Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

canvas; that loneliness that falls so despairingly on a home when the long and happy ties that bound two people in loving companionship during their lives are severed, and one is left alone. There is no hope for the broken-hearted man as he sits amid the ruins of his home, staring out on the meaningless world; no hope now, and nothing to tell of any for the future.

Israels is a profound thinker, and his is the philosophy of the Persian poet:

"There was the door to which I found no key;

There was the veil through which I might not see;
Some little talk a while of Me and Thee
There was, and then no more of Thee and Me."

It is the thought of the East, whence Israels came, but before it had conquered the world through the beautiful life that lit up the country-side of Galilee and poured forth its rays of loving sympathy upon mankind, giving to men the greatest of gifts, Hope!

Omar

Khayyám.

1837-1899.

CHAPTER VIII

JAMES MARIS

"THE favourite utterance of James Maris, 'I think in my material,' affords a clue to his innate sense of art. He was essentially a painter, and the external impressions conveyed to him were of so graphic a character that he at once interpreted in colour whatever came within the range of his observation. With him technique was paramount. The scenes depicted conveyed no special message, were never designed to point a moral, but depend only upon the ability of the beholder to appreciate in the treatment his meaning and intent. His pictures in fact appeal to the very sentiments that gave them birth; they reveal his intimate acquaintance with colour in all its gradations, his splendid contrasts of light and shadow. The charm they exert upon us is due in part to the grandeur of Maris's artistic sense, his power of sym

pathy, strength of conception, and his glori

[graphic]

PLATE XXIX. - The Peacock Feather. James Maris.

« AnteriorContinuar »