The Gander, by George Heming Mason (1817-1872). 1864-65. Oil on canvas, 19 1/8 x 32 7/8 inches (48.5 x 83.6 cm). Collection of the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, accession no. LL3146. Kindly released by the gallery under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
This painting was one of three that Mason exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1865, a trio that Esposito has noted: "defined the character of a subsequent career…These simple compositions, modest in scale, were characterized by their rural twilight settings and delicate colour schemes. They were primarily vehicles for Mason to explore exquisite lighting effects, and are drained of narrative content. One critic remarked in 1905 that his 'pictures speak directly for themselves standing alone and free from external references. In The Gander two small farm girls round up unruly geese beside a spring, the hilly background framing the vivid orange sunset behind. The pale blue apron of one of the girls and the white birds provide stark contrast to the otherwise predominantly earthy tones'" (160-61).
The reviewer for The Art Journal felt The Gander was Mason's best picture exhibited that year despite lacking "completeness": "The pictures of G. Mason have received, perhaps, even more than their due, and that was not easy. The Gander (31), the artist's best work, has colour, character, action, and a vague and suggestive grander; it, however, lacks completeness. It is more of the indication of a purpose than the consummation of a picture" (171). F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum praised Mason as a colourist:
Mr. Mason is not less a subtle master of colour that Mr. Whistler; he does not startle us with new subjects, or deny himself the pleasure of drawing human forms, and representing other phases of beauty than that particular one which he affects. There's much that is delicious to the lover of colour and of the sober aspects of nature in Mr. Mason's quaintly-styled pair of pictures, Nos. 31 and 229, The Gander and The Geese. The delicacy, breadth, and truth of these lovely studies merit the greatest care and regard from painters. In their subject there is a dash of quiet humour. In that of the first we have a girl repulsing an irate gander; in the second picture she drives geese along a windy moor. The effect - grey twilight over a moorland, which supplies a landscape of exquisite beauty to the first, shows a mastery not often surpassed, but which is equalled in its companion picture, where the treatment of the sky and of the effect of the setting sun - which makes pale orange bars on the horizon - is marvellous. The geese that go before the girl are perfect in their colouring and tone. [628]
F. T. Palgrave in The Fortnightly Review commented on Mason's fondness for the hours of twilight and evening in his contributions The Gander and The Geese at the Royal Academy:
Twilight and evening appear to be Mr. Mason's hours of preference as Mr. Hook delights in the morning and the noontide. If not so forcible as the latter, Mr. Mason may at least challenge equality in refinement of colour and poetry of feeling. He not only draws children with unequalled grace and accuracy, but has also a peculiar gift of putting them just where they should be in the landscape, without leaving a sense that they are accidentally present, and equally without the very common defect when they are so introduced as to show that they serve mainly as vehicles for colour. It would be a great pleasure to see Mr. Mason's powers tried more frequently on a larger scale; his two little landscapes, one gray, the companion rosy amber, in their atmosphere, are perhaps insufficient in size to do justice to the beauty of their aerial gradation. Much might be said of these pictures; it would be curious to compare them with contemporary French landscapes, to which they are akin, Breton's especially, without being exactly of the same school. It might be useful, also, to contrast their quiet truth and natural grace with the feeble and mannered figure-drawing in which Mr. Birket Foster takes the lead among our water-colour artists.[665]
The Illustrated London News felt Mason's artistic powers might be better employed than wasted on his small landscapes: "From the few works indicating imaginative sympathies we would select for prominent mention three small landscapes by Mr. E. [sic] Mason. Their subjects, materially considered, are of the humblest - to wit, bits of rough moorland, with a little water, geese, a girl or two, or a man leading a pony that has cast a shoe; the effect in all being at or immediately after sundown (31, 229 and 240). But the spectator feels that the painter's real theme was the low-toned, palpitating, after-glow, with its mystery of indefinite form and broken yet beautiful color; and he feels, moreover, that the theme has been treated with pure feeling and true poetic perception. At the same time, it is to be regretted that Mr. Mason should do himself the injustice of nearly always devoting his rare powers to the glorification of geese, in pond or puddle, and one particular little girl, whom the wind seem to constantly pursue like furies. His refined sentiment, excellent drawing of the figure, and exquisite colouring might surely be more worthily employed. [490]
The critic of The Spectator praised the truthfulness of this landscape: "Mr. G Mason, one of our most original and poetical landscape painters, sends three pictures very similar in subject and feeling to what he has previously exhibited. The ruddy glow of evening and extreme grace of line, got without the least sacrifice of rusticity, are the most marked beauties of his Gander (31). J. F. White commented on Mason's seeming fascination with geese in his pictures:
Like a true poet, Mason seemed to find excellent use for the most commonplace creatures or incidents around them. Geese are not lovely or attractive birds, nor do we remember any painter but Knaus who has made much use of them. But in the peasant-life of his native country geese are a prominent feature, and Mason seemed to find them quite paintable, and has been able to interest us in their ungainly ways. One of his most charming landscapes is No. 36, The Gander, where the home-returning flock of geese meets two girls on the moor. The angry gander with raised neck is making violently for the foremost girl, who is trying to frighten him off. The graceful action of this girl with her raised arms is exquisitely felt and drawn. The other girl stoops down to break off a branch as a more effectual means of defense. [732]
Bibliography
Esposito, Donato. "George Heming Mason." Frederick Walker and the Idyllists. London: Lund Humphries, 2017, Chapter VII, 159-80.
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News XLVI (20 May 1865): 490-91.
Palgrave, Francis Turner "English Pictures in 1865." The Fortnightly Review I (1865): 661-74.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal XXXIV (1 June 1865): 161-72
"The Royal Academy." The Spectator XXXVIII (13 May 1865): 526-27.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1958 (6 May 1865): 626-28.
White, John Forbes. "The Pictures of the Late George Mason, A.R.A." The Contemporary Review XXI (1873): 724-36.
Created 28 April 2023