The Recruit
1915
- Scottish Art
In this ink and watercolour sketch, with a few bold lines and washes of colour Cadell has deftly captured a new recruit walking with an army officer. Cadell joined the Royal Scots in 1915 and this is one of a series of drawings of army life he produced before leaving for service in France. Twenty of the drawings were published in 1916 in the book `Jack and Tommy?, and sold to benefit the Red Cross. The brisk, economic brush-and-ink technique of these drawings seems to have been based on illustrations the Dutch Fauve painter, Kees van Dongen, made in the early 1900s, for journals such as `L?assiette au beurre? and `Gil-Blas?.
