1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/East, Alfred

EAST, ALFRED (1849–  ), English painter and etcher, was born at Kettering on the 15th of December 1849. One of the most prominent among modern English landscape painters, he received his art education first at the Glasgow School of Art and then in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, and under Robert-Fleury and Bouguereau. His landscapes are remarkable for the lyrical use of colour and for the pleasing rhythm of line which is the result of careful selection and building up of the elements that constitute the scene. Based on keen observation of the colour of nature and on careful studies of the details, they are arranged with a rare and by no means obvious sense of balance and compositional beauty which summarily discards all disturbing accidents of nature. He also achieved distinction as an etcher, and published an instructive and useful volume on landscape painting (London, 1906). He began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1882, and was elected an associate. In 1906 he became president of the Royal Society of British Artists. Many of his works are to be found in the English provincial galleries; Manchester owns “The Silent Somme” and “Autumn”; Liverpool, “Gibraltar from Algeciras”; Leeds, “The Golden Valley”; Birmingham, “Hayle from Lelant”; Preston, “An Idyll of Spring”; and Hull, “Evening on the Cotswolds.” His “Passing Storm” is at the Luxembourg; “The Nene Valley” at the Venice gallery; and “A Haunt of Ancient Peace” at the National gallery in Budapest. In 1903 he received the order of the Crown of Italy in connexion with his services to the Venice international exhibition; and he was made an honorary member of the Japanese Meiji Bijutsu Kai.