Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897-1917)

Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897-1917)
	William Orpen , 1917
	Oil on canvas
	91.4 x 76.2 cm
	Imperial War Museum

Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897–1917) is the title of a painting by William Orpen . The picture, painted in oil on canvas, has a height of 91.4 cm and a width of 76.2 cm. Orpen created the portrait of the British pilot Arthur Rhys-Davids in 1917 during the First World War in France, a few weeks before the sitter was killed in an aerial battle at the age of 20. The client was the Department of Information responsible for propaganda , a forerunner of the Ministry of Information . The painting now belongs to the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London .

Image description

William Orpen shows in the painting Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC. (1897–1917) the pilot Arthur Rhys-Davids seated half-length. The young man, dressed in a khaki-colored uniform of the Royal Flying Corps , appears against a background whose colors, changing between yellow and blue, sketch the sky. Rhys-Davids is sitting - the body is cropped from the lower and left edges of the picture - on an unknown piece of furniture. He is portrayed in a relaxed position, with his torso slightly tilted back, his right hand loosely on his thigh and his left hand in his trouser pocket. Despite a partly loose brushstroke - for example in the lower right corner - Orpen reproduced the uniform in great detail. Rhys-Davids wears a shirt with a tie, trousers, a buttoned jacket and an open coat over it. The right hand is in a leather glove, and on his head he wears an aviator's cap that covers both ears and is lined with fur . Details can be clearly seen, such as a buckle on the headgear, the shiny brass buttons on the jacket or the military badges on the chest. This is the winged Aircrew brevet ( pilot's badge ) and underneath the ribbon buckle with the received orders Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross , which can be found in the title of the painting as DSO and MC . Orpen paid particular attention to the elaboration of the face. In an almost photographic impression, he has captured the facial features in fine painting. The youthful physiognomy is characterized by an elongated nose, a narrow mouth with closed lips and a rather pointed chin. The red of the cheeks underlines the almost wrinkle-free skin. The wide-open, shiny blue eyes appear under dark eyebrows, which do not look at the viewer, but instead fixate on a point in the distance - possibly in the sky. The painting is signed, but not dated, “Orpen” lower right.

William Orpen as a martial artist with the Royal Flying Corps

Before the First World War, the Irishman William Orpen was a sought-after portrait artist and society painter. He joined the British Army in December 1915 , although the exact background is not known. Orpen was possibly looking for a spatial and intellectual distance from his private problems, which arose from his marriage and a simultaneous relationship with a lover; on the other hand, patriotic feelings may also have played a role. This is supported by the fact that his friend Hugh Lane was killed in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in May 1915 after the ship was sunk by a German submarine. Orpen began his military service in March 1916 as a second lieutenant without ever having received military training. He stayed in London in 1916, where he took over office work in the barracks and also painted a number of portraits, including that of Winston Churchill . In April 1917 Orpen went to France on behalf of the Department of Information, where he was employed as an official martial artist. He visited the Somme battlefields , painted trenches and soldiers' graves and created numerous portraits of members of the military.

In September 1917 Orpen came to Cassel in the North Department , where various staff quarters were located. He lived there for several months in the Hôtel Sauvage. Soldiers from the 56th Squadron from the nearby airfield in Estrée-Blanche were regular guests here, eating, drinking and singing songs on the piano in the restaurant. Although Orpen did not fly himself, he felt connected to the young pilots and played table tennis with them. He was commissioned by General Hugh Trenchard and Maurice Baring of the Intelligence Corps to portray two of the young pilots. For this, as were flying aces ( Flying aces ) had come to fame Arthur Percival Foley Rhys Davids (in the painting APF Rhys Davids ) and Reginald Theodore Carlos Hoidge (in the painting RTC Hoidge selected), both of whom had shot down a number of enemy planes in aerial combat. The transatlantic cooperation was also underlined with the 20-year-old Englishman Rhys-Davids and the 23-year-old Canadian Hoidge. At that time, both pilots flew biplanes - fighter planes of type SE5 that were in the front line only in June 1917th In the watercolor The Return of a Patrol , created around the same time, Orpen shows the two pilots Rhys-Davids and Hoidge with another Air Force member at the airfield with aircraft in the background. However, the modern aircraft cannot be seen in the two paintings. In these pictures, as in the portrait of The NCO Pilot, RFC (Flight Sergeant WG Bennett) , which was made around the same time, only the uniform is an indication of the war background of the pictures. The dogfight was captured by other artists, such as Louis Weirter in the painting An Incident on the Western Front . In the three pilot portraits of Rhys-Davids, Hoidge and Bennett, there is no heroic portrayal of the hero, but the men are shown in a quiet moment.

