Newlyn School – my daily art display

Maritime Art. Part 2.

The Sea and the Workers who risk their lives for others.

In this look at Maritime or Marine Art I want to showcase those paintings which feature the people who have dedicated their lives to saving seafarers and those working the seas in a continual search for food to put on our tables.

For the first of my forays into the depiction of fisherman I want to delve into the work of the great Skagen painters. These were a group of Scandinavian artists who had come together in the small coastal village of Skagen, which is situated in the northernmost part of Denmark, from the late 1870s until the turn of the century. One of the Skagen painters was Peder Severin Krøyer. He was born in Stavanger, Norway on July 23^rd 1851 but moved to Denmark as a child. At the age of fourteen, he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Even at that young age he was a proficient portrait painter and was esteemed for his artwork and received many commissions.

Fishermen hauling nets, North Beach, Skagen by Peder Severin Krøyer (1883)

Krøyer depictions of fishermen were often in more serene situations rather than those showing the fishermen and their boats battling the elements. His painting entitled Fishermen Hauling a Net at the North Beach, Late afternoon, was one of his first works painted on the beaches of Skagen and he wrote to his patron the tobacco manufacturer Heinrich Hirschsprung that for this painting he wanted to be close to the fishermen who had been hauling a net at the North Beach one late afternoon sundown when the sun appears flat and the weather is clear. He had made many small preliminary sketches before taking the large canvas to the beach to complete the work en plein air. He wrote to his patron:

“…I was on Nordstrand for the first time with my large picture this afternoon, driving with all my goods and chattels. It was a huge treat. It was calm and clear, really important for me…”

Fishermen on Skagen Beach by Peder Severin Krøyer (1883)

In his painting, Fishermen on Skagen Beach, several fishermen are shown relaxing on the beach, two of them are catching up on some sleep. The sense of tranquility of this scene is reinforced by a calm sea. This is one of those depictions which invites the viewer to mull over what is going on. Have they had a successful day or had it been a day to forget? Whatever happened they seem to now be exhausted.

Fishermen on the Beach on a Peaceful Summer´s night by Michael Ancher (1881)

Michael Ancher was the first of the Skagen painters to settle in Skagen during the summer of 1881. In his work entitled Fishermen on the Beach on a Peaceful Summer´s night Michael Ancher depicts a group of fishermen from Skagen talking on the beach on a sunny summer evening. What are they chatting about? Perhaps they are exchanging news from Skagen, or simply planning tomorrow’s next fishing expedition. Ancher was a realist who always used living models, preferably fishermen and he knew their individual names and through his depiction they have come to life. They have had a hard life battling the elements which can be seen by their heavily lined faces. This painting which is owned by the National Gallery of Denmark, is currently exhibited in the Danish Parliament.

Fisherman Coming to Shore by Michael Ancher

Michael Ancher has depicted a completely different portrayal of a fisherman than the previous paintings. This is not a relaxed study of a fisherman, quite the opposite. Observe the fiercly determined look on the face of the fisherman in Ancher’s painting entitled Fisherman Coming to Shore. He is trying to steer the boat to the safety of the shore whilst battling against a mighty following sea which makes steering almost impossible.

On the Quay, Newlyn by Walter Langley

Between the Tides by Walter Langley (1901)

Walter Langley, the son of a journeyman tailor, was born on June 8^th 1852. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to a lithographer and six years later he won a scholarship to South Kensington School where he studied design for two years. He returned to Birmingham but took up painting full-time, and in 1881 was elected an Associate of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA). In that year, aged twenty-nine, he received a £500 commission for a year’s work by the Birmingham-based photographer Robert White Thrupp, a wealthy patron, to spend twelve months in the Cornish town of Newlyn, and pictorially record the lives of the fisherfolk. Having been brought up in a poor working-class family environment Langley could empathise with the hardship faced by the fishing community and his paintings often depicted stories of family tragedies and loss of loved ones.

Among the Missing by Walter Langley

Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break by Walter Langley (1894)

The painting, Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break, was completed by the English artist Walter Langley in 1894. The painting today, as was the painting before, is about loss. The title of the painting emanates from Canto VI of Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam, which reads:

That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break

The painting, Never morning wore to evening, but some heart did break depicts a young woman being comforted on the quayside at Newlyn harbour by Grace Kelynack, the elderly widow of a Newlyn fisherman.

Old Grace by Walter Langley (1894)

Langley had also completed a portrait of Grace Kelynack entitled Old Grace.

The Ninth Wave by Ivan Aivazovsky (1850)

One of my favourite seascape paintings by Aviazovsky is his 1850 work entitled The Ninth Wave. It is also probably his best-known work. The title refers to a popular sailing legend that the ninth wave is the most terrible, powerful, destructive wave that comes after a succession of incrementally larger waves. In his painting, set at night, he depicts a raging sea, which has been whipped up by a storm. In the foreground we see people clinging to the mast of a vessel which had sunk during the night. Note how the artist has depicted the debris the people are clinging to in the shape of a cross and this element can be looked upon as a metaphor for salvation from the earthly sin. One wants to believe that the desperate will to survive will triumph over the raging ocean. The people clinging to the debris are lit by the warmth of breaking sunlight and this gives one to believe that they may yet be saved. For a life-or-death depiction the painting is not a gloomy one. In fact, it is full of light and air and thoroughly transfused by the rays of the sun which endows it with a feeling of optimism. The painting was originally acquired for the State Russian Museum of St Petersburg and was one of the first paintings in the collection of the Emperor Alexander III Russian Museum in 1897.

