A NOTABLE PICTURE.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 May 1923, Page 1

A NOTABLE PICTURE.

In reference to the cable appearing m yesterday’s issue from London, it was announced recently that Sir William Orpen, If.A., had completed a picture into winch he had painted thoughts of tlie unknown dead who did not return front the Great War. In the Hall of Peace at Versailles, Sir William Orpen hud set the coffin of a British Tommy. Through a distant doorway there was a vista of the Hal! of War, then of the intermediate Hall of Mirrors, where peace was signed, and so to the Hall of Peace. Two ethereal ised figures of British lighting men kept watch over the quiet coffin. These the artist,, who learnt to know the British soldier so well during the long years of war described as “ghosts.’ Living Cherubs held a wreath over the coffin and its ghostly attendants. A London cable message of -May 7th. printed in the Australian papers, said: —Bir William Orpen’s picture “An T'uknowit British Soldier” is the most discussed work at the Royal Academy exhibition. lie was asked to paint three pictures of tlu* Peace Conference for the Imperial War Museum. IK finished two, and, then spout nine months painting a group of -ID statesmen and others assembled in the gloat hall at Versailles. “But somehow,” Sir William Orpen says. “I could not go oil It all seams so far from reality as I saw it at tine front. 1 kept thinking of the soldiers who remain in Franco for ever. Ho I rubbed out the statesmen and other leaders who are said to have won the war, and painted instead the coffin of tbe unknown soldier. guarded bv two dead comrades.” Critics complain that the nohility ol the theme has escaped Sir William Orpeu. The picture, they contend, is llirnnnt. It shows a colfm at \ ersaillos shi'' nded with the Union •Tack, and |i',' : d- d bv tv.o cor):--- a-like soldiers, nude except for steel bats and their loots Tv n C'noiJ-bke figures. with laurel’s, hover uhw> the coffin, -.Hide ii.f, distance is the Cress of C nlvary. cijs rr fro-ii llio -rT om of the TlMl of