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    Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage
    Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage
    Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage
    Ebook55 pages46 minutes

    Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage

    By Neil Miley

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    About this ebook

    In 1880 the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage was one of the rising starts of modern art and a fi ne portraitist. Henry Irving on the other hand was acknowledge as the fi nest Shakespearian actor in England. The two met at a dinner in the Beefsteak Room one evening and set out to create what would become one of the best unfi nished works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

    This story, written by a portraitist, brings out the inevitable tensions that exist between the aims of the artist and the sitter. The impact of Irvings need to maintain a public persona and Bastien-Lepages need to have a success in England are exposed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris AU
    Release dateJul 27, 2013
    ISBN9781483670027
    Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage
    Author

    Neil Miley

    Neil Miley is a practising artist, working in oil paint, graphite and clay sculpture. He brings his keen interest in the arts and history together in writing his novels. The novels are exhaustively researched to ensure an accurate period feel comes through to the reader. To be able to write authoritatively about the paintings in the novels Neil has visited France, England, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Austria, The Netherlands, Belgium, spending in total almost two years in Europe. Not to mention all the major collections of 19th-century paintings in Australia. Neil's hoped-for visit to Spain is unfortunately on indefinite hold due to COVID-19 and travel restriction from Australia. Since writing his first book in 2013 Neil has studied creative writing and expanded his knowledge of the period covered in his first book. The new Bastien-Lepage series is much more dialogue focussed than the early book that followed a narrative stream. Apart from novel writing, Neil is also involved in instructional design and delivery. At the end of the four novels in the Bastien-Lepage series, Neil will turn his attention to writing instructional books on Oil Painting.

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      Book preview

      Henry Irving and Bastien-Lepage - Neil Miley

      Copyright © 2013 by Neil Miley.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

      Front Cover:

      NPG 1560

      Sir Henry Irving

      by Jules Bastien-Lepage

      oil on canvas, 1880

      17in x 18in. (432mm x 457mm)

      © National Portrait Gallery, London

      Back Cover:

      515474

      Drawings from the Beefsteak Room

      by Jules Bastien-Lepage

      pencil on paper, 1880

      © National Trust/Andrew Fetherston

      Rev. date: 07/23/2013

      To order additional copies of this book, contact:

      Xlibris LLC

      1-800-455-039

      www.xlibris.com.au

      Orders@xlibris.com.au

      503761

      Contents

      Introduction

      A Dinner at the Beefsteak Room

      The First Sitting at Henry Irving’s

      The Second Sitting

      Completing the Face

      Pursuing Irving for more Sittings

      Delivery of the Painting

      The Life of the Painting

      Introduction

      The story of a portrait is inextricably tied not only to the personalities that create it, the sitter and the artist, but also to the circumstances of its creation and later life. This book is a part-fiction, part-non-fiction story of one of the most difficult births of a portrait.

      This portrait was created by two of the strongest artistic minds of the late ninteenth century: one an actor speaking only English, the other a painter speaking only French. Despite the apparent desire of both to produce an important work, the painting would never be finished; however, the work would eventually take its place in the National Portrait Gallery in London after being in private hands for thirty years.

      I want to bring to life the story of the painting, the different aims of the artists, the importance of the painting to the careers of the two, and how, over a number of years, the completion of the painting became both more and less important.

      As a portrait painter, I find the personality of sitters and painters and the mix of reasons for decisions during the process of a painting to be immensely interesting. The later life of a painting is also important to me as proof of the real value of these complex handmade items that commemorate an individual. This study has enabled me to think from both sides of the creative process and better understand the nature of my own art.

      This portrait was chosen because of the vast number of documents written by or about the characters involved and now available in public collections. Bastien-Lepage left a scattered and random series of quotes in the minds of his associates that give if not direct evidence, then at least strong indicators of his approach. Bram Stoker left a memoir of Henry Irving that contains many details of events in Irving’s life. Ellen Terry, through a succession of interviews and memoirs, has given us valuable information on herself, Irving, Bastien-Lepage, Bram Stoker, and Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah Bernhardt, through interviews and her rather self-centred memoir, exposed details mainly of herself.

      In addition, I want to allow painters to consider the methods used by Jules Bastien-Lepage in producing his paintings. The liveliness of his small portraits and how he achieved such results is a question that has led me to travel halfway around the world on three separate occasions and to spend over thirty weeks away from home. Having now closely observed most of his small works and visually analysed his method, I have presented my findings, which are often assumptions, within the text of the book.

      Artists Svetlana Cameron, Marianne de Beuzeville, and Mark Sims helped in reviewing the

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