DOI Heft:
No. 126 (September, 1903)
DOI Artikel:The life and genius of the late Phil May
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19879#0301
Phil May
"AN ACTOR" FROM A SKETCH BY PHIL MAY
(By permission of James Orrock, Esq.)
urchin, from the closest quarters. The lower
walks of Bohemianism were so familiar to him
that he could represent with absolute veracity
the peculiarities of the people who had trod
them with him. Yet his familiarity with the
livers from hand to mouth did not destroy his
power to recognise the comic side of the struggle
for existence. He kept his geniality and his
keen sense of humour through all his strivings
with what must have often seemed to him to be
hopelessly adverse fate; and when at last he
escaped from the surroundings in which he had
suffered and endured so much, he brought
with him a wonderful store of material on which
to draw during his later career. The long
series of quaint illustrations for which he has
been responsible since his return from Australia,
is a kind of chronicle of streets, redolent of the
rough and racy humour which distinguishes
those ranks of society where criticism is frank
and comment on current events more outspoken
than polite. Yet his work, with all its realism,
has never been coarse, and has never lacked
those saving graces by which common things can
be made legitimately available for artistic uses.
In this, perhaps, the remarkable quality of his
capacity is most convincingly displayed. It
would have been so easy to cheapen his art
by vulgarity, or to insist upon the obvious
surface facts, and to miss the witty subtleties
by which every-day situations are dignified into
true artistic motives j but he kept consistently
within the limits which, by an infallible in-
stinct, he recognised as aesthetically correct.
For his craftmanship he deserves practically
unqualified praise. He possessed emphatically
that understanding of the value of pure line
which is one of the best faculties with which
the draughtsman in black-and-white can be
endowed. There was, indeed, an extraordinary
suppleness and ease, and yet a remarkable vigour
in his drawing. It had the ready fluency of
fine penmanship allied with a kind of accidental
sketchiness which seemed to come naturally and
without effort on the artist's part. There was
in it no sign of elaboration, no evidence of any
particular care, and certainly no suggestion that
he gave much attention to the exact working
out of details. His drawings had always the
appearance of having happened by some lucky
URER FROM A SKETCH BY PHIL
(By permission of James Orrock, Esq.)
285
"AN ACTOR" FROM A SKETCH BY PHIL MAY
(By permission of James Orrock, Esq.)
urchin, from the closest quarters. The lower
walks of Bohemianism were so familiar to him
that he could represent with absolute veracity
the peculiarities of the people who had trod
them with him. Yet his familiarity with the
livers from hand to mouth did not destroy his
power to recognise the comic side of the struggle
for existence. He kept his geniality and his
keen sense of humour through all his strivings
with what must have often seemed to him to be
hopelessly adverse fate; and when at last he
escaped from the surroundings in which he had
suffered and endured so much, he brought
with him a wonderful store of material on which
to draw during his later career. The long
series of quaint illustrations for which he has
been responsible since his return from Australia,
is a kind of chronicle of streets, redolent of the
rough and racy humour which distinguishes
those ranks of society where criticism is frank
and comment on current events more outspoken
than polite. Yet his work, with all its realism,
has never been coarse, and has never lacked
those saving graces by which common things can
be made legitimately available for artistic uses.
In this, perhaps, the remarkable quality of his
capacity is most convincingly displayed. It
would have been so easy to cheapen his art
by vulgarity, or to insist upon the obvious
surface facts, and to miss the witty subtleties
by which every-day situations are dignified into
true artistic motives j but he kept consistently
within the limits which, by an infallible in-
stinct, he recognised as aesthetically correct.
For his craftmanship he deserves practically
unqualified praise. He possessed emphatically
that understanding of the value of pure line
which is one of the best faculties with which
the draughtsman in black-and-white can be
endowed. There was, indeed, an extraordinary
suppleness and ease, and yet a remarkable vigour
in his drawing. It had the ready fluency of
fine penmanship allied with a kind of accidental
sketchiness which seemed to come naturally and
without effort on the artist's part. There was
in it no sign of elaboration, no evidence of any
particular care, and certainly no suggestion that
he gave much attention to the exact working
out of details. His drawings had always the
appearance of having happened by some lucky
URER FROM A SKETCH BY PHIL
(By permission of James Orrock, Esq.)
285