"For Myles Had Grown A Man" by Elizabeth Adela Forbes, ARWS (1859-1912)

For Myles Had Grown A Man, / With a Man's Thoughts And Desires

Elizabeth Adela Forbes, ARWS (1859-1912)

Exhibited 1904

Charcoal drawing and watercolour

Source: Birch, facing p.84

This was an illustration for Forbes's fairy story, "King Arthur's Wood," for which she devised the use of this mixed medium. As for the subject matter, this too involved blending: Forbes was fond of bringing together the everyday rural present and the world of legend and chivalry. [Commentary continues below.]

Image acquisition, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee.

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Commentary by Mrs Lionel Birch

Mrs. Forbes had first evolved her mode of treating water-colour when working out her ideas for this book, and nothing could be more suited to noting down and translating into visual imagery the effect on the mind of remote and darkling legends of chivalry. Using for background the weirdly romantic scenery of the little wood, and the mournful suggestiveness of wild moorland, Elizabeth Forbes evoked a dream world of stalwart chivalry, of maidenly grace, of the sombre terror of evil lurking in sable mail, side by side with poetic aspects of everyday peasant life. The book was finally brought out in the Christmas season of 1904, the accurate reproduction of work of this kind having been a task of magnitude, which was consummately executed by Mr. Everard, of Bristol. [82-83]

Related Material

Forbes's painting, A Dream Princess

Bibliography

Birch, Mrs Lionel. Stanhope A. Forbes, ARA, and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, ARWS. London: Cassell, 1906. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Kahl/Austin Foundation. Web. 5 March 2021.

Created 5 March 2021