ART OF TINWORTH

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 217, 11 June 1935, Page 9

ART OF TINWORTH

Something of the Man and

His Work

VALUABLE TERRA COTTA

Now that the public, and particularly the artistic section, has had an opportunity of seeing at least a splendid reproduction of the George Tinworth terra-cotta piece, "Moses became tho son of Pharaoh’s Daughter," presented to the National Art Galler.v by the Doulton Company through the agency of Mr. John Shorter, of Sydney, it may be interested in what Mr. Edmund Gosse had to say of this artist away back in the early 80*s. There is something almost ethereal in the lightness and delicacy of the figure modelling in this marvellous piece, which should serve as an inspiration to those students who are learning something of this form of art in the Wellington Technical College a few yards from where the Tinworth now lies.

The one strong characteristic of the work of Tinworth, brought up in poverty and sordidness in London, trained to the heavy-handed work of a wheelwright, and yet destined to fashion with almost fairy hands shapes of deathless beauty, is that It is nearly always of a religious nature. Mr. Gosse said: “Tinworth resembles the best Puritan writers of the seventeenth century. We should never have expected to find in English sculpture a return to the spirit which animated Bunyan and Quarles, but we ' .nnot fail to recognise that spirit in these Biblical terra-cottas.” Some are inclined to regret that Tinworth selected terra-cotta, the monotone of which does not lend itself to the expression of beauty in colour. After all, terra-cotta is only potter’s clay, with an admixture of silica, shaped and then baked. Tones are introduced by the admixture of iron ochre, brownstone, or umbra, and those who examine the.Tinworth piece now in Wellington will note the lighter shade of clay used in the dresses of the women of the court, compared with the general tone of the medium. But while this liberty has been taken with the dresses, the faces of the women are tho same tone as tho back wall, a dull red-brown. One difficulty in terra-cotta work is the risk of failure in the baking process. The modeller may execute an exquisite form, or beautiful face, and place it in his kiln only to find that something or other has warped, twisted, or cracked it. So the baking is all important.

Tinworth’s special genius, as has been mentioned, expressed itself in religious subjects. Gosse said: “That mixture of Puritan asceticism with Puritan humour makes Mr. Tinworth singularly well fitted to illustrate the Bible. He is not trammelled in the least by what is conventionally called ‘a reverential spirit; his vision is not marred nor disturbed by too much antiquarianisin; he sees things clearly by the light of London life, and he is not distressed in the least by his limitations. His soldiers, whether Canaanite or Israelite, Philistine or Babylonian, are dressed in the same Roman costume, a coat of mail, with greaves, a helmet and a cloak; his sages and divines wear flowing robes, with a girdle, a species of costume that tends too much to the hour-glass shape; there is very little attempt at. variety here, and no affectation of learning. The artist accepts these two or three types of dross that he may not be troubled witli the disturbing requirements of costume. In this he is not much more at liberty from convention that the terrible academic painters of sacred subjects of thirty years ago. But with these coats of mail and these girdled robes lie models human bodies of extraordinary vigour and variety, posed in attitudes which are plainly taken from life. The vivacity of Mr. Tinworth varuss greatly in that respect. There are some of the panels in which the figures are scarcely in action at all. and in which we are conscious of a fatiguing monotony. But where he is truly successful, his vigour is extraordinary.'' Sincerity is the beginning of all greatness. Gosse stresses this when he wrote of Tjnworth: “There has been no more sincere or unaffected development of religions art in our time. Indeed it may very well lie doubted if there has l>een any so sincere; for the highly conscious temper of the modern races does not lead them to expression of this .simple sort. In one of Mr. Tinworth’s early panels we see Christ seated under a fig tree surrounded by learned and aged doctors, and holding a little boy of three or four years of age between his knees, while saying those words of exhortation to humility which we all know so well and practise so little Th? art of Mr. Tinworth has close analogies with this little child of the parable, and in its simplicity and quaint sincerity it can teach many a lesson to the academic fathers of religious sculpture.'*