The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-10-01
THE ART OF CHARLES KEENE
Joseph Pennell Says He Was One OF the
Worlds Master Craftsmen.

Mr. Joseph Pennell writes a paper foi
the October Century on Charles koene
who, he claims, has been shamefully
neglected by English critics and the pub
lie Mr. Pennell says;
should like 70 say few words about
kecnc's work generally AS some one ha'
| written, there Is init a wonderful feeling
| for character, a sense of movement and
| proportion. and a suggestion of living
things in living nature IL is in this pow
| or OF making things live that Charles
| Keenc excellcd that he is the equal OF any
| of the world : master craftsmen. Though
| all his figures are studied. they are never.
| in his finished COMPOSITIONS, mere models
posing Ihcy are doing what he wanted
them 10 90, and he has seized them at the
appropriate, the most expressive moment.
| He had no schCnC. as some one else has
pointed 0ut. 20 which country and town
must be reduced no formula for the ex-
PRESTON OF day or night For, as he HIM
self said, and the saying does not lose by
repetition, III you can draw anything,
YOU can draw everything. You can even
make the political cartoon thing of in
tercst 70 other people besides those define
ated In t., and though his few attempts as
cartoonist may be unintelligihle in sub
jcct. they are interesting in design lie
felt everything he drew and he often act
ed his subjects ana posed for himself.
Though the earlier drawings are so elabO-
rate and the later Ones or the cngravincs
from them, so simple all gro right. His
drawings also have been praised Tor their
su0iThuorwardneS9 theireconomy of line
l 10 not know whether this Is q mcri5 or q
misfortune
Beauty, lis critics like to lament, he
could not see. lis eyes, they think, were
quite blind 90 it-nou SHOWING the trouble
10 be i'm their own shOrtsightedness. IL
was left for one ingenious writer TO put
the general verdict into words, and 20 de-
clare after the artist IS death, that Hccuo
failed in the portrayal of beauty, ele-
gance, rcspectability. 4 pretty woman
never lurEed about the point Of his pen
cil'-how could she, might one venture
70 ask-"as she does so delightfully."- about
those Of his principal collaborators on
Punch His gentlemen are snobs; his
Gris,oc.acy ana his clerks are cast in the
same vulgar mold. and his brides arc for.
bidding models OF virtue perhaps, but
lacking every outward feminine charm"
The true beauty in his drawings must
necessarily be hidden from such writers.
The artist knows well enough that there
is beauty, and of many kinds, in Keene's
greatest of all beauty in the
method of expression in every line set
down, whether it gives the sweep of the
wide moorland or the repeated house
fronts shutting in a London street, the
greasy crcases in Robert 5 coat OF the rags
hanging about the little guttcrsnipe. And
beauty there Is, too, in his landscapes
many OF them arc-and in
his people the women in ycluminous
skirts the little girls in simple frocks
And, above all, there is the beauty essen
tial to show character, however hideous
in itself or Insignificant in a mere moral
or social aspect. And that he could draw
the typically beautiful woman when he
wished his unpublished work proves.