Month: February 2023

William James Muller. Part 2.

The Later years

The Gaol Burning and St Paul’s Bedminster by William Muller (c.1831)

William Muller’s home in the city of Bristol was rocked by civil unrest in 1831.  The Reform Riots, as they became known, took place between the 29th and 31st of October and were part of the 1831 riots in England. The riots came about because of the second Reform Bill which was voted down in the House of Lords, and consequently shelved efforts at electoral reform.  The Bristol Riots were a reaction to the statement in Parliament of a senior judge, Sir Charles Wetherell, that the people of Bristol were not in favour of reform, despite 17,000 signatures on a petition supporting the reforms. 

The Burning of the Bishop’s Palace by William Muller (c.1831)

It was at a time when only five per cent of the population, (and they had to be men!) had the right to vote which was based on their wealth.  Wetherell  came to Bristol on his annual visit to Bristol, public meetings were organised in Queen Square on 10th, 11th and 12th October to decide on how to carry the fight forward. Demonstrators met Wetherell on his arrival in Bristol on October 29th, and soon, full scale rioting broke out, with angry crowds of protesters taking control of the city for two days. 

The Burning of the Mansion House, Queens Square by William Muller (1831)

Troops were brought in to end the riots and Wetherell escaped dressed as a woman while the crowds stayed, looting the wine cellar of the Mansion House and becoming drunk and reckless. Over the next two days rioters broke into Bridewell Jail and Lawford’s Gate Prison and set prisoners free. The Tollhouses, the Bishop’s Palace and, in Queen Square, the Mansion House and the Custom House, were all attacked.

Ruins of Warehouses in Prince Street by William Muller (c.1831)

Nineteen-year-old William Muller and his younger brother, Edmund, witnessed the riots first hand.  William made several sketches of the buildings in flames and the ruins of what remained.   Later he turned the sketches into a number of paintings such as Rioting in Queen’s Square, The Remains of the Mansion House, Ruins of the Custom House, with only the bare and broken columns standing.  He also completed a work entitled Removing the Prisoners at night to the Gaol, with the glare of burning buildings all around.

Of all Muller’s painting trips he undertook, North Wales was one of his favourite destinations. In a letter to a friend he called the area, Our English Switzerland. His first foray to the region was in June 1833 when he along with fellow artists, John Skinner Prout and Samuel Jackson left Bristol, crossed the River Severn and traversed the Brecon Beacons, finally arriving at the foothills of Cader Idris.

Llyn y Cau by Richard Wilson (1765)

The three men climbed part of the way up the mountain to gain a view of Llyn-y-Cau, a lake Muller referred to as Wilson’s Lake after Richard Wilson’s magnificent depiction of the lake in his 1765 painting.

Swallow Falls, Betwys y Coed by William Muller (1837)

Muller and Prout parted company with Jackson and explored the Conwy Valley from Betwys-y-Coed, all the way down to the sea. Muller was so taken with what he saw that he returned to the area on several occasions. During the winter of 1841 he and his brother travelled to North Wales and stayed at an inn in “Roe” now the small village of Rowen which was up-river from the coastal town of Conwy. He returned the following summer to paint en plein air in oils. In a letter to a fellow artist he wrote:

“…I paint in oil on the spot, and rather large, indeed. I am more than ever convinced in the actual necessity of looking at nature with a much more observant eye than the mass of young artists do, and in particular at skies. These are generally neglected…”

Salmon Trap on the River Lledr by William Muller (1842)

Interior with Goats, Betwys y Coed by William Muller (c.1833)

In July 1834, twenty-two year old Muller set off for Europe on a seven-month journey of discovery along with his good friend and fellow artist, the watercolourist, George Arthur Fripp.  They left Bristol docks on a schooner and sailed to Antwerp.  Having disembarked they went to Brussels and then moved across the German border, arriving in Cologne.  They then followed the river south, eventually arriving at Heidelberg where they rested for several days.

The Doge’s Palace, Venice by William Muller (1834)

The pair crossed the Alps and arrived in Northern Italy, visited the area around Lake Maggiore and staying in the lakeside town of Baverno.  Finally they arrived in Venice where they stayed for almost two months.

