BEAUTY HUB NOT CHANGES.

Shannon News, 30 September 1924, Page 3

BEAUTY HUB NOT CHANGES.

SIR WDjIJAM OKPEN’S views. Critics who imagine! that beauty has left us in these stressful days never grow weary of lamenting the disappearance of those, picturesque types of humanity whose canvas memorials cover the walls of countless art

museums. They suggest that a parade of women with bobbed or shingled hair, in company with their toothbrush moustached escorts would provide conclusive evidence' of a deplorable decline in artistic ideals. It is not easy to understand how sueh futile nonsense can gain currency. Instead of showing signs ,of decay our contemporaries are much superior in looks to their ancestors. As all artists know (Sir William Orpen, R.A.i writes) - the human countenance changes but little with the passing of time, and all types are reproduced with startling fidelity from age to age. The distinctive difference between past and present, as a painter conceives it, is-that the race to-day possesses more character and provides much more welcome models than the picturesque horrors in paint we have inherited from the Victorian, Georgian and Jacobean periods. A Vandyke pointed beard or flowing military whiskers can add a touch of distinction to a face devoid of intelligent characteristics. Similarly, dolllike features, crowned with (ringlet curls under an enormous hat convey a suggestion of charm. Such models, however, are no longer sought as a source of inspiration, and have no consideration in art).. They persist only in the province of th e chocolate box, types for which seemingly there will always be admirers. Modern painters decline to continue, on the misleading lines of too many of the portraits of the past, which, altihough done in good faith, were without true regard to likeness. Our predecessors were much easier subjects for .portraiture, for they wished to be depicted as they looked, and not ‘ as they actually were in themselves.Nowadays, it is the delineation of character which every portrait painter attempts. "If he is lucky enough to secure commissions, he has no difficulty in finding ideal types of beauty in wonderful variety, and, what is equally important, character as expressed in the human face. Vivacious hliss 1924, with her short, wavy tressesT general -air of capability and self-reliance, has nothing concede to her ‘of “the 18th century. Our modern women are of sterner stuff than their forbears, and possess a rigour of mind which inspires an artist to transfer something at least) of their personalities to the dead square of canvas. To accomplish this he is necessarily forced to sacrifice the pjcturesqueness.

It is a quality in the painter's mind that sees what a man or woman Is rather than what he or .she looks. ' If you paint only what you see witlt the eye, you are i n danger of producing a soulless misrepresentation. Art is no longer governed by decorative falsehoods. Artists often select faces tha:t in earlier days would have, been classified as horrible and paint. thenA so that th&y. become beautiful, for character is fused into the design. To be true to their art they must paint' with th e mind, and pay more attention to the heart than to the external appearances—everyone, after all, knows hpw deceptive these may be. Modern women are more artistic in their fashions, and while shedding much of the merely picturesque, have gained strength of character which " makes their styles of beauty more entrancing.