The End of the Story. William Lionel Wyllie (b. 1851). Exhibited at the 1884 Royal Academy, 7 Magazine of Art (1883-84): 312. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
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Commentary
Of Mr. W. L. Wyllie's two pictures in the Academy, the subject of our engraving is not only the more impressive, but must be reckoned among his best work. . . . The merits of Mr. Wyllie's transcripts of the lower Thames, its tugs and barges and other craft, are well known; the present work admirably contrasts with the scenes of animation and turmoil he has most loved to depict, though in graphic power, in breadth of execution, in imaginative force, it is in no sense inferior. A vast hulk — a gang of convicts labours hard by — looms large and gaunt in the wintry air; the extent of snow-covered ground with the rail-tracks dimly visible, the strange presence of a large flight of crows driven hither by stress of weather, the dreary aspect of what is usually a scene of bustle and many sounds, and the sense of silence which is so admirably suggested, greatly enhance the interest of the scene, the forlorn and pathetic aspect of the old hulk, so stricken and helpless and degraded. The extent of almost void foreground is of excellent effect in attaining this impression, and greatly aids the dignity and power of the composition; there is nothing to distract the eye from contemplation of the central object of interest, and the story is told with vivid and eloquent force and excellent sincerity and directness. The scheme of colour, with its limited range, admirably expresses the melancholy sentiment and thoroughly harmonises with the sombre and funereal aspect of a subject which naturally suggests reproduction in black and white. It forms a felicitous pendant to Mr. Wyllie's Funeral March of a Hero at the Institute, to which it is a kind of epilogue, the final episode in a varied and mighty career.
References
“Current Art.—III.” Magazine of Art 7 (December 1883-November 1884): 397-401. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of Toronto Library. Web. 1 January 2015.
Created 1 January 2015