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WATER-COLOUR PAINTING

combined colour appeals with especial force. In the earlier stages, indeed, of his career he was so preoccupied with colour, and colour only, that he was over-inclined to neglect the study of form and the cultivation of fine draughtsmanship. But spurred, as he admits, by the criticisms of Ruskin, he strove to correct this deficiency in his art, and for the past thirty years he has concerned himself as closely with questions of form as with problems of colour. To-day it is almost as much the sensitiveness of his drawing as the acuteness of his colour vision that makes his paintings so persuasive as technical exercises.

Like most artists who are responsive to the impressions of the moment he has no hard and fast system of production, and he has a well-pronounced inclination towards experiment in new forms of technical expression. When possible, he prefers to complete his painting out of doors, face to face with nature, but in so many instances the subjects he chooses – effects of atmosphere, aerial colour, and momentary illumination – are of such an evanescent kind that they cannot be properly dealt

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