Identifier: frankbrangwynhis00spar (find matches)
Title: Frank Brangwyn and his work. 1911
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Sparrow, Walter Shaw, 1862-
Subjects: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir, 1867-1956
Publisher: Boston : Dana Estes
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
are not.Nature is said to create hideous women in a good manyparts of the world, yet the women there are as happyas elsewhere, and their men - folk are of Dr. Johnsonsopinion—feeling miserable when single and doubtfulwhen married. After all, beauty is a custom of the eyes,and it is infinitely various. Here, for example, is the photograph of a decorativepanel that Brangwyn painted for LArt Nouveau inParis, now about sixteen years ago. In it I see twoyoung girls from some land of the sun ; they are in theact of dancing along a glade of tall, slender trees, ariver shimmering behind them, while a dusky little impof a lad—he is naked to the waist like the dancers—blows into a pipe with desperate good will, as if tippinghad reached that country without making it a sadderplace. One girl is a brunette, the other is darkly fair;they laugh marvellously and dance away from fatigue,scornful of everything except their present mirth and132 o o ww a § O h if QPi<OM< I i ^
Text Appearing After Image:
4 Decorative T^ainting enjoyment. Nothing in this wide world would turn theminto suffragettes. Yet the House of Commons would notreceive them in the Ladies Gallery. There would becomplaints about their beauty; and the beauty, I admit,is not British. Still, by dint of looking at this photo-graph I have become a native of their sunny land, andI find them pretty, and gracious, and winsome. I wouldvote for them in a beauty show of modern decorativepainting. Brangwyn did a great deal of work for the fine oldturreted house in the Rue de Provence, helping Mr. Bingto transform it into LArt Nouveau—a sort of palace formodern ideas. Several artists had a part in this work,M. Besnard decorating a room in the turret, and Brangwyndesigning the facade (he worked in conjunction with M.Louis Bonnier, architect), painting in fresco on canvastwo large panels to flank the entrance (I have describedone), and brushing off a frieze more than sixty yardslong for the street elevation. A part of the frieze

Note About Images