The Falls of Tivoli by William Muller (1837)

At the end of November 1834 they moved to Florence on their way to Rome where they spent that Christmas.  The one place Muller was determined to visit was Tivoli a town 30 kilometres north-east of Rome, where many British watercolourists had visited and stayed to capture the spectacular views.  Muller made many sketches and in 1837 completed his painting The Falls of Tivoli.

View of Bristol from Clifton Wood by William Muller (1837)

Muller returned to Bristol from his European tour in February 1835 and he set about converting his European and North Wales sketches into finished oil paintings.   In 1838 he once again left the shores of England and this time his ultimate destination was Egypt.  He went via Paris where he managed to visit the Louvre and was impressed by the landscape works of the Dutch painter, Jacob van Ruisdael and the Swiss painter, Francisco Mola.  Muller travelled overland to Marseille and then embarked on a sea passage to Malta and Constantinople.  From there he took a boat to the Greek island of Siros and then journeyed to Piraeus and Athens where he stayed for six weeks.

Temple of Theseus by William Muller (1839)

Whilst in the Greek capital Muller completed more than forty watercolours, many of which were of the Acropolis or views from this elevated monument.   Athens had been a popular destination for artists and this love of the area could be put down to James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’s 1762 book, Antiquities of Athens.  It was the first of four volumes and was the first accurate survey of ancient Greek architecture ever completed. Their detailed drawings done at the sites of the ancient ruins between 1751 and 1754 transformed our understanding of Greek architecture.

In November 1838 Muller left Greece and set sail on a French steamer for Egypt.  He disembarked at Alexandria.  Although earlier artists, such as Turner, and the marine painter Clarkson Stanfield, had produced drawing of Egyptian sites using sketches made by amateur artists, none had actually visited the country and it is thought that William Muller was one of the first established European artists to set foot in Egypt. 

Prayers in the Desert by William Muller (Exhibited at the RA in 1943)

Muller was impressed with Alexandria, likening it to a kaleidoscope of humanity but the Egyptian town was, in his view, bettered by what he saw when he visited Cairo with its long delicate minarets and Asyut but it was the mass of people of these cities that astonished him the most.  His most exciting time was when he mingled with the people at the slave market and he liked to immerse himself amongst the crowds dressed in their highly coloured clothes.

The Ramesseum at Thebes, Sunset by William Muller (1840)

In December 1838, Muller left Cairo and journeyed down the River Nile and on December 10th got his first sight of the pyramids at Giza.  In his book, An Artist’s Tour of Egypt he recounted life on the small river boat:

“…it is tedious, to an extent one can form little conception of, to be shut up in a small boat, with not enough room to stand upright – 9 feet long and in its widest 6 – with little to do but shoot from its windows at crocodiles, pelicans and other birds, in particular vultures;  of these being particularly fond of objects of Natural History, I made a tolerably numerous collection…..Shooting, sketching and smoking, at the expiration of twenty days I found I had arrived at Dundara…”

The Entrance to a Small Temple at Medinet Habu, Luxor, by William Muller (1840)

On January 1st 1839, at the end of his four hundred mile journey up the Nile, Muller arrived at Thebes.  Here on the eastern banks were temples at Luxor and Karnak and on the western side the Ramesseum,  the ruined mortuary temple of Ramesses II at Qurnah, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and many more monuments. 

The Pyramids by William Muller (1843)

Despite the sometimes treacherous conditions, his expedition resulted in some of the finest travel records of any artist of the 1840s.  Muller eventually returned home to Bristol via Malta, Naples, Rome and London in March 1839.  Once home he set about completing paintings from sketches he made during is long journey.

In late Autumn 1839 William decided that he needed metropolitan success with his work and left Bristol and moved to London and he and fellow artist, Edward Dighton moved into a residence on Rupert Street, Haymarket and later 22 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury.  Muller and Dighton joined the Clipstone Street Academy at which figurative painting was taught using models and life classes and this was important to Muller who had been weak when it came to drawing figures.

