3-021-160 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

George Mason, A.R.A., 1869. 'At the age of twenty-six he went abroad, and began a more serious study of art at Rome. His stay on the Continent, chiefly in that art-capital, was protracted till 1858, in which year he returned to England. From the first, we believe, Mr. Mason adopted the walk of art in which - he has at length attained that popular appreciation and Academic recognition he had long richly merited. The painter's specialty consists in a choice of subjects combining figures, landscape, and animals, and in his aim at rendering the artistic impressions derivable from a scene, rather than the mere recording of its topography. Hence, from the homeliest, most prosaic materials he extracts idyllic beauty. His style is evidently the product of foreign influences. In his earlier pictures he has dealt with Italian subjects sometimes on a much larger scale than would be expected by those familiar only with the majority of his later works. The subjects of the latter are frequently drawn from the simpler scenery of his native Staffordshire; and children, especially young girls, are favourite human elements in his compositions'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.