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Early Sculpture - Part 5: A Vision

After a gap covering the early war years there is evidence Katharine Maltwood was again at work. In 1916 a Memorial Tablet entitled A Vision was exhibited at the Arts and Crafts Society at Burlington House. A note in her diary indicates two versions of this piece were carved. The first, in plaster, was bought by a Mrs. Fleming of Pit House, Hampstead, for £100; a second was carved in alabaster for her mother. This version is now in the Maltwood collection.

M964.1.360, A Vision, by Katharine Maltwood, 1916.
M964.1.360
A Vision
by Katharine Maltwood, 1916

The plaster version of the work was exhibited at the London Salon in 1917 and Sir Claude Philips, in the Daily Telegraph, described it as follows:

The centre panel of the triptych is occupied by a relief sculpture symbolizing the release of the spirit from the trammels of Sin and Death and its absorbtion into the Eternal Harmony. On the one wing is embossed, in gold on a ground of blue, a quotation from St. Paul, on the other a quotation from Tagore ... She is equally at home in the difficult arts of high and low relief; the aspiring rhythm of her composition, starting from a basis of static, and changing as it moves upwards into one of dynamic intensity, is novel and expressive. Even the Italian Gothic framework of the Triptych, studiously simple as it is, proves close and sympathetic study of style and accuracy in detail.

While traditions in Western art influence the design, the use of a quotation from Rabindranath Tagore, a writer much quoted by her friend Gertrude Ingham, reflects her growing interest in Eastern philosophy.


 

 

All content on this page is copyright © 30 January, 2006
Rosemary Brown, the Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, and the University of Victoria

 
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