Things of Beauty, Joy Forever

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i n   m o n o c h r o m e quirin fürst

the stars lose their shine…Dana Gioia

The boy who would never grow old died one month before his 21st birthday on May 19 1921. Michael Llewelyn Davies died in a suspicious drowning incident, where he and his lover Rupert Buxton were found dead clasped in each other's arms. Michael, along with his four other brother's were the real life inspiration for J M Barries, "Peter Pan". In a family that seemed destined for tragedy the five brothers were put into the care of author J M Barrie upon the deaths of both their mother and father. Micheal’s only surviving brother Nico described him as "the cleverest of us, the most original, the potential genius" and the favorite of Barrie, who wrote a year after Michaels death "was in a way the end of me." As a young adult Michael briefly studied art in Paris and upon returning to Oxford he met Rupert Buxton, the two became inseparable friends, spending time both at the university and on holiday together. Buxton was a poet, and had an interest in acting. The closeness of Davies and Buxton, combined with the uncertain circumstances of their deaths, led to speculation that the pair had died in a suicide pact, their friends being aware of the sexual relationship between the two. Dangerous currents in Sandford Lasher had made the pool notorious as a drowning hazard. A witness at the coroner's inquest reported that one man was swimming to join the other, who was sitting on a stone on the weir, but he experienced "difficulties" and the other dived in to reach him. However, the witness also reported, when he saw their heads together in the water they did not appear to be struggling. It remains unclear whether Buxton had died trying to save Davies and/or impulsively joined him going under, or whether they had in fact died as the result of a suicide pact. Michael's life ended in tragic circumstances and yet his impact lives on to this day as the boy who will never grow old..."Peter Pan"

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Matthijs Röling: Self-portrait (1969)