DOI Artikel:
Wall tablets and memorials by British sculptors
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0198
Wall Tablets and Memorials
MEMORIAL, IN SALISBURY CATHEDRAL, TO THE
MEMORY OF MRS. MOBERLY, WIFE OF BISHOP
MOBF.RLY. BY E. M. .ROPE
the execution and beauty of technical treatment to
ensure the right relation between the matter and
the manner of the memorial. Any theatrical touch
or any hint of coarseness would, obviously, be
discordant in such a production.
It must be remembered, as well, that in the
great majority of cases these small monuments
are set up in memory of the dead, and that the
places assigned to them are generally in eccle-
siastical buildings. Therefore they must possess
a sufficient note of reverence, and they must keep
sedulously aloof from even the least tendency to
become flippant or superficial. Solemnity is
essential to them and the dignity which suggests
that the artist has realised the atmosphere of the
place in which his work is to be shown. What he
feels, it is in his power to make other people feel,
and it is by the character and quality of his art
that the depth of his feeling can be plumbed. If
the spirit in which -he approaches his work is
irreverent, if he does what he has to do per-
functorily and without sincere conviction, if he is
careless in his effort to keep the character and
meaning of his whole performance consistently
serious, it is not to be expected that any one else
will take him seriously. His failure to strike the
right note will suggest to the people who see what
192
he has done that he had a cynical disbelief in the
virtues of the person he was called upon to com-
memorate, and that this cynicism induced an
artistic levity which he was unable to suppress.
Again, for technical reasons, it is important that
the wall tablet, which has necessarily to be asso-
ciated with architecture, should have an archi-
tectural character of its own. The pictorial and
realistic type of sculpture—the type that is per-
missible enough when the subject is seductive and
the idea embodied in it is fantastic or fanciful—is
out of place on a monument and is ill-suited for a
building intended for devotional purposes. Where
the architectural details of the surroundings are
severe, the monument must itself have an appro-
priate degree of severity, and its decorative quality
must be sober and restrained.
DESIGN FOR A MEMORIAL TO A SOLDIER KILLED IN
BATTLE. BY A. BERTRAM PEGRAM
MEMORIAL, IN SALISBURY CATHEDRAL, TO THE
MEMORY OF MRS. MOBERLY, WIFE OF BISHOP
MOBF.RLY. BY E. M. .ROPE
the execution and beauty of technical treatment to
ensure the right relation between the matter and
the manner of the memorial. Any theatrical touch
or any hint of coarseness would, obviously, be
discordant in such a production.
It must be remembered, as well, that in the
great majority of cases these small monuments
are set up in memory of the dead, and that the
places assigned to them are generally in eccle-
siastical buildings. Therefore they must possess
a sufficient note of reverence, and they must keep
sedulously aloof from even the least tendency to
become flippant or superficial. Solemnity is
essential to them and the dignity which suggests
that the artist has realised the atmosphere of the
place in which his work is to be shown. What he
feels, it is in his power to make other people feel,
and it is by the character and quality of his art
that the depth of his feeling can be plumbed. If
the spirit in which -he approaches his work is
irreverent, if he does what he has to do per-
functorily and without sincere conviction, if he is
careless in his effort to keep the character and
meaning of his whole performance consistently
serious, it is not to be expected that any one else
will take him seriously. His failure to strike the
right note will suggest to the people who see what
192
he has done that he had a cynical disbelief in the
virtues of the person he was called upon to com-
memorate, and that this cynicism induced an
artistic levity which he was unable to suppress.
Again, for technical reasons, it is important that
the wall tablet, which has necessarily to be asso-
ciated with architecture, should have an archi-
tectural character of its own. The pictorial and
realistic type of sculpture—the type that is per-
missible enough when the subject is seductive and
the idea embodied in it is fantastic or fanciful—is
out of place on a monument and is ill-suited for a
building intended for devotional purposes. Where
the architectural details of the surroundings are
severe, the monument must itself have an appro-
priate degree of severity, and its decorative quality
must be sober and restrained.
DESIGN FOR A MEMORIAL TO A SOLDIER KILLED IN
BATTLE. BY A. BERTRAM PEGRAM