Tomb in the Water, Telmessos, Lycia by William Muller (1845)

Muller, along with fellow artist, Harry Johnson, visited the eastern Mediterranean for the second time when the pair travelled to Lycia, a remote part of south west Turkey, in September 1843.  There, he had camped for months and encountered ferocious storms, torrential rain, and endured living close to malarial swamps.  Muller eventually made his way home in April 1844 after being away for eight months.  He left his numerous sketches in London to be framed and headed to Bristol to stay with his brother.  He contacted his patron, William Wethered, and and on May 7th 1884, wrote to him about the Lycia expedition:

“…I am home at last – after a most fatiguing travel…….I will look forward to showing you what I have done in sketches – they are satisfactory I believe, & contain some splendid subjects – but I almost question if I had foreseen what I have had to go through to obtain them if I should ever have visited the country…”

Flower Piece by William Muller (1845)

In early 1845 William Muller became ill, probably exhausted due to overworking.  He had at that time numerous commissions to complete and he believed they would lead to him becoming a very successful painter.  He was disappointed and annoyed with how is paintings were exhibited at that year’s Royal Academy exhibition but nevertheless carried on painting despite his rapidly deteriorating health.  His fingers became swollen and he was finding it difficult to hold a paint brush.  On September 8th 1845 whilst his brother was setting his palette for him to work on a still-life painting, William Muller fell back and died aged just 33.

Wooded Landscape with Children by William Muller (1845)

Muller is buried in the Unitarian burial ground, Brunswick Cemetery, off Brunswick Square, Bristol. His grave is marked by a simple polished black stone slab inscribed Sacred to the memory of William James Muller who died Sep 8th 1845.   A bust of the painter is located at the entrance to the cloister in Bristol Cathedral.

William James Muller. Part 1.

The Early Years

After two blogs featuring contemporary artists whose style of work may not find favour with many who love depictions they can relate to, I have returned to a more conventional painter.  William James Muller was a British figurative and landscape painter who was associated with the Bristol School, often referred to as the Bristol School of Artists, the informal association and works of a group of artists working in Bristol, England, in the early 19th century.

Muller, (or Müller) was born in Bristol on June 28th 1812 at 13 Hillsbridge Place, later becoming Hillsbridge Parade, which overlooked a man-made cut where the occasional small boat or barge would pass by.  His father, John Samuel Müller, a Prussian by birth, had been born in Danzig in 1779 but in 1801 when he was twenty-two, with the continuing conflict between Prussia and France, he and some friends decided to flee the country.  His method of escape was thought to be on a cargo boat carrying timber and which was plying its trade between the Baltic and Bristol.  Although arriving in the British city almost penniless, his love, knowledge and achievements in natural history and geology soon found favour with members of the Philosophical and Literary Society of Bristol who took him under their wings.  In 1821 William’s father published A Natural History of the Crinoidia or Lily-Shaped Animals and three years later he became the first curator of the Bristol Institution which later became the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.

East Lynn, Lynmouth by Edmund Gustavus Muller

In 1806, five years after arriving in Bristol, John Samuel Muller married Margaret James who came from a well established Bristol family.  In 1808 the couple had their first child, Henry who later became a country doctor.  Their second born was William James who is the subject of this blog and their third and final offspring, born in 1816, was Edmund Gustavus who at first was trained to become a doctor but he, like William, became a well-known painter.

In the Vale of Llangollen by James Baker Pyne (1840)

William James Muller was initially home-educated by his mother.  In 1824, when he was twelve years old he began to be involved in his father’s work at the Bristol Institution sketching some of the establishment’s discoveries and would provide illustrations which then accompanied his father’s lectures.  In that same year, the Bristol Institution began to hold art exhibitions which young William Muller would have witnessed.  In 1827, when he was just sixteen years of age, his father had him apprenticed to the Bristol landscape painter James Baker Pyne whose works often depicted local views as well as imaginary ones.

Falls on the River Lledr by William Muller (1830)

William Muller completed his apprenticeship with James Pyne in 1829.  The abrupt end to the apprenticeship came when William’s father complained to Pyne with regards how he was giving his son menial tasks to complete such as brush cleaning instead of teaching him artistic techniques.  Pyne responded by telling John Muller that he could break his son’s apprenticeship agreement if he wanted to and Muller Senior did just that !  Although it is thought that Pyne’s work did not influence Muller work greatly William did learn to appreciate the Old Masters especially the works of the seventeenth century painters such as Claude Lorrain and Nicholas Poussin. 

