[Mike McCarty]

Further, regarding Sir Frank Dicksee ... Even below in his obituary do we see some of the prevailing prejudices of the times. The writer gives, then takes back: "All these things which are symbols to conjure with are painted solidly but prosaically; the poetry is in the subject, not the execution. And that is why this kind of art looks old-fashioned now; for only poetry in execution keeps art fresh."

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Sir Frank Dicksee PRA.
Obituary in the Times Thursday October 18th 1928.

Sir Frank Dicksee PRA, whose death is announced on another page, came of an artistic family - his father being Thomas Francis Dicksee [1819-1895], who illustrated Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott [1771-1832], and his uncle John Robert Dicksee [1817-1905], animal painter. His professional career was thus made smooth for him in a way which was reflected in his work.

Born in London on November 27 1853, he was trained at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won gold and silver medals, and exhibited his first picture in 1876. Coming to maturity at a time when the very word 'art' was synonymous with romantic and sentimental illustration, and the thing so understood more popular than ever before or since, he was by nature and temperament born to enjoy the popularity; and he enjoyed it without a trace of affectation or the least violation of his artistic conscience. If ever the words 'born in due season,' were true of any man they were true of him. He succeeded not because he did what people wanted, but because people wanted what he unconsciously did; and how genuine was the relation between what people demanded and what he and his contemporaries, though none more sympathetically than he supplied, there is Melbury Road to show.

We may question if the thing demanded and supplied was the best thing for the welfare of English art, but the evidence - material in the prosperity of artists of the period, and the moral in the conversation of the drawing rooms, faithfully recorded in the pages of Punch of a 'natural' working of the famous law, is not to be ignored. For the first time since the 18th century, and for about 20 years art flourished in England. In personal manner Dicksee may be said to have represented a softening of the pre-Raphaelite movement which initiated the period of prosperity, and there can no doubt he owed his popularity partly to the softening. He was without the queerness of the original group and their eldest disciples, a more comfortable painter for the home. In execution he made an artistic virtue of prettiness.

Dicksee was, in short, the chief representative of the older kind of academic artist, whose aim was to express certain common sentiments in a convincing pictorial form. He early achieved success with the picture Harmony, which was bought for the Tate Gallery. In that picture we can see all his art, which remained the same to the end, and he had a work of the same character in the Academy of 1921, it was skilfully and thoroughly executed, and its aim was to arouse a certain kind of feeling, which no doubt he himself shared, rather than express any interest in the visible world. This he achieved very skilfully by the use of certain symbols. A young woman plays an organ with extreme sensibility in a sunset light, and a young man with still more sensibility listens to her. All these things which are symbols to conjure with are painted solidly but prosaically; the poetry is in the subject, not the execution. And that is why this kind of art looks old-fashioned now; for only poetry in execution keeps art fresh.

But Dicksee having found his way continued in it; he was not, like so many artists of the same kind, content to presume on the success, and to paint carelessly where once he had painted carefully. He always did his best to the end; and thus he was able once or twice to do skilful nudes, such as Girls Bathing, which because of its skill, and without sentiment, is less old-fashioned than his more popular pictures. He was a most conscientious portrait painter. In later years he became less popular than worse painters who parodied a more fashionable kind of art, who deserve sharp criticism and much more, for the kind of art he practices he did at least need skill and could not pretend that mere incompetence was dashing.

Sir Frank Dicksee:

Harmony 1877
The Offering
Portrait of Elsa 22x17