‘Like Hamlet I lack ambition and its push,’ he wrote. Yet it was not ambition he lacked: it was (like Hamlet) advancement. He insisted that he never struggled, but was pushed slowly up by the force of his ability. ‘It is not possible to escape from the inexorable obligation to succeed on your own merits,’ he confessed. He did not cross the Irish Sea for love of the English. ‘Emigration was practically compulsory,’ he told St John Ervine.
Agnes died of phthisis on 27 March. Between the two opportunities offered by her death and that of the book-keeper, George had never hesitated. Looking back on his twenty years in Ireland he summed up: ‘My home in Dublin was a torture and my school was a prison and I had to go through a treadmill of an office.’
He packed a carpet bag, boarded the North Wall boat and arrived in London. It was a fine spring day and he solemnly drove in a ‘growler’ from Euston to Victoria Grove. Shortly afterwards he travelled down to Ventnor on the Isle of Wight following Agnes’s funeral there. The family selected a headstone and an epitaph to be cut on it: ‘TO BE WITH CHRIST WHICH IS FAR BETTER’ – from a passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians where Paul compares the folly of living with the wisdom of dying. Nearly sixty years later Shaw was to write to Margaret Mackail, exposing what he felt about his own childhood: ‘as the world is not at present fit for children to live in why not give the little invalids a gorgeous party, and when they have eaten and danced themselves to sleep, turn on the gas and let them all wake up in heaven?’
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APPENDICES
Appendix One
DESECRATION OF SAINT PAUL’S
To the Art-Students of London
Since the so-called decorations of Saint Paul’s have been encroaching actually on the substructure of the mighty Dome itself, a great feeling of indignation has arisen. The atrocities of the design, the meanness of the patterns, the crudity of the colour, and the vulgarity of the whole is too evident to those who have inspected the results of Sir William Richmond’s scheme of decoration. Even good decoration would be out of place, superfluous, and utterly contrary to the expressed wish of Wren.
But what are we to say to the treatment in Romanesque Style of a Renaissance building, the Petroleum Stencilled Frieze (already condemned), the false accentuation of architectural features nullifying the Master’s intended effect, but, above all, the audacious demolishing of the stonework of the structure itself to provide a bed for these detestable Mosaics?
We feel assured none who have at heart the preservation of the Masterpiece can submit to see the glorious memory of its illustrious Author thus insulted, or can do less than their utmost to avert what can only be regarded as a National Calamity.
The initiators of this movement call upon the Students of the various Art Schools in London to send their representatives to join with them in determining the most effective means of making their protest.
A Meeting will be held to that end at Mr A. Rothenstein’s Rooms, No. 20 Fitzroy Street, Fitzroy Square, W., on Saturday, May 6. from 5.P.M. till ———
Secretary, MAX WEST,
Slade School, Gower Street.
Appendix Two
JOHN’S PICTURES AT THE NEW ENGLISH ART CLUB
As a non-member, John exhibited the following pictures at the NEAC:
Summer 1899
Miss Spencer Edwards (drawing)
Study (drawing)
Winter 1899
Study in Pen and Wash
Study of a Lady Seated (drawing)
Summer 1900
Portrait of William Morgan
Head of an Oriental
Winter 1900
Little Miss Pank
Winter 1902
The Signorina Estelle Dolores Cerutti
Merikli
After his election to membership, he exhibited:
Summer 1903
A Girl’s Head
Haute-Loire
Hark, the Lark
The Wood Folk
A Wild Girl
Study of a Young Girl (drawing)
Winter 1903
Professor John MacDonald Mackay
Portrait of a Man