Classical Landscape by William Muller (1828)

The early termination of the agreement between Pyne and Muller did not put a barrier between them in later years and they always spoke about each other with a complimentary tone.  In 1843 Muller wrote to a friend about Pyne saying:

“…In early life placed under the direction of my friend J. B. Pyne — nay, serving a regular apprenticeship to the arts with him, to whom I owe so much — I commenced painting in earnest…”

Landscape with Figures by William Muller

On May 25th 1830, William’s father died, aged 51.  As he had been the sole family earner, the family would have struggled financially but this was avoided when the Bristol Institution agreed to buy John Muller’s extensive natural history collection for the sum of seven hundred and thirty pounds. John Muller had brought up his sons to appreciate and love nature and the natural world and William never forgot his father’s words.  In a letter of 1843, William wrote:

“…Travel to me affords two pleasures—my love of botany, and natural history in general (for I cannot forget the impressions given me by my father, to whose acquirements as a man of science his works testify better than aught I can say). I continue to combine them as much as possible with my profession; a new flower often delights me as much as a new sketch…”

Waterfall by William Muller (c.1830)

The executor of William’s father’s will was the Right Reverend Dr. Beeke of Bristol Cathedral and it was he who commissioned William Muller to complete a painting of St Mary Redcliffe church and on completion he paid William £25.   The curate of the church was Reverend James Bulwer, an amateur artist and naturalist who was a good friend of the artist, John Sell Cotman and he and William Muller helped the formation of the first art exhibition of the Bristol Society of Artists at the Bristol Institution in 1832.   He and William each presented eight of their paintings at the exhibition.

Font at Walsingham Church by William Muller (1831)

In the early part of 1831 Muller travelled to Norfolk and Suffolk and stayed with various clergymen during his two-month travels.  One of the paintings he completed during his trip was entitled The Font in Walsingham Church, although he probably completed the work once home in his studio, using sketches he made at the time.

Muller may have got the idea for his painting on seeing the illustration of the font in Architectural Antiquities of Norfolk by John Sell Cotman, dated 1818.

Trees, Suffolk by William Muller (1831)

During this period William Muller completed a number of largely monochrome watercolours such as Trees, Suffolk which he had sketched whilst visiting the Suffolk town of Lackford.

Fourteen Star Inn by William Muller (c.1832)

Another was of the Fourteen Star coaching inn.

In the second part of the blog looking at the life and works of William James Muller we will see how bloody riots and Mediterranean travel featured in his short life.

Stacey Gillian Abe

When I was in London last week I made my first visit to the Unit London Gallery.  The gallery is in the heart of London’s Mayfair at No.3 Hanover Square which is off Regent Street, very close to Oxford Street underground station.  It is well known for representing some of the finest local and international talent, and provide an unhindered showcase for artists who operate outside of the mainstream art world  and by so doing, has successfully launched and enhanced the careers of many influential contemporary artists.

Unit London

The gallery was hosting two exhibitions and my blog today is all about one of those, which closed at the end of January.  It was a large display of work by the Ugandan multi-disciplinary contemporary artist, Stacey Gillian Abe entitled Shrub-let of Old Ayivu.  Like my previous blog featuring Kyu Hun Kim the artwork is best described as unusual but this does not detract from its beauty.

Bibiana’s Window, by Stacey Gillian Abe (2022)

The name of the exhibition is unusual but Stacey says it can be traced back to the clan  is a descendant of.  She explains:

 “…Ayivu is one of the major clans of the Lugbara-speaking people from Arua in the West Nile region of Uganda.  We are a tribe intersecting three countries that is Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda. Our people are spread out within these countries, and I belong to the Ayivu clan in Uganda.  Shrublet of Old Ayivu is a metaphoric term which alludes to growths that have originated for a long time from a place of great significance that eventually create the perfect conditions for shrub-lets to morph and branch out of the old ways to form new connections independent of their origin.  The shrub-let is representative of this transportation from traditions, mindsets, norms and past lives, places to mention but a few…”

The Farmer’s Daughter by Stacey Gillian Abe (2022)

She goes on to say that the imagery of the plant life also extends to the colour of the models themselves. Jute is seen as a symbol of the Ayivu clan, and it is a motif that unites all of the work on display.  She reveals that jute is a plant of many uses, so this totem recurring in the work is a symbol of possibilities and growth.