The Rainbow by Aviazovsky (1873)

Another of Aivazovsky’s works which is part of the Tretyakov Museum collection in Moscow is his painting entitled The Rainbow which features a sailing ship foundering on rocks while two lifeboats full of sailors from the doomed vessel are battling against the fierce seas as they try to manoeuvre their boats ashore. It is a truly remarkable work in which Aviazovsky created a scene of a storm as if seen from inside the raging sea. In the foreground, we see the sailors who have taken to a lifeboat and abandoned their sinking ship which had foundered on the rocky shoreline. They had spent the whole night in the boat. Suddenly they see a rainbow and feel that all is not lost. The reflection of the rainbow can just be seen to the left of the painting. Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Russian novelist, was an admirer of Aivazovsky’s art and The Rainbow was his favourite work. Of the painting, Dostoevsky wrote:

“…This storm by Aivazovsky is fabulous, like all of his storm pictures, and here he is the master who has no competition. In his storms there is the trill, the eternal beauty that startles a spectator in a real-life storm…”

The Shipwreck by J.M.W Turner (c.1805)

Storms and shipwrecks were a popular theme for paintings during J.M.W.Turner’s life. He completed his painting The Shipwreck around 1805. It depicts fishermen battling the huge waves as they attempt the rescue of an overcrowded lifeboat. In the painting, we see a ship foundering and about to capsize and sink in the dark seas. Turner was fascinated by this dramatic theme which conveyed the danger of life at sea. To get us to better appreciate the peril the seafarers had to endure he places us close to the drama and with no sight of land it is as if we are part of the rescuing crews as they battle the ferocity of the sea,

It is thought that Turner was inspired by the re-publication in 1804 of the fourth edition of William Falconer’s poem, The Shipwreck, which was illustrated by another marine painter Nicholas Pocock, part of which (3^rd Canto, lines 640-645) is below:

Again she plunges! Hark! A second shock

Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock!

Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,

The fated victims shuddering roll their eyes,

In wild despair; while yet another stroke,

With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak.

The fourth edition of William Falconer’s The Shipwreck was published in 1772. This poem in three cantos of more than 900 lines each, recounts the final voyage of the merchant ship Britannia and her crew. This fourth edition of The Shipwreck is the first edition of the poem to be published after Falconer’s death, ironically due to a shipwreck. Falconer had been appointed purser onboard the frigate Aurora in 1769 when it was lost after rounding the Cape of Good Hope. An introduction to a 1798 edition of Falconer’s works supposes the loss was caused by the Aurora catching fire after rounding the Cape.

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt (1633)

A marine painting with a biblical connotation is the one by Rembrandt von Rijn entitled The Storm on the Sea of Galilee which he completed in 1633. It was one of his earliest large format works. It depicts a close-up view of Christ’s disciples as they grapple to gain control of their fishing boat. A large wave has crashed into the side of the boat, swamped the deck and ripped the mainsail. The vessel lurches dramatically in the rough sea. We see one of the disciples leaning over the side of the boat being sick. A man faces us as he clings hold of the rigging. This is a self-portrait of the artist. All the people on board the vessel are panic-stricken, except for one, Christ, who can be seen on the right, calmly looking ahead. The depiction is based on a passage from the bible (Luke 8: 22-25):

22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. 23 As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.

24 The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”

He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. 25 “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples.

In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.

In the third and final part of these blogs featuring marine art I will be looking at paintings that extoll the joys of the sea and shoreline.

Arthur Hacker

My featured artist today is the late Victorian painter Arthur Hacker. He regularly exhibited his works at the Royal Academy, London and the New Gallery in Regents Street which closed as a gallery in 1910 and is now a fashion store. His painting genres were many including works featuring contemporary drama, mythological and Biblical narratives, landscapes and still lifes. Later he concentrated on portraiture which proved very lucrative.

*Mr Charles Davies on The Traverser by Edward Hacker*

Arthur Hacker was born on September 25^th, 1858 in the North London district of St Pancras. His father was Edward Hacker, a line engraver who specialised in animal and sporting prints. Edward Hacker worked for forty years for the Sporting Review. Having completed his normal schooling, eighteen-years-old, Arthur Hacker applied for and was accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in 1876 and after four years of artistic tuition graduated in 1880. He then, like many artists of the time, travelled to Paris and trained in the atelier of Léon Bonnat. One of his fellow pupils at the Royal Academy Schools and at the atelier was Stanhope Forbes, the English artist who was a founding member of the influential Newlyn school of painters. Arthur was greatly influenced by French art, especially their plein air realism.

*Her Daughter’s Legacy by Arthur Hacker*

In 1881 he had his painting Her Daughter’s Legacy displayed at the Royal Academy and it received rave reviews. An engraved version was used as an illustration for The Illustrated London News, on August 6^th 1881.

Hacker completed a number of other paintings which depicted the harsh reality of peasant life. One which particularly catches the eye is his painting, A Heavy Burden, in which we see a a man struggling to carry his sleeping son through fields whilst his daughter follows on behind clutching hold of a bunch of wildflowers in the folds of her apron, which she has managed to pick during their walk.

See the source image — Portrait of Arthur Hacker by Solomon J. Solomon (1884)

Once Hacker had completed his studies in Paris in 1884 he set off on a painting voyage of discovery through Spain and north Africa with his friend and fellow British painter, Solomon J. Solomon, who painted Hacker’s portrait when the two were in Tangiers. This would be the first of many expeditions Hacker made to Africa.

*By the Waters of Babylon by Arthur Hacker (1888)*

In 1886, Arthur Hacker along with Stanhope Forbes and Philip Wilson Steer, joined The New English Art Club (NEAC). It was founded in London as an exhibiting society by artists influenced by impressionism and whose work was rejected by the conservative Royal Academy and were looking for a new exhibition space. Early members were James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Walter Sickert and Philip Steer. Others in the NEAC’s first show included Sir George Clausen, Stanhope Forbes and John Singer Sargent.

Pelagia and Philammon, 1887 by Arthur Hacker (1858-1919, United Kingdom) | Museum Quality Copies Arthur Hacker | ArtsDot.com — *Pelagia and Philammon by Arthur Hacker (1887)*

For most of us the name Charles Kingsley conjures up his famous children’s book, The Water Babies, which he published in 1863. However, ten years earlier he published a novel entitled Hypatia which recounts the fictionalised account of the life of the female philosopher Hypatia. It was said to have been a favourite of Queen Victoria. Also, within the tale is the young monk Philammon and his search for his sister Pelagia who has been living as a hermit in the desert. In Hacker’s 1867 painting we see this poignant meeting of the siblings. Pelagia is at the point of death, and Philammon administers the holy sacraments to her. Philammon is sitting by the body of his sister. A chalice can be seen by his side. In the background we see vultures aware of the oncoming death.

*The Sea Maiden by Arthur Hacker (1897)*

Another of Hacker’s paintings which featured a nude woman was his 1897 work entitled The Sea Maiden.

Arthur Hacker also painted a number of religious works and one of his best known was his 1892 painting entitled The Annunciation which is now part of the Tate Britain collection. The depiction presents the Biblical story of the Annunciation, as was recorded in the Gospel of James. In that particular account, Mary, while gathering water from a well, is visited by an angel, which she cannot see. It is said by some that it is Hacker’s most beautiful painting.

