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In her picture The Watcher, a mother sits on a bed watching over her sleeping child. The bottle on the bedside table suggests the child is ill. The artist creates a chiaroscuro effect with a strong contrast between the two figures. The atmospheric treatment of light heightens the sense of intimacy and drama that emanates from the scene.
She was born in Radford, England on the 18th June in 1860. Her family emigrated to Canada when she was a child. She grew up on a farm in the Muskoka District of Ontario.
She worked as schoolteacher, but her interest in art led to her take lessons in painting technique from William Charles Foster of Hamilton.
After going through several schools she went to Paris for a seven year scholarship to study the works of Michelangelo and other artists. There she was influenced by the impressionist style.
On her return to Canada in 1898, she set up a studio in Toronto and began to take students. She would later move to Montreal to continue her art career at 6 Beaver Hall Square.
She was elected as a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1895, being only the eighth woman to receive this honour.
Following the death of her sister in 1915, she returned to Toronto and married her brother-in-law Charles W.B. Lyall and cared for the 11 children of her sister's marriage. She then set a studio up in the attic of their home, and started signing her works with her married name.
She was an impressionist painter who painted portraits of mothers and children and whose works were invaded with a certain poetic and melancholic tone.
She died in Toronto on the 9th December, 1930.
Muntz Lyall worked in a realistic style to portray themes of motherhood and childhood, which were very popular in England and Canada during the Victorian era
PILAR MARCO – English for Fun 3A
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