tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">106

PHIL MAY AND HIS ART

now, Mr. Whistler, what about Black and White Art?" said an interviewer. "Black and White Art," said Mr. Whistler, "is summed up in two words—Phil May!" Nor is this merely a New School of Art paradox. It is one which is held by artists of all grades alike, and even by the art editor who professes to know and supply what the public likes. That a youth who never had a lesson in drawing in his life should have earned such a reputation between the ages of seventeen and thirty, and should have gone above men as honoured in their profession as Sir John Tenniel and Mr. George du Maurier, and on a level with Charles Keene, Mr. Abbey and Mr. Gibson, is enough to make Mr. May's art extremely interesting. But his art is not nearly so instructive as Mr. May himself; he is a human document to the hand of the realist, and the student of heredity—if ever there was one. He has been interviewed in a sketchy fashion by the journalistic Mrs. Mangnall innumerable times; the high-art magazines have added him to their lists of "Our Graphic Humorists," "Black and White Artists," and "How Caricaturists Draw." The world is familiar with his own grotesque sketches of himself, and, whether he is attired in riding breeches, a straw hat perched on the back of his head, as he drives a coster's cart, or is being flung out of a cab, his long cigar and his hair cut in a bang straight across his forehead, are unchangeable and unmistakeable. The public no doubt thinks that this is only one of Phil May's jokes at his own expense, for the bold Rabelaisian roundness of his humour suggests a man the very reverse of the lean and hungry Cassius. But Phil May's humour does not consist of making fat people thin, thin people fat, exaggerating features, putting big heads upon little legs, and such methods of distortion as we have so often seen resorted to. This we learn from a glance at his home, which is his studio life.

Mr. May's artistic treasures are none of them the old masters of a millionaire, but purely personal household gods, each with a little story of a friendship, a reminiscence of hard-up times, or some personal taste. The volumes in the old oak book-case are not first editions, but they show a fine appreciation for the best literature, and even the blue china is not wired and hung-up. The drawing-board seems to act as an address-book, and the grandfather's clock by the fireplace in its old age has given up making a nuisance of itself by repeating "For ever, never." The mantelpiece is peopled with little Japanese dolls, little bronzes and brasses, and figures carved in yellow ivory. These, with a few plaster casts of arms and legs which hang on the walls, a line of Japanese prints put around the ceiling "to try an effect," a few Japanese lanterns hanging from the roof, some Japanese lay-figures in armour standing round the walls, and a few sketches, are about all the decoration of this long sky-lit room. But most important of all is the index to as remarkable a story as was ever told by a successful man, a story which has never been told before. It is only an old mug. The substance is earthenware, the decoration obviously pseudo-oriental, and the design and glaze nothing marvellous. It clearly comes from the English potteries, but it has no mark, and it is certainly not Chelsea, Derby, Yarmouth, Bristol, Lowestoft, or any of the rarer and higher-priced wares. The hand of Wedgwood, Voyez, or Elers is not seen in its design, and, indeed, it is difficult precisely to locate its origin. And yet, it should now take its place in Chaffers and Church who know it not. Our dilemma is solved by Mr. May himself, who seems, in his usual casual modest way, to have attached no importance to it, and who, from subsequent inquiries, has only a very superficial knowledge which would not satisfy a ceramic maniac, to say nothing of a family historian. "That mug was made," says Mr. May, "by my grandfather. I don't know much more about him than he knows about me; but if you are interested in china, you may care for some details which may help you to hunt it up. He was a potter in the Midlands—if you want to be