Two British art galleries have just held special exhibitions that a] examined the nation’s response to tough financial times and b] went some way to display the spiritual quality of landscapes.
Sir Alfred Munnings, The Caravan, 1910, Art Museum at Castle House Dedham
As Richard Moss noted, Cornwall’s pleasant climate offered the chance to capture the local landscape in impressionist paintings which relished bold colour and highly visible brushstrokes, both before and after WW1. The artists were soon producing boat and harbour scenes around Falmouth Bay, a place that captured the frailty of the English sun and the way it played upon the sea.
Together with scenes of pastoral and coastal harmony, the everyday figurative elements of Cornish Impressionism were shown in works such as The Caravan by Alfred Munnings c1910 and Abbey Slip by Stanhope Forbes 1921. Hazy, romantic and harmonious – with hindsight, interesting responses to a time of rapid social change and war.
Stanhope Forbes, Abbey Slip, 1921. Penlee House Gallery & Museum
The exhibition told the story of what would become a turning point in the history of Modern British Art. Again with hindsight, the inter-war era was a period defined by the devastating experience of two world wars, an era that saw fundamental changes in British society. During the mass upheavals, Britain became a destination for displaced people from across Europe. This migration brought foreign artists from across the continent and with them, an influx of new and influential ideas.
Exploring the impact of this remarkable cultural exchange, Restless Times considered how artists sought to redefine the changing face of the nation - from the horrific impact of war and a retreat from the harsh realities of life, to the celebration of the pastoral idyll and the embracing of new ideas and technologies. The exhibition examined how artists engaged with both the uncertainties and possibilities of the time, especially Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Barbara Hepworth, Cyril Power, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Christopher Nevinson, Vanessa Bell and Henry Moore.
Following my previous post on Inter-war landscapes in general and the South Downs in particular, I was delighted to see The Cornfield painted by John Nash in 1918. The Tate said that The Cornfield was the first painting he made after WWW1 which did not depict the subject of war.
John Nash, The Cornfield 1918, 94 x 101cm, Tate (Country Life 23/3/2011).
In its ordered view of the landscape and geometric treatment of the corn stooks, The Cornfield prefigured his brother Paul's landscapes. As That’s How The Light Gets In explained, John and his brother Paul used to paint for their own pleasure only after 6 PM, when their work as war artists was over for the day. Hence the long shadows cast by the evening sun across the field in the centre of the painting. It is difficult for me to remember that The Cornfield was painted as early as 1918 – a full decade or more before by South Downs landscape artists were painting in a similar style.
George Henry, Hikers at Goodwood Downs, 1930s, Graves Gallery Sheffield
Hikers at Goodwood Downs, by George Henry (1858-1943), dated from the 1930s and showed ramblers enjoying Goodwood Downs in West Sussex. Rambling was a fashionable pastime during the 1930s, particularly amongst the working classes, since the activity was both free and health-giving. At weekends hundreds of walkers would leave the city to explore their rural surroundings. The Restless Times exhibition was showing that art and social history were almost indistinguishable.
James Russell's book, published 2011
Readers might like to locate the book Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings 2011. Written by James Russell and published by The Mainstone Press, the book celebrated and commemorated the wartime career of Eric Ravilious, until he tragically died in 1942. The images created a vivid portrait of life in the wartime Britain, including coastal defences, observation posts and rolling countryside filled with the detritus of war.
