The San Francisco call., 1897-04-11
are of rather fa,tidious

surroundings are OF rather fastidious
taste.
seems practically out OF doors, the ligh.
seems to food the place, it is everywhere.
Evidently In real life as in his work Mr..
Parsons has no use for the dark-no
mystery of the ''dim religious light" ap-
peals to him. Personally, as he stands il
his own studio, he seems entirely in tbs
right He is in light colored clothes,
although it is very early spring; his hair,
when it is not prematurely silver, is
blonde; his eyes, of grayish blue, have an
expression of whimsical gayety, and with
the sunburned, hard freshness o! his COM
plexion, he has that look of unquenchable
youth that so frequently accompanies
man who spends most of the time in the
open air, till the end of his days.
Mr.. Parsons work is as well known at
home as abroad who has not seen those
exquisite drawings that illustrate. with
Edwin Abbey's, HerrIck's and the Old
English Ballads She Stoops to Conquer,
and many others? A Harper's Monthly
without Parsons drawing has been rare
mum Der for the last ten years. or longer.
And during that time Mr.. Parsons has
been frequently in America, in New York,
in The Carolinas, in Southern California,
in San Francisco on his way to and from
Japan.
His sketchbooks are characteristic-full
OF exquisite drawings as careful as those
OF botanist, OF any strange flower, leai.
shrub or tree that came under his notice.
lmpressionism never drew Mr.. Parsons
into the vortex; he never spiashed IN
| paint. simply for tue fun of dashing 1t
about, like an unruIy boy in the surf. Its
dangers and It's pleasures had no fascina-
tion for him-clear, honest, finely drawn
sketches done for the sharp characterize
tion of the object under his immediate at
tention. A Cherokee rose, with its beau
tiful buds turning back TO the stem; on
orchid or meadow daisy. drawn as
Japanese artist would do them, freely,
sharply and with grace.
| In landscape he has no equals in his
own tield-not, it must be confessed, a
very wide one The one painted years ago
and bought by the terms of the Chantrey
beouest when Nature Painted All
| Things Gay" is painted with an exuber-
| ance, an enjoyment, richness of color
| that acts upon the observer llka a burst of
sunlight. II is music out of doors, and
for once Mr.. Parsons uses The whole key
board. No meager illustration can do it
Justice, for it is full of the very odor and
exhilarations of spring. 1t has not the
depth of a Courbet, but far more spon-
taneous feeling tor the crisp, sharp change
| of light on blossoms and trees and sheep
and water and the earth that flies an en-
erald flag, and is brilliant with trans
parent shadows that drop from the shin
ing clouds over the trees-that are
bouquets of bloom-to the earth, that is
at once light and solid.
The work of later years has been all
played 'in the TREBLE" so to speak, and
the landscapes in oil have been little
thin, little like water colors, while the
water coIors have had the solidity usually
connected with oils.
The water colors strike a finer and
truer note; their occasional hardness only
accentuates their trmness, their delicate
and finished brlliance.
The calm and the patience that Mr..
Par.ons puts into these little landscapes.
They are hardly more than foot square,
but you feel almost as though each flower
had made particular appeal for special
attention, and yet they are neither minute
nor do they lose their concentrated fash
and fame of color at a distance.
Mr. Parsons has sketches of the swamF5
of the South, and of the alfalfa in Santa
Barbara, ablazs on the hills; Japanese
vegetable gardens and lotus fields; bat he
is only really at home in corner of an
Enriish garden, where there is perhaps a
decrepit fountain, green with age, with a
bit of silver water and every variety of
young "flowerhood" pushing forward to
catch his delighted attention.
VAN DYCK BROWN.
London, March "a, 1897.