Captain Cook at Whitby.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1629, 21 December 1912, Page 14

Captain Cook at Whitby.

111! robur ot iww triplex Circa pwitiio oral, qui fruffllem trucl Conunlwt pulu|(o ruletn i'riinuu ... .

For tho J/m<lon to visit tbo now rind noblo orcaliou of English sculpture with which Mr. Gorvaoo Uccktlt's Konoronity and Mr. John Tweed')) geniun have «n----riohed tho liltlo town of Whitby involve tomothing of (i pilgrimago; which is as it should Ijo. Time and trouble taken lifllp to iv ccrlain preparation and insulation of tho mind, which is necessary if wo would contemplate 11 great work of art froo from tho trivial preoccupations of ovcryduy lil'o, Tho hou«! whero I was hinvine lay Homo thirty mill's itcroai the Jiipli moors, and our journey wan through dales and vivllcvH, beside winding rivers, by littlo Yorkshire villages nestling under hillsides, with a chattering rush up tho cold breast of tho moors, and a long flight over tho purple of tho hoather on that grvnt tableland from which one descends, by a magnificent acoess, to Whitby and tho sea. Tho wind -beat hard upon us, pure and cold as tho 6ca itself; find it was thus, enclosed as it were botwoen. two long and silent hours of deep breathing of the air and rich viewing of the world to which ho was native, that the vision of Captain Cook onrae to me, tho vision of a man como back to abide, in tho immortality .of art, in the placo from which ho had first set out to explore the world. The.statue, a bronze figure between seven and eight feet -in height, stands on tho cliff on the north side of the harbour. Before I looked at it I looked down and about me-*on tho vrrinJclcil floor of tho sea, on the moles, littered with cranes and scaffolding, which shelter tho harbour mouth, on. tho Berried rows of littlo red houses that form the old town, on tho ruined abbey crowning tho opposite height. Then, and.not until then. I looked up at,tho figure. 110 is standing, as Thau expected, looking down on the'harbour ana across it to the sea road that leads to the south and the world. The first impression received is one of extreme simplicity. There are no accessories;, just the figure of a man. He is not pointing or leaning or posing or gesticulating, or engaged in any form of doinp —merely in.being. He stands-square, with foet planted firmly, and sufficiently apart, bare-headed,, and dreesed- ip the plain ooat, breeches, •■ hose and bucklod shoes of tho time. The shoulders are set back and give the body a delightful balance and alertness of poiee; it is that of a man ready on tha instant for sure and decisive movement. The face is a wonderful combination of imaginative and recorded truth. The likeness is of course founded on the known portraits, but the artist h«a put into it his own conception of the character revealed' in Cook's life and achievements, Seldom do the eyes in a bronze statue express very much of anything; but by wonderful modelling of the snaess under the shaggy eyebrows the sculptor has given an impression of hawk-like keenness of vision 1 combined with a gonial and ..almost , humorous understanding. It is thus that ho looks down, on that harbour from. between whose two pier-heads his ship first went out to sea'; it is thus that he looks out to t.h'o clement that became mora familiar to him than tho town itself.

There is something haunting in the living stillness of the figure. You feel that . he'.has.'come back to Whitby, no jrhost or phantom, but a mortal who has put on immortality and o.lothed himself in the incorruptible vesture great deeds. The people of the place feel, it; a.citiszen, speaking of' the effect produced by the appearance of'the. figure against tin eky:lme to one .climbing, up .the slope from the town, said to mo, "You would think sonieoiis was there." He appears to bo watching and smiling, as'though he were glad to be back after all his Standing up there, among the high winds', between the. airs of (he brown moorland and'tße'isalt' ga!es''Qf ihe.Bea.; with ;thbi littlo' Rounds of'' "Whitby's daily life—the hanimerings, tho shoutings, the marketings of silver hoi-reds, and the rumblings of wheels over cobblo-sfcoues—rising up from the town, does he remember the swooning heat and stillness of some tropical shore, the glory of strange foliage, tho scream of strange birds in the forest, tho bursting explosion of surf on a coral reef? He seems toj for it is one of the attributes of a high and simple art like that of Tweed that he does not attempt to proclaim or define an arbitrary interpretation of the fact commemorated; but provides a medium which will ftive form and ideal significance' to the individual' impression. Thus every citizen of Whitby.may see in this monument of his great fellow-townsman a realisation of _ the things to which he most nobly aspires; a triumnhant answer to his puzzlings over the dark riddle that confronts us here; an assuranoethat the universe lies within the compass of a man's own soul, which neither Snaith noT Whitby, nor any escarpment of mere material rock, can cut off or imprison. Tho statue is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of Mr. Tweed's work yet in existence. It is interesting because of its unusual dimensions; it has all the dignity and emphasis of a larger statue, but its lesser height,, combined with the very perfect proportions of the pedestal, produces the illusion of life-size rpolity, and gives a sense of intimacy without loss of dignity which is uncommon. The front pannel of the stone pedestal bears the coat of arms; on the back is carved a presentment of Cook's ship, the Rerolntion; on one side aro the names of the donor and the artist, and on the other this inscription; —

'Tor the lasting memory of a great Yorkshire seaman this bronze has been cast and is : left in the keeping of Whitby the ■ birthplace of those good ships-that'bore him on his enterprises brought him to glory and left him at rest." Tt is a good thing, well done, and in the r p M' pi aw. —I'ilson Young, in the "Saturday Review."