"Among the Missing" by Walter Langley, RI

Among the Missing

Walter Langley, RI

Watercolour on paper

Exhibited at the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolors in 1884

H 118 x W 85 cm

Collection: Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance (PEZPH : 1998.34)

The Magazine of Art (1884) comments that this “is one of the most striking drawings in the present exhibition . . . , and is decidedly the most important of the artist's works hitherto. It has attracted much attention both by its excellent technical quality and by the facile power and breadth with which a familiar scene is presented; the interest it creates, though so spontaneously evoked, is not of the kind that is quickly exhausted. Freshly and even vividly felt as its pathos and power are at first sight, the appeal to our sympathy and understanding is made with such simplicity of method, and is so broadly based on a sentiment common to humanity, that the impression is deep and lasting. [continued below]

Image via Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives licence, added by JB; text by GPL.

Mr. Langley has previously exhibited satisfactory work, but chiefly in the form of studies of one or more figures consciously posed and dependent for their attractiveness on technical merit, their expressive draughtsmanship or colour. Among the Missing is, however, very distinct from these, as any composition must necessarily be that comprises many figures, and that involves action and emotion and dramatic expression; it very fully proves that the art of the painter of finished studies is not limited to that narrow province of production — which, after all, is but a higher means of expression for the painter of still life — but that he is endowed with the picturesque sense, the perception of composition and harmony. The superiority of this work over Mr. Langley's The Lover and his Lass, which is but a highly elaborated study, is felt to be immense when considered as a work of art, though its technique is on the same plane of excellence and characterised by qualities common to all the artist's work. This higher artistic value and superior importance are due to the brilliant strength and actuality that animates the picture, its exceeding truthfulness and sincerity, its finely rendered tone of sea atmosphere and broad and liberal daylight. Studied as is the group of fisher-folk about the post office, and consciously disposed in the foreground as are the old woman and the weeping girl, the figures are all vital with one impulsive cause of agitation, and the impression of emotion and movement is effected with admirable nature and simplicity, and without any aid from the cheap expedient of contrast. There remains for notice the scheme of colour and the admirable skill with wliich it is worked out and harmonised; the dramatic force of the incident derives considerable value from the breadth of the atmospheric medium and the truth of the local colour. The wild windy weather of the burdened sky, the happy touch of the swaying trees beyond the grey shingled roof, the suggestion of verdure so finely harmonised with the tone of the grey wall and door-coping, all combine to quicken the sense of calamity.” — Magazine of Art, 393-94

Bibliography

“Current Art —II.” Magazine of Art. 7 (1883-84): 392-96. Hathi Trust version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 31 December 2014.

Last modified 23 February 2021 (new image added)