The angel tells Mary that she will have a baby and that he should be named Jesus. It is thought that during Hacker’s travels in Spain and North Africa he was influenced by the life amongst the native people and in this painting it could well be that the clothes we see Mary wearing replicates the Islamic dress Hacker will have seen during his travels. The fabric enshrouds Mary almost makes her ghost-like. Mary stands tall with such grace. she wears layers of soft, floating, light fabric. These robes lend her multiple identities. All at once she is a classical Grecian statue, a goddess, and a bride. She appears authoritative and ethereal, yet tragic and mournful.

In the work, the figure of Mary is both radiant and haunting and is framed in the centre of the painting. Hovering behind Mary is an angel who has floated down from the sky. Hacker has painted the angel so translucently that he almost disappears into the background. In the angel’s hand the there is an offering of a lily. Historically, flowers are symbolic of the Virgin Mary’s and the lily’s’ white petals imply Mary’s chastity and the golden pollen of the flower symbolises her radiant soul. On either side of her, Hacker has placed objects which help narrate the story. A large brown clay water jug is on the floor by her feet. Behind her we see the twisted trunk and branches of an olive tree.

In front are steps and a low wall, which encircle the pool of water which she has come to, so as to fill her jug. Mary seems detached from things around her. She ignores them as she stares directly towards us, the viewer. Look how she looks out at us. We are hypnotised by that penetrating stare. Her eyes are dark and disconcerting and contrast with her small, white, veiled face. She has a thoughtful and solemn countenance and her hands are resting against her heart. She is now aware that something dramatic is taking place, something which will affect her life.

Infra-red photography shows that the painting originally included a woman wearing a headscarf sitting behind Mary.

The Temptation of Sir Percival by Arthur Hacker (1894)

One of Hacker’s well-known works is his Pre-Raphaelite-style painting The Temptation of Sir Percival. The 1894 painting depicts a scene from Thomas Malory’s 1480’s book Le Morte d’Arthur, recounting the story of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, including Sir Percival a knight of the Round Table who went on a quest to find the Holy Grail. During that mission, the devil in the form of a beautiful but predatory women tries but fails to seduce Sir Percival and get him drunk. Sir Percival however on looking at his sword he notices the handle and its shaft form a cross. On seeing this, he crosses himself and the woman vanishes.

The Temptation of Sir Percival is now kept in the Leeds City Art Gallery collection.

Arthur Hacker RA, A Wet Night at Piccadilly Circus — *A Wet Night at Piccadilly Circus by Arthur Hacker (1910)*

Public taste in art changed around the 1890’s and their once-loved genre of historical subjects began to wane and this forced artists, of that genre, to think about diversifying. Arthur Hacker had to change the subjects in his paintings but he was equal to the challenge. One solution for Hacker was his decision to re-visit his earlier ideas which had still engaged public interest. He once again experimented with misty, atmospheric depictions of the London streets, undoubtedly motivated by the work of the French Impressionists, and produced a wonderful painting, Wet Night, Piccadilly Circus which he completed in 1910 and submitted it as his diploma piece when he was promoted to the rank of Royal Academician.

*Punting on the Thames by Arthur Hacker (1901)*

For reasons of finance it was important for artists to judge the changing interests of the buyers of art. They needed to know what could make them the most money. Arthur Hacker, like John William Waterhouse, Frank Dicksee and others, decided that portraiture could be a wise financial strategy and they began to develop a flourishing portrait practice. Hacker carried out many portraiture commissions and amongst his sitters were politicians, army officers, high-ranking clergy, aldermen, headmasters, physicians and society women.

An example of Arthur Hacker’s portraiture can be seen in his Portrait of John Gordon Thomson, who drew the central cartoons for Fun the Victorian weekly magazine a rival to the better-known Punch magazine. Thomson was an artist who had his work exhibited at the Royal Academy and illustrated many books and magazines.

Sir Frank Short (1857–1945) — Sir Frank Short by Arthur Hacker (1918)

Another portrait by Arthur Hacker was his 1918 work depicting the British engraver Frank Short who was born at Wollaston, Worcestershire. He was the son of an engineer and trained to follow his father’s profession; his scientific background gave him a deep understanding of materials, and he made his own tools and invented new ones.

*Portrait of the Artist’s Mother* (Sophia Hacker) *by Arthur Hacker (1907)*

Another beautiful work of portraiture was his portrait of his mother in 1907. Albeit a very formal pose it still manages to remain both sophisticated and gentle in its depiction of the elderly lady.

Charlotte A. Ferguson of Largham, Donor of Victory Park — *Charlotte A. Ferguson of Largham by Arthur Hacker*

In 1902, Hacker built a new house at Heath End, Checkendon, Oxfordshire, and named it Hall Ingle. He had commissioned a young architect Maxwell Ayrton to design the property and carried out the decorations himself. Arthur Hacker died in Kensington, London on November 12th 1919. He was sixty-one years old. He is buried in Brockwood Cemetery, Surrey.

Harold Harvey

Harold Harvey (1874 – 1941)

My featured artist today is one of the famous Newlyn School painters. The term Newlyn school applies to a group of artists who settled in Newlyn and St Ives in the late nineteenth century and whose work is characterised by an impressionistic style and embodies subject matter drawn from scenes of rural life. It was founded by a group of artists led by Stanhope Forbes. who came to Newlyn in West Cornwall in 1884 and was immediately captivated by the scenery and people in the area. The ‘Newlyn School’ became famous for its superb realism, in ‘Plein-Air‘ painting. The artist I am looking at today, Harold Harvey, made his name for his beautiful works featuring the Cornish countryside.

The Old Slip, Newlyn by Harold Harvey

Harold Charles Francis Harvey was born on May 20th 1874 in North Parade, Penzance, Cornwall. He was the eldest of eight children of Francis McFarland Harvey, a bank clerk, and Mary Bellringer whom he married in September 1872. Harold had six brothers, Percival George Harvey; Frank Harvey; Arthur William H Harvey; Wilfrid Vignes Harvey; Leonard Harvey, and Cyril Harvey along with one sister, Gladys Maud Harvey. Harvey trained in painting at the Penzance Art School under the tutelage of Norman Garstin, an Irish artist, teacher, art critic and journalist associated with the Newlyn School of painters. After leaving the Penzance Art School at the age of nineteen, William travelled to France and attended the Académie Julian in Paris between 1894 and 1896.

