Pat Kemsley’s Favourite Painting

Two Women in the Garden by Eric Ravilious. 1933

Like most of you I have many Artists and Paintings which I admire but Eric Ravilious’ work is a great favourite and this particular water colour is so interesting.

I know the Fry Gallery in well and it is there I have seen so much of his work. He was born in in 1903 but spent much of his early life in , going to school and the Art College there and later to the in London. This painting is in the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne. He met at the RCA and together they rented Brick House at Great Bardfield for weekend painting in Essex and later they moved there when Edward’s father bought the house on his marriage to Charlotte. Eric was now married to Tirzah and this house became a haven for their many artist friends.

The two wives are shown in the painting, one is reading and the other preparing vegetables from what looks like a very extensive kitchen garden. One can’t help feeling that they were a little fed up with each other or bored while sitting for Eric’s painting. Although this painting was probably done very quickly, there is such a lot of detail and I like I like the way the umbrella is just chucked down on the grass.

In his short life, he was the most prolific artist, producing a mass of water colours, in Essex, the ancient Downland of and Wiltshire and his time as a . His style is quite unique and very recognisable. At his two exhibitions at the Zwemmer Gallery in the thirties, he sold two thirds of his exhibits, so he was recognised early in his career. At the RCA, he had studied under Paul Nash and learned wood-engraving, becoming very skilled and engraved more than 400 illustrations and lithographs for books and publications. He also did designs for China sets and Commemorative mugs. But for me, his water colours are almost all so unusual and captivating, and the one I’ve chosen is one of the best.

Pat Kemsley. May, 2020

Joan Miller’s Favourite Painting

I definitely can’t tell you which is my favourite painting, because as soon as I think of one, I think of many others. It’s mostly likely to be impressionist, perhaps a Van Gogh, but there again it might be a Dutch landscape or a Hockney. It depends on my mood. So I thought I’d bend the rules of this exercise and introduce you instead to a picture with which I identify perhaps the most.

Lowry is a marmite artist, you might love him or hate him, and over the years art critics have done both. I would say I like him rather than love him, but at the same time I feel a connection to him. He paints the scenery and the scenes I knew growing up in Manchester. My father was born in a terraced houses like those in the middle of the picture and he went to work in one of those factories with the tall smoking chimneys. He started at age 14 as an office boy in F W Smiths copper wire drawing works, a highly industrialised place with large furnaces and chimneys down by the Manchester ship canal. They used to unload the raw copper straight into the furnaces where they melted the copper before drawing it into fine copper wire that was used in all the new electrical equipment of the 1900s onwards. My Dad loved his job and hearing him talk about the process and all the improvements they made was the nearest he came to poetry.

But there was a downside and that was the pollution. This picture by Lowry, The Canal Bridge was painted in 1949, when my Dad had risen to be operations manager and just about the time I was born. The filthy smoke from the chimneys hung in a blanket over the whole of Manchester and used to leave its mark In smuts on the washing my Mum hung out in our garden. I remember going to my grandparents on the edge of the Peak District in the school holidays and thinking I’d come a long way because I couldn’t see the city any more. I only discovered on a recent return visit that I couldn’t see Manchester because it was hidden in the smog. Nowadays, with the clean air acts, from my grandparents house you can see the sprawl of the city spread out before you, but then it was completely invisible. Lowry’s paintings show clearly and plainly how the smoke killed the skies. F W Smiths bought this painting and hung it in their head offices in Queen Anne’s Gate, London. It showed the source of their riches magnificently in the days before we began to worry about the green environment. It was there in the early 1960s, when my Dad became Managing Director of F W Smiths, that I saw the painting. It hung in a wood panelled boardroom with grand mahogany board table and chairs. The picture had come, like my Dad, a long way from it’s origins!

