour and body-colour used as water-colour, and which further obliges owners of his works to keep them carefully shielded from the light. Colour was such a passion with him, and his sense of colour so clear, that he was always ready to try fresh experiments in his methods, to the despair not only of his friends, but of the critics and of his clients. The most marked feature of his work is perhaps his love of tiny brilliant touches of cru...