In his war memories, Orpen described the encounter with the Arthur Rhys-Davids depicted in the painting. He called him "a great youth" (a great boy) with "far-seeing, clear eye" (far-seeing, clear eye). On the airfield he watched the pilot landing the machine and described what happened afterwards: "Out he got, stuck his hands in his pockets, and laughed and talked about the flight with Hoidge ..." (When he came out, he was stuck hands in pockets, laughed and talked to Hoidge about the flight ...). But he also saw the other side of the young pilot who had finished his school days at Eton College a year earlier and actually wanted to study at Oxford . Rhys-Davids is characterized by Orpen with the words: "He hated fighting, hated flying, loved books and was terribly anxious for the war to be over" (He hated fighting, hated flying, loved books and was terribly worried about it Outcome of the war). It may be these impressions that Orpen wanted to translate into the painting. Although it was an official portrait commissioned by the British Army, he created a sensitive portrait devoid of pathos. The portrayed Arthur Rhys-Davids died a few weeks later on October 27, 1917 in an aerial battle.

William Orpen:
Lt. RTC Hoidge, MC
William Orpen:
The Return of a Patrol
William Orpen:
The NCO Pilot, RFC (Flight Sergeant WG Bennett)
Louis Weirter:
An Incident on the Western Front

literature

Arnold Bruce: Orpen: Mirror to an Age . Cape, London 1981, ISBN 0-224-01581-8 .
Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century . Joseph, London 1983, ISBN 0-7181-2314-X .
Robert Upstone: William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death . Imperial War Museum, London, 2005, ISBN 0-85667-596-2 .
William Orpen, Robert Upstone, Angela Weight: William Orpen, an onlooker in France, a critical edition of the artist's war memoirs . Paul Holberton, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-903470-67-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ The spelling of the title Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897-1917) is taken from the book Robert Upstone: William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death p. 142 published by the Imperial War Museum . Deviating from the spelling Lt APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC, 1917 in William Orpen, Robert Upstone, Angela Weight: William Orpen, an onlooker in France, a critical edition of the artist's war memoirs , p. 127. The website of the Imperial War Museums gives the title LIEUT APF RHYS DAVIDS, DSO, MC. (1897-1917) .
↑ Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 70.
↑ Jonathan Cape: Orpen: Mirror to an Age , p. 327.
↑ Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 70.
↑ Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 69.
↑ All original quotes by William Orpen from William Orpen, Robert Upstone, Angela Weight: William Orpen, an onlooker in France, a critical edition of the artist's war memoirs , p. 126. The brackets contain analogous German translations.

[1] The spelling of the title Lieut APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC (1897-1917) is taken from the book Robert Upstone: William Orpen: Politics, Sex and Death p. 142 published by the Imperial War Museum . Deviating from the spelling Lt APF Rhys Davids, DSO, MC, 1917 in William Orpen, Robert Upstone, Angela Weight: William Orpen, an onlooker in France, a critical edition of the artist's war memoirs , p. 127. The website of the Imperial War Museums gives the title LIEUT APF RHYS DAVIDS, DSO, MC. (1897-1917) .

[2] Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 70.

[3] Jonathan Cape: Orpen: Mirror to an Age , p. 327.

[4] Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 70.

[5] Meirion Harries, Susie Harries: The war artists: British official war art of the twentieth century , p. 69.

[6] All original quotes by William Orpen from William Orpen, Robert Upstone, Angela Weight: William Orpen, an onlooker in France, a critical edition of the artist's war memoirs , p. 126. The brackets contain analogous German translations.