Lowry was a debt collector all his working life, working in the day time and painting by night. He went to art school in the evenings and was impressed by the impressionist school but came upon his own distinctive style. Some people think of him as a loner and a recluse, the people in the paintings showing no sign of connections or emotions. Judged in modern times, his factories loom like great monsters sucking in the souls of his stick men and depersonalising them. But I read this about Lowry and how he came to paint his unique pictures:

“There is a story L.S. Lowry used to tell about how he came to paint the industrial north of , which is redolent with the prosaic mystique he mischievously promoted about himself. It was on a grey day in 1916, having missed his train to Manchester, that he walked up the steps of Pendlebury station to be confronted by Acme Mill — ‘a great square red block with the cottages running in rows right up to it — and suddenly I knew what to paint’.

What he saw was a landscape of factories, red-brick terrace houses and workers going about their days against creamy skies heavy with pollution. Seated on a campstool, hat pushed firmly down and his mackintosh buttoned up tight against the Lancashire chill, he sketched out this pedestrian world in a style so singular that he became known as ‘the matchstick man’ — and the unofficial artist of

England’s northern working-class.”

It made sense to me. Lowry was a product of his background, a proud hardworking man, at the centre of England’s industrial powerhouse. He painted the factories where the people were churning out the pollution that helped to make the rest of the country rich. Lowry depicted what he saw, the industrious pride and sense of purpose in production that made up the everyday life of the Mancunian. He painted in a non sentimental nor judgemental way. He saw the strength of purpose, perhaps a pride in just managing to make a living each day and the grit to just keep going. He painted the life that most Mancunians of that day knew very well indeed. That at least is what I see in his pictures.

Joan

Lucy Marshall’s Favourite Painting

I first saw this painting, Landscape and the Fall of Icarus, to give it its full title, long thought to be by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels when I was living in Belgium and studying with the Open University. Brueghel has always been one of my favourite artists and this caught my attention because it was different from his other paintings in that it’s the only one in which he chose to portray a classical rather than a religious subject or genre scene. Most of us are more familiar with works such as his Massacre of the Innocents or Hunters in the Snow. This painting intrigued me because, were it not for the title, I probably would not have recognised it as a retelling of the story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses about Icarus, who is so exhilarated by his newly acquired ability to soar through the air on wings attached with beeswax that he ignores his father’s warning about flying too close to the sun. Once I looked at the picture more closely, I saw the pair of legs waving in the air in the bottom right hand corner; the rest of Icarus is submerged beneath the waves. Not only that, but the other figures in the painting appear to have noticed nothing out of the ordinary to marvel at in the shape of a young man plummeting from the sky and falling into the sea, so engrossed are they in their various rural pursuits: the farmer concentrates on following his horse-drawn plough, the shepherd with his dog further down the vertiginous hillside stands in the midst of his flock with his back to the scene, gazing up at the sky – more about that later – and the angler by the water’s edge may be fishing, or pointing at something, but it definitely isn’t at the drowning boy. The suggestion seems to be that ordinary life goes on, regardless of any momentous happenings taking place and is reminiscent of a traditional Flemish proverb warning against excessive ambition. Of course, Breughel is now known to have been a subversive painter. He lived in dangerous times and chose carefully how he depicted much of his subject-matter. It’s believed by some experts, for example, that The Massacre of the Innocents was most likely intended to tell a somewhat different story under the guise of the biblical one, and that it really relates to the Spanish terrorisation at that time of the Dutch people in their own, occupied country. Subversion of the implied moral in The Fall of Icarus lies in the way Breughel foregrounds the humbler characters, content to fulfil their useful agricultural roles, as opposed to the supposed title subject, Icarus far below, victim of his own hubris and ridiculed here by the artist. Brueghel doesn’t see him as someone seeking to expand the human horizon, giving prominence to what was considered ‘low’ subject-matter, as opposed to ‘high’ in the form of Icarus, a feature found in Northern Mannerist art known as ‘Mannerist inversion’. Another thing that struck me at the time was the way Breughel places the spectator’s viewpoint higher than the scene depicted below, to cover not just the figures, but the wide expanse of the bay with ships sailing across it, the distant mountains and the port - albeit that the perspective isn’t entirely correct - to better express the depths to which Icarus has fallen, both physically and morally. Others, too, have been impressed by this picture, including film-makers; but I’m thinking, in particular, of WH Auden and his poem named Musee des Beaux-Arts, after the museum where it hangs and which was, by coincidence, partly quoted in the programme in the ‘Museums in Quarantine’ series about Tate Britain on Thursday night. It starts with the lines: ‘About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters; how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating, or opening a window, or just walking dully along…’ and in the second verse it continues by naming and describing Breughel’s Fall of Icarus. In 1996, however, following doubts raised for various reasons about the attribution of the painting, including the singularity of the subject compared with the artist’s other works on wood, the fact that it was painted in oils on canvas rather than Breughel’s preferred medium, egg tempera and the perceived weaker quality of the painting, (though over-painting has contributed to this), technical examinations were carried out and it’s now generally seen as an good, early copy from around 1560 of a lost Breughel original that was probably painted in 1558 and which may have shown the additional figure of Daedalus in the sky and missing from the copy, but may have been the reason for the shepherd shown gazing heavenwards. It may also account for the fact that the sun is setting on the horizon, which doesn’t quite fit the image of Icarus soaring ever higher towards it and to his inevitable fate. No matter any of this controversy, for me the painting will always remain a firm favourite.

