A Rehearsal
E. J. Gregory, A.R.A.
Exhibited at the 1884 Royal Academy
Oil on canvas [?]
Source: Wedmore, Magazine of Art
“A scene which is a mere link, one link out of many, in the written fiction, becomes, in the painted picture — as in "A Rehearsal" say, or like the ilirtation in "Dawn" — presumably the whole subject. But then, again, what distinguishes Mr. Gregory from the feebler or shallower painter of similar things is that such a scene is not at bottom his whole subject. Often his real subject is rather the selected combination of colour, line, and light. The novelist and he may have the same story, but they see it in different ways — treat it for different ends.
The outward aspect, therefore, of the things and persons of the day — and not so much their inner significance — has come to be the material out of which Mr. Gregory weaves his work. But he is drawn, I daresay, much more by an unerring instinct than by a recognised conviction, to the outward aspect of the present instead of to the outward aspect of the past. For my own part I see in him about the highest type of painter who addresses himself to the artistic vision of his time." [354]
