Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, United Kingdom

Literature:

Joan Murray, Laura Muntz Lyall: Impressions of Women and Childhood, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 2012, pages x, 3-5, 7, 9-10, 15-16, 28, 31-32, and 42.

Note:

Born in Warwickshire, England in 1860, Laura Adeline Muntz Lyall was enthralled by fairytales and the world of the imagination from a young age.

Lyall trained with some of the leading artists at the time, both at home and abroad, becoming familiar with the pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists whilst in London and Paris, respectively. It is there that she further developed her skills in genre painting, naturalism and expressive brushstroke technique. Lyall chose to represent women and children in her artwork, as they were considered appropriate subject matter for female artists; however Lyall was also genuinely interested in the aesthetic representation of children and had a real kinship with her young subjects. At the turn of the century, psychologists, historians and thinkers were all questioning the role of the child both in the domestic sphere and within society at large as well; as such her paintings of children and interior life would have appealed to public sensibilities at the time.

While her paintings portray a romanticized and idealized image of youth, she gives a sense of personality to her sitters through an individualized and intimate approach to her work. In Portrait of a Child from 1907, Lyall has isolated her subject against a dark background, a compositional style characteristic of her work. The young child is depicted as almost cherubic, gently illuminated and pictured in golden, rich tones, which work to emphasis the purity of youth. Staring intently at a subject off canvas, the child’s gaze engrosses the viewer and we are reminded of that childlike sense of wonder that is gradually lost as we age. By 1910, Lyall had moved on to symbolic and allegorical pictures of mother and child, or Madonna and Child, and this painting from 1907 can be seen as an early precursor of that thematic shift within her work.

By 1907, photography was becoming a fully entrenched artistic medium, yet Lyall’s portraits of children played an integral role in preserving the tradition of painting in the face of technological advancement. Indeed, her images can be seen at the same time as an idealization of a simpler time and as a picture of hope for the future. Largely overshadowed by the nationalist connotations of the Group of Seven, her subtle yet distinct impressions of a generation of Canadian children makes Lyall’s contribution to art history integral to our understanding of life at the turn of the century.