Linda Bestow’s Favourite Painting

This piece isn’t going to be as well written or academic as the lovely one from Lucy but here it is. Well those of you that know me might find this quite a surprising choice knowing my tastes in art. What would she choose, something from the Pre Raphaelites maybe? Perhaps The Awakening by William Holman Hunt which some of you saw me effusing over at the recent Sisters show. Or will she go back to The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck? or perhaps her love of watercolours will prevail and she will choose something form the Norwich school? Cotman? Middleton? or something more local? with her love of horses in mind Munnings? No none of that, something from a surrealist artist but not really a typical surrealist painting. My choice is Christ of St John of The Cross by Salvador Dali. It’s a very personal storey of why - the beginning of my journey in art appreciation. It would be about 1972 and I took my husband Simon and the two boys up to to meet my Scottish family. We went for a day out in Glasgow to show them where I used to work and live - lock the doors going through the Gorbals – still children playing is street without shoes… laugh at the No spitting signs on the underground and as it was near the hotel I stayed in when I first arrived there a visit to the Kelvingrove Museum up the stairs and there it was…. The most magical thing I had ever seen in my life It’s quite large at 205x115cm and is hung when residing there – (often out on loan should have been in Madrid at present) so that you get the full 3d effect of the body of Christ hanging off the cross floating in the sky above the water. Face not seen as who knows what Christ looked like, dramatic black sky with restrained supporting colour palette and wonderful use of the lighting. I was hooked! I had never really thought much about art before (I was really really hopeless in art classes at school) and my introduction was not good. A copy of Botticelli’s Venus hung outside the headmistress’s room so bad vibes of waiting there! I bought a copy, hung it in an Athena art clip frame (remember those!) and wanted to know more about who had painted it. Got quite a shock when I saw some of his other work but became an instant fan. I was lucky enough to see a major exhibition of his work at Tate Britain in 1980 which did include this painting and some earlier and later ones also showing floating figures. (Still have catalogue, most pictures reproduced in black and white and way more expensive proportionally than a full catalogue today). After that when ever in London for business or pleasure would always look out for what was on and my journey had begun. So there you have it - my favourite painting.

Anne Manuel’s favouite painting

I first saw this painting in Room 41 of the National Gallery when visiting another exhibition on a cold day with the Art Lovers Group.

We had some time to spare before our allotted slot and wandered aimlessly from room to room. The other paintings in Room 41 were mostly by Renoir and Monet – many old favourites – but this one stood out. So bleak, so still, so detailed but ordinary. Perfectly in tune with the chill outside.

Born in 1854, in the village of Ring, in Southern Zealand, Denmark (from where he took his name), Laurits Road in the Village of Baldersbronde Andersen Ring trained at the Royal (Winter Day) Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Painted in 1912 by Laurits Andersen Ring Copenhagen.

After travels abroad, including a two-year stay in Italy, he returned to Denmark. There his art, both landscape and figure painting, increasingly addressed themes of peasant and traditional rural activities at a moment when this way of life was beginning to fade away.

