Truly the Light Is Sweet.. - John Byam Liston Shaw

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale relaxes with Byam Shaw around 1911.

John Byam Shaw - Amor Mundi

Christina Rossetti

“O where are you going with your love-locks flowing,
On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”
“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.”

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to doat on, her swift feet seemed to float on
The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

“Oh, what is that in heaven where grey cloud-flakes are seven,
Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?”
“Oh, that’s a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.”

“Oh, what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
Their scent comes rich and sickly?”—”A scaled and hooded worm.”
“Oh, what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?”
“Oh, that’s a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.”

“Turn again, O my sweetest,—turn again, false and fleetest:
This beaten way thou beatest I fear is hell’s own track.”
“Nay, too steep for hill mounting; nay, too late for cost counting:
This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”



[illus to the poem by Frederick Sandys]

John Byam Shaw

[Frederick Hollyer, photograph of artist, Byam Liston Shaw, 1894]

John Byam Liston Shaw (November 13, 1872 – January 26, 1919), commonly known as Byam Shaw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byam_Shaw



[The Caged Bird]

1907

Oil on panel

37 x 28 inches, 94 x 71 centimetres

The model for the painting was Maud Tindal Atkinson, an artist pupil who exhibited at the Royal Academy 1907, from whom he painted a life size watercolour which hung at the Royal Academy in 1906.

The symbolism of the release of a caged bird in Seventeenth-Century Dutch painting signified the loss of virginity of the owner. As Maud was his favourite pupil, it would seem apparent that this hidden meaning was not lost on the artist.

Revitalization of Pre-Raphaelitism in The Caged Bird
http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/shaw/paintings/marecki11.html

John Byam Shaw - Beauty and the Beast

Signed with monogram; pen and ink, 11½ × 8½ ins

Byam Shaw was one of the best of the second generation Pre-Raphaelites. He was a
painter, decorator, and a prolific illustrator. This drawing is typical of his highly
decorative style. The only book about Shaw is by R.V. Cole, The Art and Life of Byam
Shaw 1932.

John Byam Shaw - The Embrace

Signed with monogram; watercolour, 4¾ × 3½ ins

Rossetti was an early influence on Byam Shaw (as he is always known). He was an
extremely diverse and talented artist, muralist, stained glass designer, illustrator and tapestry designer. His most famous picture is probably The Boer War (1901;
Birmingham) although other masterpieces include Love the Conqueror (1899; private
collection) and The Queen of Hearts (1896; Pre-Raphaelite Inc.) Byam Shaw set up his
own art school with his friend Rex Vicat Cole that is still in existence in London today.

John Byam Shaw - "Truly the Light is Sweet"

1901

the verse is from Ecclesiastes XI v 7/8

oil on panel

Shaw did 30 "Sermons in Stone and Good in Everything" pictures exhibited in 1902

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byam_Shaw

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/speel/paint/shaw.htm

John Byam Shaw - The Boer War

1901

oil on canvas

Birmingham City Art Gallery

Shaw was influenced by the Pre Raphaelites long after its main impulse had almost died away. This painting was exhibited at the RA with lines from Christine Rossetti

Last Summer green things were greener
Brambles fewer, the blue sky bluer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byam_Shaw