Unloading the boats, Newlyn Harbour by Harold Harvey (1906)

In the early part of the twentieth century, Harold Harvey’s paintings were impressionistic in style and the depictions focused on people involved in the agricultural and fishing trade.

In the Whiting Ground’ by Harold Harvey

In the Whiting Ground by Harold Harvey (c.1900)

One such work was In the Whiting Ground which he completed around 1900 and depicts a small dinghy at sea with a young man standing holding a fishing line in his hands while an older man is holding a line in the water. St Michael’s Mount the tidal island in Mount’s Bay, a large, sweeping bay on the English Channel coast of Cornwall, can be seen in the far distance.

Whiffing in Mount's Bay

Whiffing in St Mount’s Bay by Harold Harvey (c.1900)

A small painting completed around the same time by Harvey featuring three young men in a boat had the strange title of Whiffing in St Mount’s Bay. Whiffing is a mode of fishing with a hand line.

The Seaweed Gatherers by Harold Harvey

The Seaweed Gatherers by Harold Harvey

Another of his paintings depicting life along the Cornish shoreline was one entitled The Seaweed Gatherers in which we see two men hauling a horse and cart laden with fresh seaweed.

The Close of a Summers Day by Harold Harvey (1909)

A more colourful painting is his beautiful work of idyllic tranquillity entitled The Close of a Summers Day which he completed in 1909. It is at the end of a hot summers day and man and beast have need of a rest and refreshment. The young farmworkers have been tasked with taking the horses down to the river for them to cool down and have a drink. The white horse gently splashes in the water attempting to cool down its fetlocks.

From 1909 to 1913, Harvey was an Associate of the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art, Conwy and, in 1910, he became a member of the South Wales Art Society.

gertrude_harvey2_large

Gertrude Harvey by Harold Harvey

It was around this time that Harold Harvey met Gertrude Bodinnar. She was born in 1879 and was the eighth of the ten children born to Ann Crews Bodinnar, (née Curnow), and her husband John Matthews Bodinnar, a cooper. In her twenties, she acted as a model for students at the Forbes School of Painting, which had been founded in 1899 by Stanhope Forbes and his Canadian-born wife Elizabeth as their School of Painting and Drawing at Newlyn. It was indirectly through her work with students at this establishment that she first met Harold Harvey and agreed to act as his model. Love blossomed and Harold and Gertrude married on April 19^th 1911 and the couple set up home at Maen Cottage Elms Close Terrace, in Newlyn

Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Gertrude by Harold Harvey (1917)

Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Gertrude by Harold Harvey (1917)

Gertrude appeared in a number of her husband’s paintings. One example was his 1917 portrait of her entitled Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Gertrude……

Gertrude Harvey with Parrot in the Artist's Home by Harold Harvey

….and Gertrude Harvey with Parrot in the Artist’s Home……

The Red Silk Shawl by Harold Harvey (1932) …..and The Red Silk Shawl in 1932.

Being around artists, including her husband, and watching them work fascinated her. She would often note down how the artists worked, and she soon realised that she had a talent for art and design. Gertrude used mostly oil on canvas, board, card, or paper, but also tempera, gouache and though largely self-taught she became a talented artist in her own right, and her paintings were mainly of still-lifes, flowers and landscapes.

Landscape

Landscape by Gertrude Harvey

Her paintings were good enough to be sold and exhibited at the Newlyn Art Gallery and in the twenties and thirties her work could be seen in many London galleries including the Leicester Gallery and the Royal Academy. Often, she showed work together with her husband in mixed and group shows. Between 1930 and 1949, Gertrude Harvey had twenty works selected for Royal Academy exhibitions and from 1945 to 1949 she was regular exhibitor with the St Ives Society of Artists. She was also proficient at needlework and clothing design.

Reflections by Harold Harvey (1916)

Reflections by Harold Harvey (1916)

Meanwhile Harold Harvey continued painting and exhibiting his work. The First World War began in 1914 but due to health issues, he was exempted from military service. In that year, he started to paint a series of interiors often using his own home. One such painting was his 1916 work entitled Reflections.

The Critics by Harold Harvey

The Critics by Harold Harvey

In another work entitled The Critics, we see three women enjoying coffee and an aperitif as they study some paintings, weighing up the merits of each one.

The Tea Table by Harold Harvey

The Tea Table by Harold Harvey (1920)

A depiction of domestic living can be best seen in Harold Harvey’s 1920 painting entitled The Tea Table. It is a masterful depiction of a small dining room filled with shelves of crockery and ornaments. It could almost be termed a still-life of household goods.

Girl on a Cliff by Harold Harvey (1926)

Girl on a Cliff by Harold Harvey (1926)

With such wonderful landscapes on his doorstep, it is no wonder that Harvey continued with his outdoor works featuring young models. One example of this is his 1926 painting entitled Girl on a Cliff. In a way, this is not a true plein air painting as the girl in the depiction is fourteen-year-old Cressida Wearne and Harvey painted her posing in the garden of his studio and he added the background at a later date.

Clara

Clara by Harold Harvey (1922)

Again, we see this technique with his 1922 painting, Clara. It is a full-length portrait of a girl standing by a wall set in a rolling landscape. She is seen holding a rose and in several of Harvey’s portraits his female sitters are holding a single flower. The work is composed mainly of tones of grey and brown but it is the red of the rosebud which creates the focal point of the work.

Harvey, Harold C., 1874-1941; James Jewill Hill Junior

Portrait of James Jewill Hill by Harold Harvey (1920

Harold Harvey completed a number of portrait commissions, such as his 1920 portrait of the youngest son of James Jewill Hill, a partner in the solicitors firm Jewill Hill & Bennett, Penzance.

Harvey, Harold C., 1874-1941; John Humphreys (1850-1937), Professor of Dentistry — Portrait of John Humphreys, Professor of Dentistry; University of Birmingham; by Harold Harvey (1938)

Another portrait he completed was a 1938 commission to paint a portrait of John Humphreys, Professor of Dentistry.

In 1920, Harold Harvey and fellow Newlyn School artist, Ernest Procter, founded the School of Painting, in Newlyn, called the Harvey-Procter School, which ran throughout most of the 1920s.