In 1907 his paintings were shown for the first time in London in an exhibition of Danish art held at the Guildhall Art Gallery. An austere, almost monochromatic winter scene, Road in the Village of Baldersbrønde (Winter Day), was completed just in time to be sent to New York in 1912, to be included in an exhibition of contemporary Scandinavian art which toured America that year and the next, and proved hugely influential.

Laurits Andersen Ring died in 1933, aged 79, in Roskilde, west of Copenhagen.

At £20 for a print I think I will treat myself to one.

A Favourite Painting

As so many contributors to this series have already said, it is impossible for me to choose my favourite painting because I enjoy so many different types of art. However, Lucy has suggested we could highlight something we have seen on an Art Lovers visit, so here goes!

In November 2017 we went to the National Gallery to see Reflections – Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites, an exhibition exploring this relationship and the mesmerising influence that the convex mirror in the famous Arnolfini portrait exercised on two generations of British painters.

I have chosen a painting which was unknown to me at the time. The artist is Sidney Meteyard (1868-1947) and he was one of the Birmingham Group of artists who worked in a Pre-Raphaelite manner that was strongly influenced by Burne-Jones and the Arts and Crafts movement. The title of the work is ‘I am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott’.

Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ is a favourite of mine, and many Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by it. The scene Meteyard depicts shows the Lady, weary of the sight of happy lovers cast by the magic mirror, closing her eyes to its tantalising reflections. I love the mixture of different blues in the painting, particularly the vibrant blue of her gown (which is even more striking in the original). It is suggested that this rich colour may reflect Meteyard’s experience of working in stained glass and enamel. Incidentally the model is his wife, Kate Eadie, who was a jeweller and craftswoman in her own right.

And a final wicked thought – I thought this picture of isolation was appropriate at present.

Dianne (with thanks to the NG Exhibition catalogue)

It is difficult to single out favourite paintings, but we have a favourite time which is the last part of the nineteenth century. With the rapid deployment of the railways, steamships, and the telegraph, the world had become "modern" and so art was new and dynamic.

Below are (a) Glasgow Boy, James Guthrie's "To Pastures New", and (b) Charles Rennie Mackintosh "Harvest Moon".

Marian and Edward Jones

Rain, Steam and Speed

J.M.W.Turner 1844

The greatest British painter

Possibly…

There is plenty to read about Turner and his strange (eccentric) life in London is well documented. The 2014 film “Mr Turner” starring Timothy Spall, was widely acclaimed and is well worth watching if you haven’t already. Turner’s legacy is vast and profound. His genius was spotted early on and he enrolled at the RA aged 14. When he died aged 76, over 500 oil paintings, 2000 watercolours 30,000 sketches had been catalogued.

His work “Fighting Temeraire” was voted the greatest British painting of all time. And although Monet is often referenced as the Father of Impressionism, surely that title belongs to Turner, whose works had been studied by the early Impressionists. Take a look at Monet’s “Sunrise” painted in 1874. It’s a Turner really! Painted thirty-five years later.

Way back, at the age of 14, students were obliged to make choices about which “O” level subjects to take forward to examination. Geography, taught by a humourless Scotsman without a dram of empathy, or art. No brainer. Our senior art teacher was every inch an artist and Francophile, so keen for his classes to take a closer look at Monet and his colleagues. I spent many happy hours putting dots onto paper after the pointillist Georges Seurat. Sunday on La Grande Jatte never to be forgotten. Somehow, though, the Impressionists had become produces of Chocolate Box material. There were few opportunities to travel to London to explore wider perspectives!

Mr W., the other teacher (younger upstart) was much further out and beyond Monet. He was a ceramics specialist, but very capable of teaching the formalities. He opened a coffee table sized book at the page showing “Rain, Steam & Speed”. No real shape to focus on… just rain, steam and speed, emerging from Chaos (or heading towards Chaos). A bright new future for humanity? Certainly, a very new way of using paint for those gathered around the book. An interesting exercise is to switch between Monet’s works of trains and stations and then back to those by Turner.

Did Turner ever meet Brunel?

Graham Manuel