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Girl with dogs
I just bought a picture. I had been looking for old frames and in a Sue Ryder charity shop in town, there were several with boring non-art contents which could be happily discarded in favour of one of my photographic prints. So I bought three. But one of them I bought for the print it contained despite the frame being a magnificent gilt ornate frame. It is a picture by Charles Burton Barber, a Victorian painter who was renowned for his animal paintings, especially of dogs. He was commissioned by Queen Victoria for several paintings and painted her with all her granchildren, the last painting before he died. This one is called ‘Girl with Dogs’ and was painted in 1893. It is utterly delightful, a small child holds two puppies wrapped in a shawl, another puppy at her feet and the mother watching her slightly concerned. Another pup, left outside and seen through an open doorway, howls, one of the girl's sock hangs wrinkled round her ankle. The attention to detail is wonderful, the dogs look real enough to stroke and pet, the puppies have an essential puppyhood captured by a master. Some think these and other paintings like it from that era are oversentimental, and scorn them as a result. But there's nothing wrong with sentimentality, it stems from a love of the subject. I find paintings like this far more satisfying than the skill-less daubs that so often pass for 'art' these days. The eye mostly slides over them like wallpaper, they say nothing, they are mere patterns. This painting though captures you, you can't help looking at every object (after having drunk your fill of cuddly puppies); the wallpaper, the furniture, patterns on the rug, the silver birch shining in the sun, the list goes on. It's only a print, but it was made about the time the painting was made, and probably by the artist, or an assistant. And it was so cheap that it was half the value of just the frame and will provide much pleasure in the future. We have another print from roughly the same era, by James Hayllar called The Thorn, a small child stands in a wheelbarrow patiently waiting while an old man [the gardener?] removes a thorn from her hand, a basket of roses waits on the ground. A moment in time caught by the painter. |
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/collections/girlwithdogs.asp
| http://en.easyart.com/art-prints/James-Hayllar/The-Thorn-97704.html
 
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
Fool on the Hill
A blog about the state of the world
www.oneworldnet.co.uk/blog/index.php
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May, 2012
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