Studio: international art (72.1918)

The Recent hVork of Gilbert Bayes

in the branching above as if to suggest the
moral gravity of the book supported. The
sources of light are made important, every
turn of the structure is properly emphasized,
and the decoration is relevant not only to the
design but in symbolical meaning. The symbol-
ism, moreover, has just enough reference to the
manner of death of the persons commemorated.

This work, too, bears on the important question
of colour in sculpture. It is not merely that
Mr. Bayes likes working in coloured materials,
but that his frequent use of them illustrates
his unusually keen sense of the relationship
between art and the conditions of life. To put
it shortly, this is not a white-marble climate.
Nor is this a new discovery.

Putting on one side the
doubtful origin of a classi-
cal tradition that the Greeks
never intended, since it
seems pretty evident that
Greek marbles were highly
coloured, the white-marble
statue is a modern heresy
in England. It has no
sanction in the past. The
British school of sculpture
is a school of native stone,
bronze, lead, and coloured
and gilded wood and plaster.

So that in his use of coloured
materials Mr. Bayes is as
traditional as he is mindful
of a climate in which every
touch of colour is welcome.

Not more than passing
reference can be made to
the work of Mr. Bayes on
the colossal scale; to his
Maharajah of Bickaneer and
the equestrian figures of
War and Peace for the New
South Wales Art Gallery;
because reduced illustra-
tions do not really give
an opportunity for judging
work in which scale is a
factor. But the pictures
are enough to show that
Mr. Bayes can rise to the
conditions ; can enlarge the
style as well as the size of
his work, and amplify his
112

contours to meet the effect of outdoor illumina-
tion in a clear climate.

When all the qualities of his work are con-
sidered—his imagination and taste as a designer,
and his tact and skill as a craftsman—one
comes back to his unusually keen sense of
artistic organization, of the nice adaptation of
means to end, of the place of the artist in the
community in respect of both material and
social conditions. In view of the future this
is extremely important. Imagination is a gift,
and skill comes with practice ; it is in their
application to the needs and conditions of
contemporary life that the artist can “ pull
his weight ” in the work of reconstruction.

‘ THE WEALTH

OF THE EARTH ” (STATUETTE GROUP IN BRONZE)
BY GILBERT BAYES