Harold Harvey died in Newlyn on 19 May 1941 and was buried in Penzance at the St Clare Cemetery. His wife, Gertrude, lived in their cottage until 1960 when she moved into the Benoni Nursing Home in St Just. She died six years late, aged 86.

Walter Langley the Social Realist painter and the Newlyn Art Colony

Walter Langley, from a chalk drawing by Hubert Vos. From Newlyn and the Newlyn School, Magazine of Art, 1890

In eighteenth century France, Rococo was the popular style of art. Painters such as Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and François Boucher had given art lovers a highly ornate and decorative form of art with its elegant, delightful, if somewhat voyeuristic, depictions of the good life. There was a playfulness about the depictions and all thoughts of seriousness was substituted by eroticism. The minority who were able to live the lifestyle shown in the Rococo paintings were pleased with what they saw but of course this was not real life for many of the citizens. Change had to come, and it did in the form of Realism. One of the leaders of this movement was the French artist, Gustave Courbet and he set out a manifesto, La Réalisme which stated that art should be about truth and depictions must be objective records. Realism was to be an art in which the painter put on his canvas what he saw, “warts and all” and not be concerned as to whether it was appropriate or inappropriate. This new form art was to move away from bourgeoise tastes.

The Artist’s Studio by Gustave Courbet (1855)

Probably Courbet’s most famous painting was pure Realism. It was entitled The Artist’s Studio, which he completed in 1855. The work baffled many, so much so Courbet clarified the ideas behind the depiction, declaring:

“…It’s the whole world coming to me to be painted. On the right, all the shareholders, by that I mean friends, fellow workers, art lovers. On the left is the other world of everyday life, the masses, wretchedness, poverty, wealth, the exploited and the exploiters, people who make a living from death…”

The painting depicts two groups of men and women. In the first group on the right, there is the bearded profile of the art collector Alfred Bruyas, and behind him, facing us, the philosopher Proudhon. Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson, who wrote under the name Champfleury. He was a French art critic and novelist, and a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting and fiction, and is seated on a stool, while the French poet and essayist Charles Baudelaire is absorbed in a book. In the right foreground we see a couple who exemplify a pair of art lovers, and in the background, near the window, we see a couple unashamedly wrapped in a loving embrace and they have been included to symbolise free love.

However, the group on the left symbolise the reality of life. There is a priest, a merchant, a hunter, and even an unemployed worker and a beggar girl symbolising poverty. These last two insertions were controversial. Look on the floor by the dog and you will see a dagger, a guitar and large hat with a black plumed feather. Courbet added these items alluding to what was often seen in Academic art.

In the centre, Courbet sits at his large-scale painting of a beautiful landscape with its blue sky and verdant background and this is in direct contrast to the depiction of his grimy and crowded studio. This is a reminder of the difference between real life and an idealised life. This work was destined to be exhibited at the 1855 Universal Exhibition but was rejected on the ground of it being too big but maybe it was because it was too controversial. Courbet, however, was determined that the work should be seen by the public and so, not to be deterred, Courbet, at his own expense, built a Pavilion of Realism close to the official Universal Exhibition site and showed this work and thirteen others including his famous A Burial at Ornans.

From this eighteenth century Realist movement came Social Realism which developed to pictorially arouse concerns about the squalid living conditions suffered by urban poor, and farming and fishing communities. In Britain, artists such as Luke Fildes, Hubert von Herkomer, Frank Holl, and William Small were at the forefront of this movement. In America the beginnings of Social Realism started life with the Ashcan School painters, who in the early 20th century depicted through their art, the everyday, stark, and unglamorous truths of city life. Artists such as John Sloan, Robert Henri, George Bellows, and George Luks were prominent members of this diverse group who painted scenes from everyday life.

Barge Haulers on the Volga by Ilya Repin (1870-1873)

In Russia, Social Realism came in the form of paintings by Ilya Repin who declared that the reason for his art was to show and criticize all the monstrosities of our vile society of the Tsarist period. One of his most famous Realist paintings was his 1883 work entitled Barge Haulers on the Volga.

Waiting for the Boats by Walter Langley (1885)

The reason for this introduction regarding Realism and Social Realism is that the artist I am looking at today is an English Social Realist painter. His name is Walter Langley. He was born in Birmingham, England on June 8th, 1852. Although attending normal school, because of his interest in drawing and painting and artistic ability, at the age of ten, he was also enrolled for evening classes at the Birmingham School of Design. He left school at the age of fifteen and was taken on as an apprentice to a lithographer, August Heinrich Biermann, but still continued with his classes at the School of Design. Langley began to teach himself to paint, and first exhibited three water colours at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1873. His wish was to become a professional artist and that year, at the age of twenty-one, he won a scholarship to the National Art Training School in South Kensington, now known as the Royal College of Art. It was there that he took part in a two-year design course and began to exhibit his works of art.

Photographic portrait of Clara, Walter Langley’s first wife, taken in the studio of Robert Preston photographer

It was also around this time that he married Clara Perkins, with whom he had four children.

Hard Times by Hurbert von Herkomer (1885)

In 1875, when his course had ended he had to decide whether to stay in London or return home. The decision was made for him as August Biermann, his former employer, offered Langley a partnership in his lithographer business and so he returned to Birmingham to resume his career as a lithographer. However, Langley did not give up his love of painting and, because he decided that he needed to make progress with his artwork, he enrolled in classes firstly at the Midland Art Guild and then at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. It was during this period that Langley became influenced by the works of Realist painters and one who had his works exhibited at the Birmingham Society was the German-born British realist painter, Hubert Von Herkomer, who took a realistic approach to the conditions of life of the poor.

Langley would have probably continued his career as a lithographer but in 1876 the demand for such items fell drastically and he soon realised that his artwork was needed to bring him a living wage. In 1877, Langley married Clara Perkins and the couple went on to have four children. In 1879 he left Biermann’s lithographer business and concentrated on his art. In his early years Walter Langley painted rural scenes close to his home in Birmingham and it was not until the summer of 1880 that he first visited Newlyn in Cornwall with his friend William Pope whilst on a sketching holiday.

