An Incantation.
John Collier (1850–1934)
Source: Magazine of Art 10 (1887): 276
“The Hon. John Collier's most important Academy picture, "An Incantation," which we reproduce, is a remarkable example of an extremely interesting and always limited class of pictures. Its subject is eminently a painter's subject, and one that could only occur to a painter, fraught as it is with problems of technique which of themselves suffice to attract an artist of Mr. Collier's gifts and executive powers. We cannot, however, in their instance, disassociate the technical interest of the subject from the painter's admirable revelation of its beauty, by which he has proved himself the worthy ally of the poet who tells us men do not know how beautiful fire is.” [continued below].
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Image capture and formatting by George P. Landow.