DOI issue:
Nr. 144 (March 1905)
DOI article:Wood, T. Martin: A decorative sculptor: Miss Ruby Levick (Mrs. Gervase Bailey)
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20711#0118
Riiby Levick
in her art, since even trying commissions, com- as the artist enables us to feel it. It is impossible
missions affording little scope for a personal render- to look for more than a few minutes at these
ing of things, have been executed by her in a quite two faces—little more than half of one only
individual manner; and where, as in the decorations revealed to view — and not to enter into the
for the little Catholic chapel at Hunstanton in delicate sympathy shown in the handling, and to
Norfolk, a congenial task has been given to her, trace in the modelling of the lips, the hands, and
she has expressed in her work high qualities of in the round faces the indefinable tenderness that
emotional intention that override the rare faults in is the characteristic of Miss Levick's work. One
design which here and there give to its significant finds it too in the rendering of the angels on the
beauty a limitation. The face in the side panel of memorial tablet. What is the exact nature of
Our Lady is very expressive of the qualities which this quality, which more than any other gives
give a charm that must last to Miss Levick's work. distinction to a woman's art, and more than any
In it there is conveyed with great simplicity and other quality is at her command, it is difficult
with tenderness a face that in its gentleness realises to say ; certainly it is a quality of the heart,
in a modern spirit the oldest tradition. It has the Ruskin, with his dictum that high art was the
particular gentleness that can be given to a face result of the brain, the hand, and the heart work-
by woman's hand alone. In the corresponding ing together, was not quite right perhaps; very
panel of St. Edmund a certain lack of feeling in excellent work may have been done by men—
the drapery is not qualified so easily by the face, stands out indeed amongst remarkable art—which
In the work for St. Brelades, Jersey, the design is so scientific as to give no evidence that other
needs no qualification. The reredos panel frames than hand and brain were concerned in its creation,
the heads of Cherubim which are tenderly abstracted The evidence that the heart has not informed a
from it, as tenderly as the heads in the relief woman's work takes from it all significance as an
called Sleep, which relief is as good an example important work of art, and leaves it feebly a re-
as any of handling which is informed with a production or an impotent rearrangement of the
sympathy that becomes as strength in proportion work of the masters. The word heart in this case,
st. edmund's chapel, hunstanton
I02
with sculptural decorations by ruby levick
in her art, since even trying commissions, com- as the artist enables us to feel it. It is impossible
missions affording little scope for a personal render- to look for more than a few minutes at these
ing of things, have been executed by her in a quite two faces—little more than half of one only
individual manner; and where, as in the decorations revealed to view — and not to enter into the
for the little Catholic chapel at Hunstanton in delicate sympathy shown in the handling, and to
Norfolk, a congenial task has been given to her, trace in the modelling of the lips, the hands, and
she has expressed in her work high qualities of in the round faces the indefinable tenderness that
emotional intention that override the rare faults in is the characteristic of Miss Levick's work. One
design which here and there give to its significant finds it too in the rendering of the angels on the
beauty a limitation. The face in the side panel of memorial tablet. What is the exact nature of
Our Lady is very expressive of the qualities which this quality, which more than any other gives
give a charm that must last to Miss Levick's work. distinction to a woman's art, and more than any
In it there is conveyed with great simplicity and other quality is at her command, it is difficult
with tenderness a face that in its gentleness realises to say ; certainly it is a quality of the heart,
in a modern spirit the oldest tradition. It has the Ruskin, with his dictum that high art was the
particular gentleness that can be given to a face result of the brain, the hand, and the heart work-
by woman's hand alone. In the corresponding ing together, was not quite right perhaps; very
panel of St. Edmund a certain lack of feeling in excellent work may have been done by men—
the drapery is not qualified so easily by the face, stands out indeed amongst remarkable art—which
In the work for St. Brelades, Jersey, the design is so scientific as to give no evidence that other
needs no qualification. The reredos panel frames than hand and brain were concerned in its creation,
the heads of Cherubim which are tenderly abstracted The evidence that the heart has not informed a
from it, as tenderly as the heads in the relief woman's work takes from it all significance as an
called Sleep, which relief is as good an example important work of art, and leaves it feebly a re-
as any of handling which is informed with a production or an impotent rearrangement of the
sympathy that becomes as strength in proportion work of the masters. The word heart in this case,
st. edmund's chapel, hunstanton
I02
with sculptural decorations by ruby levick