An artist's mission, wrote Frank Brangwyn in 1934, 'is to decorate life'. More than any other artist of his generation, Brangwyn, who died in 1956, practised what he preached. 'He must be able to turn his hand to everything... to make pots and pans, doors and walls, monuments or cathedrals, carve, paint and do everything asked of him,' he suggested and, in his own case, he did exactly that.
Brangwyn was prolific. He applied his talents to an extraordinary range of media, including ceramics for Royal Doulton and stained glass; he received commissions for book illustrations and, during the First World War, propaganda posters; he designed furniture, even complete interior schemes; and, when smoke pollution threatened his tempera murals based on the life of St Aidan for a church in Leeds, Brangwyn reworked his original designs in vitreous mosaic. Most of all, he painted. One estimate suggests he produced more than 12,000 works in a career that began at the age of 17, when, in 1884, his first painting was accepted for the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy.
In his lifetime, Brangwyn's reputation matched his colossal output. In 1910, Walter Shaw Sparrow saw the series of mural panels the artist had delivered to the Skinners' Company in London. Images on the six large and four smaller panels depicting 'the stir and colour of the long-drawn Pageant of the Guild' revealed, Shaw Sparrow wrote, 'such a breadth of vision, such a lyrical swing in design, such a superb virility in handling, as will ever be remarkable in the history of British art'.
この記事は Country Life UK の August 10, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の August 10, 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds