Egyptian Singer
Tate Gallery, London
The sculptor who shared with Alfred Gilbert the honour of having been the earliest Englishman to express through marble and bronze the whole of a rich poetical philosophy was Onslow Ford. Born in 1852 and sending his first work of sculpture to the Academy in 1875, Onslow Ford received his early training as a painter. Indeed, he never had any systematic instruction as a sculptor. He came into notice by winning the “Rowland Hill” competition, the result being the statue which stands behind the Royal Exchange, within a stone’s-throw of Dalou’s charming bronze fountain, “Maternity.”
Very shortly after he carved the magnificent marble “Henry Irving as Hamlet,” now at the Guildhall, the property of the Corporation of London. The “Henry Irving” is one of the most complete efforts in English art. The beauty of the design and the powerful modelling of the face and hands, place the statue in the very forefront of modern English sculpture. Added to this is the magnificent realism with which the sculptor has preserved the sense of theatrical portraiture. The figure is not Henry Irving; nor is it Hamlet. The imaginative insight of the artist has been able to reach an absolute fusion of the two ideas. It really is “Henry Irving as Hamlet.”
No reference to the genius of Onslow Ford would be complete without a word as to his statuettes, particularly as “sculpture in little” may well prove to be the means whereby the English sculptor will regain the attention of the art-buyer in the near future.
One of Onslow Ford’s most charming efforts in this direction is the delightfully whimsical “Folly.” It represents a figure with the adolescent charms of budding womanhood balancing herself on the edge of a precipitous rock. Toes clutching at the slippery edge—a fancy which is characteristic of Onslow Ford—“Folly” is calling to the foolish to follow the dream picture she can see in the distance. The charm of the little work lies in the freshness of the conception, the perfect balance of the figure and the beautiful realism with which form and flesh have been rendered. “The Egyptian Singer” (Tate Gallery) is an equally charming example of the sculptor’s art.
Onslow Ford died in 1901. A sculptor of almost equal genius, though of less prolific accomplishment, was lost to English sculpture at an equally early age. We are referring to Harry Bates (1847-1899). There are two fine examples of his work at the Tate Gallery, London. Note the grace with which the artist’s imagination has given a new turn to so hackneyed a theme as the myth of Pandora: Bates’s “Pandora” is less an illustration of the Greek story than it is of an episode in the life-history of a woman of to-day. A sweet, virginal figure, she is opening the box in which Fate has hidden the unknown, without a premonition of the sorrows which must attend the revelation of the secret.
The equally well-known “Hounds in Leash,” was sculptured by Bates to prove that he was as much at home in treating a subject requiring the expression of vigorous action as he was in the treatment of figures at rest.
HARRY BATES
Tate Gallery, London
J. M. SWAN
There are many sculptors in England at the present time who would claim attention were our survey an exhaustive one. This, of course, is not our purpose. It will therefore suffice to recall two other works in proof of the intense individualism of latter-day sculpture in Great Britain.
The first is J. M. Swan’s charming statuette “Orpheus,” exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1895.
J. M. Swan is, of course, the painter. He studied first at Lambeth, then at the Academy and finally at Paris, where he came under the influence of Frémiet, the animal sculptor. It is as a sculptor of animals that Swan has made his reputation. Indeed he may be roughly labelled as the English Barye.
Note how delightfully the sinuousness of the lithe figure of the “Orpheus” is rendered. Here we have the spirit, not the echo, of the Greek myth. Like Barye, Swan is a realist, though his method is the reverse of realistic, since he is more concerned with the masses than the details. Swan’s supreme gift lies in his power to detect character in the whole of the human and animal form. His charm depends on the delightfully individualistic methods by which he expresses his insight. None of his statuettes ever strike us as coming from another man’s studio.
An equally strong individualistic note is struck in George Frampton’s “Mysteriarch.”
This beautiful marble was exhibited in the Academy of 1893. It affords a fine example of the sculptor’s art at its best. The bust is set in front of a gilded disc supported upon an architecturally treated screen, the figure being cut, Florentine fashion, just below the shoulders. The treatment of the subject is in a high degree imaginative, while the subtlety with which the serene severity of the face is rendered proves the possession of fine technical powers.
George Frampton was born in 1860. He studied, like Harry Bates, under Mr. Frith at Lambeth, passed on to the Academy school, and finished by gaining the Gold Medal in 1887. He has since acted as an art adviser to the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, a position which has enabled him to give a wide currency to very definite artistic ideals. He is one of the men with whom the future of English sculpture rests.
This brief sketch of modern British sculpture completes our task. Our aim has been to map out the entire history of the art. In our view the study of the development of sculpture in terms of isolated craftsmen would have involved a basic fallacy. The individual is no more than the crest of a wave in the sea of mental, emotional and physical energy, whence art arises. We have, therefore, been content to note the various forms in which a common temper has found expression.
Doubtless it would have been possible to trace an international traffic in thought and emotion. Its main channels might have been correlated with the manifestations of an international art spirit. We have preferred to avoid the standpoint of cosmopolitanism and individualism alike, choosing the middle position—that of nationalism. The proposition that every great art is essentially a national art may be disputed. But it has the merit of not requiring actual demonstration. Most of us feel that the artist must draw the greater part of his inspiration from the men and women with whom he lives and to whom he appeals. The only thing to avoid is a too narrow use of the word. “National” does not connote a merely territorial or a supposed racial bond. Coleridge defined the term for all time when he wrote: “I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country; but language, religion, laws, government, blood, identity in these make men of one country.”
GEORGE FRAMPTON
That art alone is truly living which is a record and an interpretation of national life—an epitome of the loves and the hates, the sorrows and the joys, the caprices and the enthusiasms, of men like ourselves.
We have demonstrated that the marbles and the bronzes of the greater schools of sculpture of the past answer to this supreme test. Surely this justifies the proposition with which we started—“that they are not dead things which may be left to gather dust in unfrequented museums and galleries.”
One further claim upon the affection and regard of this restless century may be made. Much of the greatest sculpture speaks of other days than ours. It tells of times
“Before this strange disease of modern life,
With its sick hurry, its divided aims,
Its heads o’ertax’d, its palsied hearts, was rife.”