DOI Heft:
No. 50 (May, 1897)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: The work of Mr. Byam Shaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18388#0223
The Work of By am Shaw
when the artist is working according to the
legend of a school that has often deliberately
attempted to set aside conventional aspects of
beauty. In this respect, and in not a few others,
Mr. Byam Shaw is akin to the young Millais,
who, in Rosalind, the Huguenots, and many another
picture, chose faces of undoubted loveliness, which
the man in the street would also call extremely
pretty.
The few facts of the artist's life which concern
us here are soon told. A painting of himself, by
himself, at the age of twelve, is still in existence;
it is an ambitious and by no means discreditable
work ; quite as good as some one has seen in
London public galleries. In 1892 he took the
Armitage Prize at the Royal Academy Schools for
his Judgment of Solomon, and in 1893 a design,
Abundance, for the decoration of a public building,
illustrated in The Studio (Vol. n. p. 137).
Mr. Shaw has also taken the first prize at the
Gilbert Sketching Club Competition for The
Swineherd, and a second prize for Chivalry, a
triptych of considerable beauty and interest. The
Swineherd illustrates the central incident in Hans
study for "whither »,, by byam shaw Andersen's delightful story, "The Prince in
Disguise," when the Prince, masquerading for the
moment as a swineherd, will only part with his
be misunderstood for a time by a few ultra-superior magic pipkin that jingles the melody " Lieber
critics. The type of beauty that
would he accepted by nine hundred
and ninety out of every thousand
need not be considered too> popular
to interest an artist. It may be that
the minority of ten could justify
their preference entirely. Yet if
they did so, it would only prove
what no one really doubts, that
there is no fixed type of beauty, but
that each man has his own ideal
and is quite within his rights in de-
clining to accept any substitute.
This argument is not intended as
an apology Tor Mr. Byam Shaw's
work, but, on the contrary, as a
tribute to his courage in ignoring
the fallacy of the moment and daring
to revert to the older ideal of beauty,
which sought loveliness in an
idealised type of humanity; idealised,
that is to say, towards the " pretty "
as opposed to the " ugly." It
demands no little pluck to-day to
exalt our Lady of Happiness above
our Lady of Pain, and especially so study for "whither
by byam shaw
when the artist is working according to the
legend of a school that has often deliberately
attempted to set aside conventional aspects of
beauty. In this respect, and in not a few others,
Mr. Byam Shaw is akin to the young Millais,
who, in Rosalind, the Huguenots, and many another
picture, chose faces of undoubted loveliness, which
the man in the street would also call extremely
pretty.
The few facts of the artist's life which concern
us here are soon told. A painting of himself, by
himself, at the age of twelve, is still in existence;
it is an ambitious and by no means discreditable
work ; quite as good as some one has seen in
London public galleries. In 1892 he took the
Armitage Prize at the Royal Academy Schools for
his Judgment of Solomon, and in 1893 a design,
Abundance, for the decoration of a public building,
illustrated in The Studio (Vol. n. p. 137).
Mr. Shaw has also taken the first prize at the
Gilbert Sketching Club Competition for The
Swineherd, and a second prize for Chivalry, a
triptych of considerable beauty and interest. The
Swineherd illustrates the central incident in Hans
study for "whither »,, by byam shaw Andersen's delightful story, "The Prince in
Disguise," when the Prince, masquerading for the
moment as a swineherd, will only part with his
be misunderstood for a time by a few ultra-superior magic pipkin that jingles the melody " Lieber
critics. The type of beauty that
would he accepted by nine hundred
and ninety out of every thousand
need not be considered too> popular
to interest an artist. It may be that
the minority of ten could justify
their preference entirely. Yet if
they did so, it would only prove
what no one really doubts, that
there is no fixed type of beauty, but
that each man has his own ideal
and is quite within his rights in de-
clining to accept any substitute.
This argument is not intended as
an apology Tor Mr. Byam Shaw's
work, but, on the contrary, as a
tribute to his courage in ignoring
the fallacy of the moment and daring
to revert to the older ideal of beauty,
which sought loveliness in an
idealised type of humanity; idealised,
that is to say, towards the " pretty "
as opposed to the " ugly." It
demands no little pluck to-day to
exalt our Lady of Happiness above
our Lady of Pain, and especially so study for "whither
by byam shaw