In 1881 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, which is one of the oldest Art Societies in the United Kingdom. The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists played an important part in the Pre-Raphaelite movement and Sir John Everett Millais and Sir Edward Burne-Jones both served as presidents. Other eminent presidents were the painters, Lord Leighton and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

Between the Tides by Walter Langley (1901)

Whilst plying his artistic trade in Birmingham a well-known and wealthy Victorian photographer, Robert White Thrupp, approached him and offered him a commission of £500 to go to Cornwall and paint a series of twenty pictures of the local Newlyn scenes and so in 1881 Langley left his wife and family behind in Birmingham, and rented a property, Pembroke Lodge. The Penwith Local History Group wrote about Langley’s new home:

“…Pembroke Lodge was a grand house that had been home to bankers and gentry since it was built in 1791.Langley’s first year’s rent of £62 (payable in advance) gave him two parlours, two kitchens, a dairy, pantry, four good bedrooms, and a dressing room. It also had a studio in the garden. The house was a good size for Langley, his wife Clara and their four children who moved into their new home in March 1882. Clara had not long given birth to her fourth child, a son Cecil born in February that year. The other children were son Lorraine (born September 8, 1877), daughter Eleanor (born March 15, 1879) and son Gabriel (born November 21, 1881)…”

Once settled in, Langley began to paint local scenes and portraits featuring the people of Newlyn, most of which depicted the women and their role in the community. Langley could empathize with the plight of the fishermen and their families because 0f his own working-class origins in Birmingham and his socialist beliefs.

Time Moveth Not, Our Being ‘Tis That Moves, by Walter Langley (1882)

One of his first paintings he completed after his arrival at Newlyn was his 1882 watercolour work entitled Time Moveth Not, Our Being ‘Tis That Moves. It is a depiction of a local woman, believed to be Grace Kelynack. It is a portrait of great compassion and one that detects Langley’s understanding of the plight of the elderly. There is a sense of loneliness and solitude in this depiction of the woman as she ponders the hardships she has had to endure during her long life. In the painting we see her sitting at a table, with her right elbow on an open Bible. She rests her cheek on her fist as she gazes downwards, lost in her own thoughts. It was the first work that Langley exhibited in London and was widely acclaimed by both critics and the public. The watercolour painting led to Langley being elected to the prestigious Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour.

The Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach by Stanhope Forbes (1885)

Walter Langley soon became a leading figure in the Newlyn School, which was an art colony of artists based in or near Newlyn. Another of the founding members of the Newlyn School was Stanhope Forbes who arrived at the Cornish fishing village in 1884.

Amongst the Missing by Walter Langley (1884)

Like other artist colonies such as the Barbizon and Skagen Schools, as well as the artist colonies scattered along the coast of Britany, the attraction of Newlyn was its fantastic light, and mild climate which made it an ideal location for plein air painters. It also provided many opportunities to paint seascapes, and for the Realist painters, the chance to record the harsh life endured by the fishing community. Another attraction was the ability to live there cheaply and employ local people as models at much lower rates than would have been the case in big cities. This magnetic pull towards Newlyn was summed up in the Victorian writer, Mrs Lionel Birch’s 1906 book, Stanhope A. Forbes, and Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, in which she quotes Stanhope Forbes’ take on Newlyn:

“…I had come from France and, wandering down into Cornwall, came one spring morning along that dusty road by which Newlyn is approached from Penzance. Little did I think that the cluster of grey-roofed houses which I saw before me against the hillside would be my home for many years. What lode-some of artistic metal the place contains I know not; but its effects were strongly felt in the studios of Paris and Antwerp particularly, by a number of young English painters studying there, who just about then, by some common impulse, seemed drawn towards this corner of their native land… There are plenty of names amongst them which are still, and I hope will long by, associated with Newlyn, and the beauty of this fair district, which charmed us from the first, has not lost its power, and holds us still…”

Walter Langley was always an advocate of the working class and was noted for his left-wing views. Whilst a young man in Birmingham, he was influenced by the stance taken by the firebrand politician and advocate of trade unionism, Charles Bradlaugh, a radical socialist who fought for the rights of the working class. It was these strong-held beliefs of Langley that ensured he empathized with the harsh life of the Newlyn fishing folk and their families. It was through his paintings depicting their hard life and their worries that classed him as a Social Realist painter.

For Men Must Work and Women Must Weep by Walter Langley (1882)

One of his most poignant paintings is a watercolour entitled For Men Must Work and Women Must Weep which he completed in 1883 and focuses on the plight of wives and mothers who are left behind when their husbands and sons head out to sea. The title of the painting comes from a line of a poem by Charles Kinsley, The Three Fishers:

Three fishers went sailing out into the West,
Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who lov’d him the best;
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep,
Though the harbour bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the light-house tower,
And they trimm’d the lamps as the sun went down;
They look’d at the squall, and they look’d at the shower,
And the night wrack came rolling up ragged and brown!
But men must work, and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,
And the harbour bar be moaning.
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,
And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—
And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

Old fisherman at Newlyn Harbour (c.1906)

Newlyn was a mix of the good and the bad. The good was the picturesque landscape and the bad was the terrible poverty suffered by the local people who struggled to eke out a living from the fish they caught. Add to this the ferocious storms and tumultuous seas which brought death to many of the fishermen and made widows out of many of the women.

His one-year commission was completed at the end of 1885 and he moved back to Birmingham to be with his wife and children. He returned for a brief visit to Newlyn in 1886 to complete his unfinished watercolour which was shown at the Institute’s Spring Exhibition that year. In the Spring of 1887, Walter Langley, along with his family, moved permanently to Newlyn,

But O for the Touch of a Vanished Hand by Walter Langley (1888)

Another title of one of Langley’s paintings was based on a poem. His 1888 work, But O for the Touch of a Vanished Hand was a line from Tennyson’s poem Break, Break, Break which he wrote in 1835 and was about his sorrow at the death of his friend and fellow poet, Arthur Hallam, who tragically died at the age of twenty-two:

Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead,
Will never come back to me.

On his return to Newlyn with his family, he was unable to secure suitable accommodation in Newlyn and decided to live in Penzance but as his work and models lived in Newlyn he bought a small cottage in Fragdan, the old part of the coastal village, which he converted into his studio.

Cornish Light, The Nottingham 1894 Exhibition

In June 1890, he brought his family back to Newlyn, and took a two-year lease on Pembroke Lodge. When the lease expired Langley moved his family to Penzance. In 1894, along with other Newlyn artists, he exhibited his work in the exhibition Painters of the Newlyn School at Nottingham Castle. In David Tovey and Sarah Skinner’s 2015 book, Cornish Light – the Nottingham 1894 Exhibition Revisited they discuss the exhibition:

“…The 1894 Nottingham Castle exhibition of Cornish painters was, in its way, ground-breaking. It brought a burgeoning new style and range of subjects to a much wider public and fostered awareness of painters from Newlyn, St Ives and Falmouth.
Much of the work was, in typical Victorian style, both art and social commentary and much of it is romanticised – craggy-faced fishermen gaze knowingly towards the horizon and the young women working on the shore have suspiciously lustrous complexions…”

This was the high-point of the Newlyn Colony’s achievements.