Head of John Sampson, Esq. (drawing)
Study of a Girl’s Head (drawing)
Head of William Rothenstein, Esq. (drawing)
Study of a Girl (drawing)
Summer 1904
The Daughter of Ypocras
Dawn
Joconda
Girl’s Head (drawing)
Head of William Orpen (drawing)
Head of Girl (drawing)
Winter 1904
Ardor
Carlotta
Dorelia
A Portrait of an Old Man
Study of a Girl (drawing)
Goton (drawing)
Summer 1905
Professor J. M. Mackay
Carlotta
The White Feather
Fantasie
Study of a Girl’s Head (drawing)
John Sampson, Esq., Head (drawing)
Head of Girl, Sanguine (drawing)
Winter 1905
Mother and Child
Flora
Bohemians
Study (drawing)
Cupid and Nymphs (drawing)
Summer 1906
A Man’s Head (drawing)
A Girl’s Head (drawing)
Sir John Brunner
E. K. Muspratt Esq., Vice-President of the University of Liverpool
The Meeting in the Lane
Van Dwellers
Winter 1906
The Sea-Shore (drawing)
Study for a Portrait (drawing)
The Crab (drawing)
A Girl on the Moor
The Camp
In the Tent
Summer 1907
Study of a Girl (drawing)
Study of a Girl (drawing)
Portrait (drawing)
Study for a Portrait (drawing)
Study of a Head (drawing)
Study of a Head (drawing)
Winter 1907
The River-Side (drawing)
Mother and Child (drawing)
Charles McEvoy (drawing)
Nymph (drawing)
The Nixie (drawing)
The Old Girls of Kinbara
Summer 1908
Three Little Things (drawing)
Study (drawing)
Study (drawing)
A Portrait (drawing)
The Infant Pyramus
Olilai
Summer 1909
The Way Down to the Sea
Portrait of William Nicholson
Eight Drawings (including four studies in colour; two pencil studies; one nude study)
Winter 1909
The Girl on the Cliff
The Man from New York (John Quinn)
The Camp (drawing)
Head of a Girl (drawing)
Wandering Sinnte (drawing)
Winter 1911
Dr Kuno Meyer
The Rt Hon. Harold Chaloner Dowdall, Lord Mayor of Liverpool 1909
Forza e Amore
Winter 1912
Calderari: Gypsies of the Caucasus
The Mumpers
Summer 1913
The World
Winter 1913
Cartoon: The Flute of Pan
Robin
Six Drawings (three nude studies; Study for a Portrait; A Girl’s Head; Head of an Architect)
Summer 1915
George Bernard Shaw, Esq.
Galway Group
Provençal Composition (drawing)
Galway Shawls (drawing)
Nude Sketch (drawing)
Group of Women (drawing)
Family Group (drawing)
Fisher Folk (drawing)
Nude (drawing)
Portrait (drawing)
Summer 1916
The Laughing Artilleryman
Fresh Herrings
Mr H. A. Barker, ‘The Bone-setter’
The Girl by the Lake
G.B.S.
Five Drawings (three studies for a panel; two studies for a bronze)
Winter 1916
Admiral Lord Fisher of Kilverston
Summer 1918
A Dancer
Winter 1920
Iris Tree
Portrait of Marquise Salamanca
A Girl’s Head (drawing)
L’Argentina
Summer 1920
Sketch for a Picture (drawing)
Nude (drawing)
Composition (drawing)
Nude Study (drawing)
Winter 1921
The Galway Women
Summer 1921
Cartoon for Decoration (fragment)
Winter 1923
Portrait of Two Boys
Portrait of the Artist’s Son, David
Summer 1924
Roy Campbell
1925 Retrospective Exhibition
Merikli; Ardor; Woman and Boy on Shore; Professor J. M. Mackay; Ambrose McEvoy (all oil); Fisher Girls; Ida Nettleship; Wandering Sinnte; Gwen John; Girls at the Well; Head of a Girl; Two Girls (drawings)
Winter 1931
Magnolia
Winter 1933
Amaryllis
1935 (Summer) 50th Anniversary Exhibition
Head of a Girl
Portrait of Professor Oliver Elton
Auriculas and Geraniums
Rhododendrons
Appendix Three
THE CHELSEA ART SCHOOL
ROSSETTI STUDIOS
FLOOD STREET, CHELSEA EMBANKMENT
PRINCIPALS:
AUGUSTUS JOHN
WILLIAM ORPEN
YEAR 1904
FIRST TERM: MONDAY, JANUARY 11TH TO FRIDAY, MARCH 25TH.
SECOND TERM: MONDAY, APRIL 11TH TO FRIDAY, JUNE 24TH.
THIRD TERM: MONDAY, OCTOBER 3RD TO FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18TH.
THE STUDIOS SEPARATE TO EACH SEX WILL BE OPEN ON WEEK DAYS (SATURDAYS EXCEPTED) FROM 10 TO 5. AND MODELS WILL BE POSED DAILY. A LADY SUPERINTENDENT WILL BE PRESENT. SEATS AND EASELS WILL BE FOUND, BUT SUCH OTHER MATERIALS AND APPLIANCES AS MAY BE NECESSARY MUST BE PROVIDED BY THE STUDENTS.
