DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 12

DR. FRANK CRANE’S DAILY EDITORIAL

HOW A PAINTER WORKS

(Copyright. 192T.J A GOOD insight into the way the wheels go round inside the head of a painter has been furnished by Sir John Lavery, a world renowned EngllShLikeSevery other genius he has no idea how he produces his works. Sometimes those upon which he expends the most energy and trouble are failures; sometimes those upon which he spends the least are successes. He never can tell. I suppose it is that way with every worker. A preacher often notices that those sermons upon which he expends the most study make no impression, while those addresses which he would call second-place are very successful. So much depends upon the inspiration of the moment. It is an inspiration after all that releases the hand and unties all the faculties. All the amount of training and work you put into a matter count for naught unless you have the Divine spark. Sir John Lavery has no philosophy about the way he does his work. He just does it—that’s all. “I have my head all the time in a paint pot, he says, and even when I take it out still for several hours it goes on dripping paint.” He says he has no time to form general ideas nor a conscious, critical philosophy. As a rule a critic is one who cannot produce, and producers are poor critics. Critics can tell you just how a thing has failed, and they usually do, hut a producer cannot tell you how he succeeded. Into the life of every man luck somehow forces its way. Henry Ford owes much to his inventive genius, but he could not have gotten along unless luck had favoured him. It was luck that had largely to- do with Calvin Coolidge and others in authority. That is no detriment to their ability, as luck does you no good unless you have the strength and power: But every successful man looking back oyer his career sees many an instance in which opportunity came to him and gave him his chance. Sir John Lavery also emphasises the fact that he has “given up every pleasure and every distraction and lives rigorously, concentrating his whole being upon his work.” Almost everyone who has succeeded has had great ability to work. In fact, genius might be called the capacity for hard work. It is the man who keeps on who succeeds, the man who will not be defeated.