Self-portrait by Walter Langley
Courtesy of Archivi Alinari, Firenze

In 1895, forty-three-year-old Langley was invited, by the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, to contribute a self-portrait to hang alongside those of Raphael, Rubens, and Rembrandt in their Medici Collection of portraits of great artists.

That same year, Langley’s wife Clara died at the young age of 45. This left Langley a widower with four children. Two years later, Langley married his second wife Ethel Pengelly in St Johns Parish Church Penzance on June 24th, 1897. The couple went on to have one child. During 1904 and 1905, Langley made visits to Holland and a trip to Belgium in 1906.

Walter Langley died in Penzance on March 22, 1922, a couple of months before what would have been his seventieth birthday. Today his work is described as being fundamental to the representation of the Newlyn School and he was, together with Stanhope Forbes, the most unswerving in style and his large output of works depicting life around Newlyn.

Besides the normal internet sources I gained a lot of information from the websites of the Penlee House Museum and the Penwith Local History Group.

The Rain It Raineth Every Day by Norman Garstin

Norman_Garstin_-_It_Raineth_Every_Day_1889 — The Rain It Raineth Every Day by Norman Garstin (1889)

Most of you, who have read my blogs, may know by now that I took early retirement and am now running a small Bed & Breakfast establishment in a Welsh coastal town. I pride myself in trying to give my guests the best stay they could ask for and each morning cook them the best breakfast possible and I am pleased to say my small establishment has received top ratings on a certain website. The people that stay with my wife and I are from all over the world, some coming from hot climates. Sadly, the only thing I cannot guarantee my visitors is the weather. My breakfast room is in the conservatory and when the heavens open, I try and convince my diners that the sound of rain on the conservatory roof is actually worse than the conditions outside. I am not sure whether I am believed! I actually feel guilty about the weather they have to sometimes endure! So why do I mention this? It is certainly not an advert for my B&B but merely a lead in to today’s featured painting which highlights the worst of the British weather. My Daily Art Display’s featured painting today is entitled The Rain it Raineth Every Day and it was completed by the Irish artist and writer Norman Garstin in 1889.

Norman Garstin was born in Cahirconlish, in County Limerick, Southern Ireland in 1847. His mother was Irish and his father was of Anglo-Irish descent and he was their only child. He displayed no early interest in art and on leaving school attended the Engineering College of Cork and it was during that time when he was studying to become an engineer and draughtsman that it became apparent that he had a great aptitude for drawing. Because of this palpable talent for drawing, he moved to London to study architecture. It was whilst living in the capital that he heard and read about the money that was to be made in the South African diamond fields. The lure of a possible fortune to be made was too much for him to ignore and so in 1872 he journeyed to South Africa and the diamond field centre, Kimberley, in order to make his fortune. He remained there for four years and for some time shared a tent with Cecil Rhodes, the English-born South African who was to become the founder of the diamond company De Beers and the founder of the state of Rhodesia, which was named after him.

Garstin did not make his fortune digging for diamonds and after four years he moved to Cape Town where with Frederick York St Leger, an Anglican clergyman and a fellow Limerick man he helped to edit the Cape Times newspaper. He returned to Ireland but after a bad riding accident, in which he lost the sight of his right eye, Garstin made another career change and turned his attention to art. He travelled to Antwerp in 1878 where he studied at the Koninklijke Academie, which had been founded two hundred years earlier by David Teniers the Younger. It was here that Garstin studied under the Belgian painter, Charles Verlat. From Antwerp he went to live in Paris in 1871, where he remained for three years studying at the studio of Carolus-Duran, the French painter and art teacher. Whilst in Paris he made many friends in the artistic community, two of whom, Degas and Manet, were artists he looked upon as the greatest painters of their time. After Paris, and influenced by the French naturalist painter, Garstin Jules Bastien-Lepage, Garstin travelled to Britanny to paint, which was a favoured place for naturalist painters at that time. Later he travelled around the south of France, Spain, and Tangiers. In 1885 he was in Italy and in Venice and it was during his European travels that he made friends with many artists who would later form part of the artist colony at Newlyn, which was to be his next port of call.

Garstin moved to Cornwall in 1886 and became one of the early members of the Newlyn School, an art colony situated in and around the small Cornish fishing village of Newlyn, which was situated close to the town of Penzance. This newly found artist community was similar in nature to the Barbizon School on the outskirts of Paris, near the Fontainebleau Forest, which was established in the 1830’s. In both cases the lure to these places was the fantastic natural light and the opportunity to paint outside, en plein air. This opportunity to paint outside instead of in a studio was helped with the innovation of tubes of paint and the invention of the box easel with its built-in paint box, which made it much easier for artists to trek around the undulating countryside. For Garstin, the fishing port of Newlyn had other things going for it as well. It was cheap to live there and artists’ models were easy to come by and inexpensive. The Newlyn School artists found the everyday life in the harbour and the nearby villages were ideal subjects for their paintings and their works often brought home the harsh conditions experienced by the fishing fraternity and the hazards and tragedies which were often associated with that profession.

It was also in 1886 that Garstin married. The couple had two sons, one of whom was killed in the war and the other went on to be a respected writer. In 1894, his wife, who was also a painter, gave birth to their daughter Alethea. Garstin dedicated much time in teaching art to his daughter and she blossomed under his tutelage. She was the youngest woman to have a painting accepted by the Royal Academy and went on to become a great en plein air artist in her own right and was once called “England’s leading Impressionist”.

Norman Garstin stayed in Newlyn for four years before moving to Wellington Terrace, Penzance in 1890. He was not a prolific artist and so was not always able to support himself financially from the sale of his paintings. For that reason he had to supplement his income by writing, teaching and giving lectures. From 1899 onwards he would organize artist summer schools and led summer trips to the Continent for his students. Garstin died in Penzance in 1926, shortly before his seventy-ninth birthday.