FEES
FOR FIVE DAYS PER WEEK. SEVEN GUINEAS PER TERM, OR NINETEEN GUINEAS PER YEAR.
FOR THREE DAYS PER WEEK. FOUR GUINEAS PER TERM, OR ELEVEN GUINEAS PER YEAR.
ALL FEES MUST BE PAID IN ADVANCE. CHEQUES SHOULD BE DRAWN IN FAVOR OF THE SECRETARY AND CROSSED.
COMMUNICATIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO THE SECRETARY,
J. KNEWSTUB
18 FITZROY STREET, W.
IT IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD THAT MR JOHN AND MR ORPEN WILL FIND THEIR PART IN STIMULATING, BY ADVICE AND SUGGESTION, THE MOST PERSONAL ARTISTIC AIMS, AND THEY ARE BOLD TO HOPE THAT BY SYSTEMATIC DISCOURAGEMENT OF THE CHEAP AND MERETRICIOUS AND HEARTY PROMOTION OF THE MOST REAL AND SINGLE-MINDED VIEW OF LIFE, NATURE AND ART, THEIR EFFORTS WILL NOT TEND OTHERWISE THAN TO THE BEST PROGRESS OF THEIR STUDENTS IN ART, IN NATURE AND IN LIFE
MR AUG. E. JOHN and MR WILLIAM ORPEN desire to bring to your notice the ART COURSES to which they propose to give their assistance during the forthcoming year.
The CLASSES will consist of Drawing and Painting from Life (figure, portrait, and costume), Painting from Still Life, Figure Composition, Landscape and Decorative Painting, together with the usual Elementary Subjects where required.
The Studios will be situated in Chelsea; classes will be held for ladies and gentlemen, and every arrangement will be made to meet the convenience of individual students. A Lady Superintendent will be present daily.
The Spring Term of Session 1904 commences on the 11th January, and intending students should give prompt notification as the numbers are strictly limited, and no application can be considered later than the 31st December.
The Fees are moderate, and particulars and all other information can be obtained by writing to
THE SECRETARY,
18 Fitzroy Street,
London, W.
Appendix Four
To Iris [Tree], A parody of Arthur Symons
To her foul breathing maw I hold
The guttering candle of my lust,
That smoketh like burnt offerings
Upon the altars of that old
Intoxicate goddess of the bust,
Multiple and indeterminate,
The fume whereof waxes and wanes
As spew upon the floor of Hell,
That bubbles with the heat of it;
Red lips that smack of carrion
And the faint penetrating smell
That comes of eating onions
That grow beside the lake of Sin;
And eager cloven tongue that laps
The froth from off the jaws of Shame;
(Ah God, ah God, the Joy thereof!)
Beneath the fulsome beaded paps,
Her devastated belly quakes
With the unmentionable aches
And agonies without a name,
As used to ravage and lay waste,
The carcase of Lucrezia,
When she lay panting with the Pope,
And thro’ her burning violet veins,
The corpuscles of passion chased
The Molecules of virtue out;
Her heavy eyes quite glazed with Dope
And fume of the abominable wine,
That sinners serve to sinners, shine
With the extraordinary desire for trout
Caught by lost souls in Acheron;
The issue of her riven loins,
As evil monsters pullulate
About the shadow of her groin’s
Unholy sanctuary; ululate
Like Hell’s spawn unredeemable,
Brought forth to torment, damnably
And writhe and twist and turn again.
SIMPLE SYMON
Appendix Five
‘AUGUSTUS JOHN’
Sung by MRS GRUNDY and the JOHN BEAUTY CHORUS
Music by H. FRASER-SIMSON
Words by HARRY GRAHAM
Some people will squander
Their savings away
On paintings by Rankin or Steer;
For Brangwyn or Conder
Huge sums they w ill pay,
And they buy all the Prydes that appear!
But if you’d be smart,
As patrons of Art,
It’s almost a sine qua non
To prove your discretion
By gaining possession
Of works by the wonderful John!
Augustus John!
Refrain John! John!
How he’s got on!
He owes it, he knows it, to me!
Brass earrings I wear,
And I don’t do my hair,
And my feet are as bare as can be;
When I walk down the street,
All the people I meet
They stare at the things I have on!
When Battersea-Parking
Augustus John Page 95