DOI Heft:
No. 269 (August 1915)
DOI Artikel:Reddie, Arthur: The paintings of Oswald H. Birley, R. O. I.
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21213#0190
Oswald Birley, R.O.I.
being equal, the profounder his study the greater
will be his art.
To come, after this preamble, to the painter of
whose art our leaders may judge from the several
reproductions which accompany this article—we
have here a portrait-painter who has a rigid and strict
conception of his duties and his obligations towards
the sitter. His aim it is to keep ever conscientiously
before him the thought of that inevitable com-
promise which must be satisfactorily encompassed
—the accurate physical presentment coupled with
that infusion of the character of the sitter, as it is
reflected in the mind of the artist, so as to raise the
picture from being a mere outward likeness to being
a portrait in the highest sense of the term.
Oswald Birley is one of the members of the young
school of portrait-painters in this country—a school
which comprises a number of men whose contribu-
tions to modern art are highly interesting. His
wrork is characterised by great sincerity and con-
scientiousness ; it never
“ shouts,” it is even at times
so lacking in elements
which constitute a super-
ficial and immediate at-
tractiveness to the eye that
it is easy, in an exhibition,
cursorily to overlook his
portraits and to pass them
by without doing justice to
the qualities of firm and
incisive draughtsmanship,
of restrained colour and
admirable technique, which
a closer inspection will
reveal. The artist comes
of a Lancashire family, and
was born in 1880. His
career up to August last
might be summed up,
somewhat in the curt
manner of Professor
Higgins in Shaw’s “Pyg-
malion,” as Harrow, Trinity
College, Cambridge,
Dresden, Paris, St. John’s
Wood. But at the out-
break of war he was one
of the first to offer himself;
he enlisted in the 10th
Battalion of the Royal
Fusiliers, and after a few
months in the ranks was
gazetted 2nd Lieutenant
170
in the same battalion. May good luck attend
him.
Exigencies of the portrait-painter’s art would seem
to demand, in the successful practitioner, either the
development of a style and technique which allows
of a gradual working up of the canvas, patchwork-
wise, in such a way as to allow alterations and
additions in detail to be effected without loss of
harmony and cohesion in the whole, or else a
rapidity and dexterity of brush-work which enables
the results of the artist’s analysis of his sitter to be
synthetised on the canvas almost at one sitting.
Conditions vary from day to day; sittings may be,
of necessity, few and far between; such difficulties
must hamper the portrait-painter, and, while they
should not touch his art, must undoubtedly interfere
with his craft, if such a distinction may be per-
mitted. Oswald Birley’s style of work conforms to
the second manner referred to above, and his
method must be, in truth, a rapid one to account
“CHILDREN OF LEOPOLD HIRSCH, ESQ.”
BY OSWALD BIRLEY
being equal, the profounder his study the greater
will be his art.
To come, after this preamble, to the painter of
whose art our leaders may judge from the several
reproductions which accompany this article—we
have here a portrait-painter who has a rigid and strict
conception of his duties and his obligations towards
the sitter. His aim it is to keep ever conscientiously
before him the thought of that inevitable com-
promise which must be satisfactorily encompassed
—the accurate physical presentment coupled with
that infusion of the character of the sitter, as it is
reflected in the mind of the artist, so as to raise the
picture from being a mere outward likeness to being
a portrait in the highest sense of the term.
Oswald Birley is one of the members of the young
school of portrait-painters in this country—a school
which comprises a number of men whose contribu-
tions to modern art are highly interesting. His
wrork is characterised by great sincerity and con-
scientiousness ; it never
“ shouts,” it is even at times
so lacking in elements
which constitute a super-
ficial and immediate at-
tractiveness to the eye that
it is easy, in an exhibition,
cursorily to overlook his
portraits and to pass them
by without doing justice to
the qualities of firm and
incisive draughtsmanship,
of restrained colour and
admirable technique, which
a closer inspection will
reveal. The artist comes
of a Lancashire family, and
was born in 1880. His
career up to August last
might be summed up,
somewhat in the curt
manner of Professor
Higgins in Shaw’s “Pyg-
malion,” as Harrow, Trinity
College, Cambridge,
Dresden, Paris, St. John’s
Wood. But at the out-
break of war he was one
of the first to offer himself;
he enlisted in the 10th
Battalion of the Royal
Fusiliers, and after a few
months in the ranks was
gazetted 2nd Lieutenant
170
in the same battalion. May good luck attend
him.
Exigencies of the portrait-painter’s art would seem
to demand, in the successful practitioner, either the
development of a style and technique which allows
of a gradual working up of the canvas, patchwork-
wise, in such a way as to allow alterations and
additions in detail to be effected without loss of
harmony and cohesion in the whole, or else a
rapidity and dexterity of brush-work which enables
the results of the artist’s analysis of his sitter to be
synthetised on the canvas almost at one sitting.
Conditions vary from day to day; sittings may be,
of necessity, few and far between; such difficulties
must hamper the portrait-painter, and, while they
should not touch his art, must undoubtedly interfere
with his craft, if such a distinction may be per-
mitted. Oswald Birley’s style of work conforms to
the second manner referred to above, and his
method must be, in truth, a rapid one to account
“CHILDREN OF LEOPOLD HIRSCH, ESQ.”
BY OSWALD BIRLEY