Today’s featured work by Garstin The Rain it Raineth Every Day derives its title from two of Shakespeare’s plays, Twelfth Night and King Lear. In Act V, Scene I of Twelfth Night there is a soliloquy by the clown as he sings a song, the last line of each verse ends with the title of today’s painting:

When that I was a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.

But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.

A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.

The painting depicts the promenade between Newlyn and Penzance on a windswept and rainy day, just like it is now, as I look out my window. It was painted in 1899 and Garstin, with his hopes high, submitted it to the Royal Academy for inclusion in that year’s exhibition but the jury rejected it. It is such a realistic painting that one can almost feel the sea spay on one’s face as one gazes at the painting. The way Garstin has painted the scene is thought to have been influenced by works of Whistler, one of Garstin’s favourite painters. On the left we see the Queens Hotel and further to the right we can just make out the parish church which lies behind a row of terraced houses.

The painting presently hangs in the Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Penzance. Of all Garstin’s works, this is the one he is remembered for.

So has the setting changed much since the time of Garstin? I have to admit I have never been to Penzance but my thanks to Jane on whose website entitled Fleur Fisher in her World, I found this picture of the present day promenade

(http://fleurfisher.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/norman-garstin-irishman-and-newlyn-artist-by-richard-pryke/

The Health of the Bride by Stanhope Alexander Forbes

N01544_9 — The Health of the Bride by Stanhope Alexander Forbes (1889)

My Daily Art Display today features Stanhope Alexander Forbes, an artist of the Newlyn School. The term “Newlyn School” refers to the artist colony located in and around the fishing village of Newlyn, in Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early 20th century, which specialized in landscape painting. Like the Continental artist colonies of the Barbizon School near Paris, and Pont-Aven in Brittany, artists gathered in Newlyn to paint landscape scenes in a purer setting, with strong natural light. Newlyn’s plein air painting followed the Impressionist doctrine of naturalism, which is a true-to-life style which involves the representation or depiction of nature with the least possible distortion or interpretation. The artists of the Newlyn School would work directly in nature, using subject matter drawn from rural working life, especially that of the fishermen. Newlyn provided the perfect setting for artists with the long hours of strong natural light, a climate which was much milder than the rest of the country and the seaside town was surrounded by coastal and inland areas of natural beauty. For the impoverished artist, Newlyn was, in those days, a cheap place to live and following new rail connections between Cornwall and London it proved very accessible.

Forbes was born in Dublin in 1857. His father worked as a railway manager and his mother, Juliette, was French. His uncle, James Staats Forbes, was a noted art collector who also worked for the railways. The family often used to make trips to France and it was whilst on vacation there that young Stanhope developed an interest in art. The family moved from Ireland to London when his father was transferred and it was at this time that Stanhope attended Dulwich College and later became a student at the Royal Academy Schools where he staged his first exhibition in 1878. Two years later he and his friend and fellow artist he had met at Dulwich College, Henry La Thangue, went to Paris where they studied art under the French painter, Léon Bonnat. In 1881, having become familiar with the plein air paintings of the French naturalist painter Jules Bastien-Lepage, he decided to travel to Brittany, staying at Cancale where he painted A Street in Brittany. This painting met with great acclaim when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1882 and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, purchased it that same year. Forbes was greatly encouraged and he described the success of the painting as a turning point in his career. He once again returned to Brittany in 1883 staying this time at Quimperlé. He visited Pont-Aven in October and met many fellow artists there.

In 1884 he arrived in Newlyn and soon became a leading figure in the growing colony of artists. His national reputation was established with the acceptance of his A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach which he painted in 1885 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London. In 1889 he painted The Health of the Bride which is today’s featured work. It was with the money he received from the sale of this painting to Henry Tate, the wealthy English sugar merchant and philanthropist that enabled him to marry Elizabeth Adela Armstrong, a fellow artist who had moved to Newlyn in 1885. Canadian-born, she was one of the leading women artists of her day. In 1886 Forbes became a founding member of the New English Art Club

Ten years later in 1899, as the number of artists in Newlyn dwindled, Stanhope and his wife Elizabeth founded their own Newlyn School of Painting. Her marriage to Stanhope Forbes was a partnership of equals, and their School of Painting was very much a joint enterprise. In 1910 he was elected to the Royal Academy. His wife Elizabeth died of cancer in 1912 and three years later in 1915 Stanhope Forbes remarried, this time to Maudie Palmer, a former pupil of the school and close friend of the family. Sadly, in August 1916, his son Alec died, killed fighting in the front line in France.

Stanhope Forbes died in Newlyn in 1947, a few months short of his 90^th birthday. In 2000, some fifty years after he died, his painting The Seine Boat which he completed in 1904, sold for £1.2 million and was a world record price for one of his works.

Today’s painting entitled The Health of the Bride was completed by Forbes in 1889, the year of his own marriage. According to Cook, Hardie & Payne’s book on Forbes, entitled Singing from the Walls, Life & Works of EA Forbes, Forbes wrote about his painting to Sir Henry Tate the purchaser of the work. In the letter he wrote:

“…I myself will be rather occupied down here – no less a matter than my own wedding. It was inevitable after painting this picture…”

As to why Forbes should prefer such an indoor subject we need to go to Caroline Fox’s book Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School in which she quotes the comments of the artist about the reason behind the painting:

“…Standing in one of these inn parlours I had first thought of a painting of an anglers’ meeting – you will notice one or two cases of fish on the wall – but it occurred to me that a wedding party could be much more picturesquely grouped, even though one had to paint them in the smarter, more conventional Sunday clothes…”

In his painting we have members of different generations of a family seated around a table in an inn for a wedding breakfast. Standing up, to the right, is a sailor, toasting the bride who avoids his gaze and the gazes of the other celebrants. She just shyly looks down at her bouquet. The painting is lit from different angles. Although this is not an open air scene which was the norm for the Newlyn School of Painters, Forbes has stuck closely to their modus operandi. The sitters are locals and not professional models and the setting for the scene is a recognisable place – in this case the local inn at Newlyn. The local fishing industry which played a big part in Newlyn life is not forgotten as in the picture, on the rear wall of the inn, we can see a painting of a ship and if we look through the window of the pub we can just make out the mast and rigging of a ship.

The painting was bought by Sir Henry Tate for £600 and it became part of a collection which the philanthropist gave to the nation when the Tate Gallery was founded in 1897. The painting was well received and was highly praised when exhibited at the 1899 Royal Academy. It now hangs in the Tate Britain in London.