Stacey Gillian Abe was born in Kampala, Uganda, in 1991. From an early age she loved art. For her, it all started with painting and drawing in high school in 2008. In 2014, she graduated from Kyambogo University, Kampala, with a BA in Art and Industrial Design.

Forbes Africa Under 30

In 2018 Abe made it onto the 2018 FORBES AFRICA Under 30 list which is the definitive list of Africa’s most promising young change-makers.  There are thirty “game-changers”, all under the age of 30, in each of the three sectors – business, technology and creative, a total of ninety young African people who were said to be challenging conventions and rewriting the rules for the next generation of entrepreneurs, creatives and tech gurus.  Abe was placed in the “creative” group of thirty.  Over six hundred candidates had been put forward and months were spent researching, verifying and investigating them.

Of herself, Abe describes herself as being reticent:

“…My passion started from the need to express myself more, I am not an introvert but a bit reserved…”.

Her way of expressing herself is through her art.  She says that a huge part of her practice now revolves around highlighting complex situations as autobiographical documentations of past and continuous experiences.

Fatou by Gillian Stacey Abe (2022)

Unit London gallery describes the exhibition I went to see:

“…Stacey Gillian Abe’s first solo exhibition at their gallery as an exploration of memory, time and emotion. It focuses on the concept of shared memory, Abe’s latest body of work examines how memories have been passed down through her family’s lineage, alluding to the ways in which traditions are absorbed and transformed from generation to generation.  These ideas are represented in the jute plant and flowers that are detailed in various paintings. A fibrous plant with multiple uses, jute is a totem for the Ayivu clan, one of the major clans in Arua in the West Nile Region of the artist’s native Uganda. The shrublet appears in sections of embroidery that decorate Abe’s paintings, becoming a motif that connects each canvas. Most importantly, Shrub-let of Old Ayivu questions how memory can be shared. With her paintings, Abe explores the transference of abstract memory, of subjects that are not easily explained visually. These notions do not simply materialise through composition or through the artist’s own subjectivity. Instead, they take shape within the space of the canvas itself, seemingly forming from the subject’s own consciousness. Each painting and each figure tell a different story, becoming part of a tapestry of interwoven threads…”

The Sitting I by Gillian Stacey Abe (2022)

The colour Abe uses for her figures is further explained by the gallery:

“…These ideas of generational memory link to Abe’s striking use of the colour indigo. Acutely aware of the colour’s presence in African history, the artist acknowledges its role in centuries-old textile traditions in West Africa. The rich dye was subsequently introduced to East Africa through the exchange of textiles, facilitating the East African slave trade or the Arab Slave Trade and the Indian Ocean Trade. Here, Abe references Catherine McKinley’s study Indigo: In Search of the Colour that Seduced the World (2011), which details that one length of indigo was equivalent to one human body. Through the Indian Ocean trade, Abe’s home country of Uganda also encountered trade routes from the coast to the mainland in the mid-1800s. Her village of Arua, positioned at the intersection of Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda, saw many Congolese people from the surrounding areas abducted into the slave trade to work in silk production…”

What We Wanted by Gillian Stacey Abe

In Abe’s own words:

“…Indigo for a skin tone in my work signifies a tribe, a breed of black, a people that are not limited to social, economic, cultural, political or historical constraints…”

In the exhibition, Shrub-let of Old Ayivu, Abe also shows us her fascination with indigo via its connection to cloth and material. She is fascinated with the colour and this manifests itself as an exploration of the relationship between cloth and the body. Through embroidery and the cloth there is a strong visual element throughout Abe’s body of work, which allows her to revisit the traditional, historical and personal significance attached to fabric.

See you Later, Again. by Gillian Stacey Abe

During the last three years Abe has carried out wide-ranging research on  the colour indigo.  It is a colour that has been viewed as both very rich and very valuable, but in her mind also one that has fashioned narratives around the black body. She says that indigo is a dominant colour in her work and she utilises it as a skin tone for her subjects. In a strange way it allows the observer  to behold  the black body in a different light.

Too Much and Not the Mood by Gillian Stacey Abe

Like my previous blog featuring the work of Hun Kyu Kim, Abe’s work is one you either love or hate. I actually found the exhibition fascinating.