A bizarre imagination married to a craft that falls little short of the sublime places Richard Shirley Smith outside the artistic mainstream from the start. In his life and his art he has inhabited a world of fabulous curiosities and transformations, supplied by the idiosyncrasies of a scholarly and labyrinthine mind.;Laurence Whistler, who early recognized the artist's gifts, spoke of his ambiguity of mood. Richard Shirley Smith revels in elaborate settings, crumbling Italianate architecture, romantic decay, masks, metamorphoses and misrule. Pulcinella and his cohorts of the Commedia dell' Arte peek and prance amongst a wonderful array of props. Strange objects, veiled statues, ambiguous beasts and insects pose like actors on a stage. But behind it all is a deep if delicious awareness of time and mutability.;This illustrated book contains over 150 colour plates, the artist's personal annotations, with his memoirs of early mentors, David Jones and Gerald and Joy Finzi. These are accompanied by essays on his work, which aim to enthral the reader in a profoundly fascinating and beautiful theatre of the imagination.