It is
accuracy such as this which gives an exceptional value to work viewed
from a scientific standpoint. Mention should also be made of the
paintings and drawings made constantly by Wilson for the various
specialists on the expedition whenever they wished for colour records of
their specimens; in this connection the paintings of fish and various
parasites are especially valuable.
I am not specially qualified to judge Wilson from the artistic point of
view. But if you want accuracy of drawing, truth of colour, and a
reproduction of the soft and delicate atmospheric effects which obtain in
this part of the world, then you have them here. Whatever may be said of
the painting as such, it is undeniable that an artist of this type is of
inestimable value to an expedition which is doing scientific and
geographical work in a little-known part of the earth.
Wilson himself set a low value on his artistic capacity. We used to
discuss what Turner would have produced in a land which offered colour
effects of such beauty. If we urged him to try and paint some peculiar
effect and he felt that to do so was beyond his powers he made no scruple
of saying so. His colour is clear, his brush-work clean: and he handled
sledging subjects with the vigour of a professional who knew all there
was to be known about a sledging life.
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