DOI Heft:
No. 108 (March, 1902)
DOI Artikel:Sparrow, Walter Shaw: A young English sculptor: Gilbert Bayes
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19875#0116
Gilbert Bayes
___________, • . . : ll^^Jl.
"THE DERELICT" BY GILBERT BAYES
considerably fewer than in painting. In some picture modelled in clay, as if that could do
measure, no doubt, this may be attributed partly duty for a decorative panel in bas-relief,
to the tyranny of the portrait bust, which is apt This proof of incompetence was recently seen
to beget a sycophancy of style, a want of independ- in the prize-work done by the best students of
ence and of truth in the realisation of character; sculpture in the schools of the Royal Academy;
and partly to the large sums of money which ought and it would be easy to instance other things not
to be invested in the practice of sculpture, but a whit less unfavourable to the prospects of the
which many strugglers cannot procure, so that revival of sculpture. Yet, in England, happily, a
their art grows weak for want of the necessary few sculptors of the youngest school have talents
materials to work upon. Still, when every just of the right sort, and deserve far more attention
allowance has been made for the harm thus done, than they receive ; they have crossed the rubicon
we are still left face to face, in all branches of of their careers, and, like good soldiers, are glad
sculpture, with a dearth of pioneering talent. In to march on. Such, for instance, is Mr. Gilbert
England, for example, many students of the schools Bayes ; such, too, are Mr. A. G. Walker and
nse promisingly to a certain level of workmanlike Mr. Derwent Wood.
cleverness, then falter, lose grip, and fail. Their Gilbert Bayes was born in London twenty-nine
teachers, anxious to test their knowledge, give them years ago. Before he took up art seriously he
(let us say) a frankly pictorial subject to be made worked for five years at the Finsbury College
decorative in a low-relief panel; the pitfall thus of the City Guilds, where, in the evening, he
opened at their feet invites caution, yet most of modelled from the life, and where he received
them fall into it one by one, exaggerating all the much sympathetic encouragement from Mr. Wright
pictorial incidents, and turning out a realistic and from Mr. Brophy. After winning a County
103
___________, • . . : ll^^Jl.
"THE DERELICT" BY GILBERT BAYES
considerably fewer than in painting. In some picture modelled in clay, as if that could do
measure, no doubt, this may be attributed partly duty for a decorative panel in bas-relief,
to the tyranny of the portrait bust, which is apt This proof of incompetence was recently seen
to beget a sycophancy of style, a want of independ- in the prize-work done by the best students of
ence and of truth in the realisation of character; sculpture in the schools of the Royal Academy;
and partly to the large sums of money which ought and it would be easy to instance other things not
to be invested in the practice of sculpture, but a whit less unfavourable to the prospects of the
which many strugglers cannot procure, so that revival of sculpture. Yet, in England, happily, a
their art grows weak for want of the necessary few sculptors of the youngest school have talents
materials to work upon. Still, when every just of the right sort, and deserve far more attention
allowance has been made for the harm thus done, than they receive ; they have crossed the rubicon
we are still left face to face, in all branches of of their careers, and, like good soldiers, are glad
sculpture, with a dearth of pioneering talent. In to march on. Such, for instance, is Mr. Gilbert
England, for example, many students of the schools Bayes ; such, too, are Mr. A. G. Walker and
nse promisingly to a certain level of workmanlike Mr. Derwent Wood.
cleverness, then falter, lose grip, and fail. Their Gilbert Bayes was born in London twenty-nine
teachers, anxious to test their knowledge, give them years ago. Before he took up art seriously he
(let us say) a frankly pictorial subject to be made worked for five years at the Finsbury College
decorative in a low-relief panel; the pitfall thus of the City Guilds, where, in the evening, he
opened at their feet invites caution, yet most of modelled from the life, and where he received
them fall into it one by one, exaggerating all the much sympathetic encouragement from Mr. Wright
pictorial incidents, and turning out a realistic and from Mr. Brophy. After winning a County
103