Studio: international art (37.1906)

Alfred Drury, A.R.A.

enough, but the story they have to tell is no not with any wilful intention to be unlike everyone
triviality, but something with dramatic force and a else, but sincerely and in fulness of conviction,
convincing moral. The dignity of the artist's con- to prove that departures from ancient tradition
ception is as impressive as the strength with which can be made without straying into extravagance
he has attacked the technical problems presented or losing the monumental quality which should
by a piece of work so complicated and so exacting be his special aim. He has avoided the theatrical
in its demands upon his knowledge of construction taint with memorable discretion, and yet he
and his capacity for overcoming mechanical diffi- has found in the subjects suggested by the pur-
culties. Nowhere can he be said to have failed to pose to which the building he has adorned will be
show himself equal to a task which was calculated applied ample inspiration for sculpture which
to test him severely, and his success is all the embodies the vital points in the drama of Peace
greater because it has been attained under con- and War. Each of the figures and each of the
ditions which might well have excused many groups signifies something that is nobly imagined
deficiencies. and finely thought out; each is an independent

One thing that is very evident in these War and original conception; and yet each one takes
Office groups is the manner in which he has given its proper place in the story which the whole series
free rein to his imagination in selecting the subjects sets forth, and takes it as rightly as the work itself
which the figures have been designed to illustrate, agrees with the architectural design
For this type of symbolical sculpture
there are rules prescribed by custom
and long usage, fixed conventions
which are not infrequently held to be
good enough to guide the modern
worker, simply because they have
served his predecessors for many
generations. He is supposed to con-
fine himself to recognised formalities,
and in a large number of instances
he is not, it must be admitted, any
too anxious to put himself to the
trouble of seeking out new forms of
expression. For one thing, his clients
who claim his services are quite dis-
posed to be satisfied with the sort of
work to which they are accustomed,
and ask only that the stock things he
gives them should be executed with
sufficient skill. For another, the re-
petition of the old ideas, with, perhaps,
some slight modifications which will
pass as new readings of the familiar
stories, is easy to manage, and imposes
no tax upon his inventive capacities.
Only the conscientious artist who
finds pleasure in thinking things out
for himself and rebels against stereo-
typed modes of expression would
exert himself to do for his own satis-
faction what the people for whom at
the moment he is working do not
specially demand of him.

But Mr. Drury happens to be a
conscientious artist, and a man with
ideas besides. So he has sought, bust of sir wm. maccormac iiy alfred drury

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