excitements and large hopes. He won distinction as
a fine draughtsman in a scliool where to ' draw ' is
considered the highest merit of an artist.
His work attracted the attention of Gerome, who,
most reticent and most caustic of professors, praised
and encouraged him. Yet there was a profound differ-
ence in the manner and sjiirit of the apprehension of
art between the young student and the academical
seniors around him. He was above all things an
Impressionist ; always on the alert for new problems
of colour, of line, of effect ; impatient of the trammels
of tradition ; intensely alive in the present. Degas
was his true master, in that this leader of the Im-
pressionist school most influenced his style, and had
with him that keen sympathy of temperament which
is the true kinship of artists.
Mr. Stott is a naturalist. Nature has no moral
significance for him ; she is simply a delight — a sen-
suous enchantment. Human beings pictorially appeal
to him only as they stand in i-elation to that pageant
of nature. His boys and girls, his men and women,
his nymphs and goddesses, are but notes in the per-
vading harmony. They are the highest expression of
nature's magic, the subtlest interpreters of its hints ;
outside of this they have no interest for the artist.
Herein lies the secret of Mr. Stott's power, and of its
limitations.
I have before me a somewhat faded photograph of
the ' Tricoteuse,' a picture the original of which I
remember. It is a river scene : a corner filled with a
tangle of water-side blossoms, bordered with straight-
stemmed silver birch-trees, through the foliage of which
rains the sunlight. A young peasant-girl walks through
the sun-spotted world, knitting as she walks. She is
a part of the freshness and pleasantness, a note in the
impression of sunlight and flower, of cool water and
of the innocent active life of nature.
The 'Baignade' was exhibited at the Salon of 1882.
The jury of the Salon awarded to this work a medal —
no small honour for a young foreigner to receive. In
this truly beautiful picture the painter has rendered
the green twilight of a shady nook. All the delicious
vagueness, the still languor, the heat of the summer
day are suggested here. The water-lilies spread their
green platters and pearl cups, the reeds mingle with
the abundant rivei'-side vegetation. Part of the
summer day, part of its warmth, its quiet intensity of
joy, its deep-pulsing vitality, are three figures of
bathing boys. By their expression of the sensuous spell
nature casts over the spirit on such a day, amid such
surroundings, they are perfect as might be the words
of a poem.
Every picture seems to show more and more that
the basis of Mr. Stott's art is founded in the belief that
human nature is but a note in nature, and is unintel-
ligible, not to say uninteresting, but as a part of the
general harmony. ,^
To this period belongs also ' Le Passeur/ another
river scene. Two little rustic girls wait on the bank
for the ferry-boat. One lies on the grass amid the
flowers, the other stands looking towards the approach-
ing craft. They are part of the impressions conveyed
by the peaceful sky, the placidly flowing river. The
physiognomy, the movement of the scene, are enhanced
by the presence there of those charmingly drawn and
painted figures. The secret charm of the picture
consists in its witching harmony and restfulness, un-
broken by any intrusive emotion brought into it by
the human world.
'The Kissing Ring' is another picture very low in
tone. Twilight is falling over the seashore. A dimly
opalescent sky, a long stretch of level sand broken by
pools of light-rimmed water, reflecting the sky and the
figures of children dancing in the greyness. The
critics have protested against the gravity of the chil-
dren. Romping little ones would have been an in-
trusion on the scene, they would have destroyed the
magical secret of the departing day. These rhythmically
moving children, somewhat shabbily dressed, are by
their grace mortal children, yet in their happy gravity
they seem to be essences of the surrounding twilight,
part of the repose, of the vague all-prevalent satisfac-
tion that is yet akin to melancholy, as far removed
from joy as it is from sorrow.
The ' Summer Day ' is a picture of blue summer sky,
of smooth clean sand, and three boys, whose bodies
furnish three notes of sunlight in flesh-colour, ivory,
pearl-tone, rose, and grey.
The first picture of Mr. Stott's that I saw was
the ' Moonrise,' a reproduction of which is given here.
The picture made upon me a deep impression. The
lines of the hills echoing each other, as it were, in the
pale clearness of the sky, affected me as music might.
A charm, as that of night itself, seemed to distil
from the low-toned can'as. I may quote an extract
from a letter of Mr. Stott, which, better than any
word of mine, will express how deeply he felt the
beauty he sought to depict with his brush, and how he
realised the difficulty of conveying it to those who have
not felt the spell of moonlight. ' To speak of the
delight of early morning, with its fresh air and clear
sky and dew, would be foolish to one who had ex-
])erienced them in Nature, and had not been touched
by them. How speak then of the awful, delightful
weirdness of moonlight to one whose observation has
been limited to finding that there are nights when
one sees almost as clearly as by day .' Why speak to
such of the moon in a kind of trance moving inch by
inch up the sky through the blue, tender ether ; of its
yellow effulgence as it creeps, enveloping like a breath
the line of the hills ; of the stars with their several
coloured twinklings dipping, as it were, one by one in
the water which mirrors them ; of the mystery of the
hills and their shadows, and, above all, of that silence,
that stillness of heaven and earth so wonderful ? Why
speak at all of these things to one who has not been
moved by them.' When one has felt anything of
this, how inadequate are all words ! '
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THE SCOTTISH ART REVIEW
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