TWO STANLEY SPENCER LETTERS FROM SALONIKA

D. P. WALEY

THE most memorable experience which twentieth-century British painting can provide is a visit to Stanley Spencer's masterpiece, the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere, Hampshire. An inscription in the chapel explains that the paintings 'are the fulfilment of a design which he conceived whilst on active service' and these scenes of Spencer's wartime life, painted a decade after the end of the First World War, could well be used to illustrate the phrase 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'. This is particularly true of the Salonika panels portraying life in camp and the trenches, of 'Map reading' and the extraordinary painting on the end wall, 'Resurrection of the Soldiers'. The recipients of the two letters^ published here were Jacques and his wife Gwen Raverat, both painters who had known Spencer ('', as he was known to all his friends, from his much-loved place of origin) since his days at the Slade School. The Raverats sent on copies of the letters to Gwen's cousin Frances Cornford and these copies provide the text printed below. Few of Spencer's letters from his period of service at the Salonika front have been published (a few written to his sister, Mrs. Image, are quoted in Maurice Collis's biography),^ but a project is now in hand for an edition of Spencer's letters under the editorship of Mr. . The letters require few explanatory notes, but it may be worth adding that the hymn misquoted here is not by William Cowper but by Reginald Heber and that the lines in question run: From Greenland's icy mountains From India's coral strand. 'Chute' is Desmond Chute who befriended Spencer during his Royal Army Medical Corps service at the Beauford War Hospital, Bristol, and with whom he remained on friendly terms after the war.^ 'GiV is Spencer's younger brother, Gilbert (born 1893). 'Patacakes' and 'Nice' (not 'niece'!) biscuits are both sugary, sweet biscuits.

THE LETTERS The weather is simply wonderful here. We only had a little snow in February and there were hot days then and from March until now it has been practically all sunshine. Great storm clouds are nearly always on the mountains, but they seem to hang there all day and cast great shadows from the side of the mountain, and where there is one big flat cloud which puts the whole range in shadow it is like a cave. But oh, I long for the sea. I feel when I am inland a good way as if 167 I cannot breathe. This feeling I have had since my journey out here. I would just like to be one of those little boys who do all sorts of odd jobs. I loved it when the ship suddenly stops or the siren goes deep and long, and the flag flaps about the masts. The whole world seems to be 'held up\ The words in Cowper's hymn 'on Africks Coral strand' have always given Gil and I a very 'foreign feeling' - and Africa is - Oh I dont know what it is, but it moves me. I could live for ever leaning over the side of the ship and looking down to its shores. I like the photograph very much. I should like to hear from you again Jacques. Love to you both from Cookham. Desmond Chute read me from the Greek six books of Homer's Oddysey, and I forget how much of the Iliad. He also read some of the grandest parts in Greek to give me an idea of what it sounded like, and it sounded like the sea. Sunday May 13, IQ17 Salonica Forces. ('not dated. April or May 1917. Salonica.')'' Dear Jaques and Gwen. I could not have vi^ished for any book nearer to my thoughts than a book of Claude. I saw the book at a Mrs. Daniells of Clifton and I have had times of longing to see that book again. I think that Claude is the medecine that I most need. I believe that when I get paints I shall do some landscapes. Gil when he is vfith me and since I have been in the army looks at me in such a vv'orried way as he looks at a burden, and I am sure there is no need as I am quite happy. And although I am not actually putting things on canvas or paper, I am still 'making, praising and giving thanks' more than ever I was before. Everything I do for anyone is as ointment poured forth and it is an exercise creating joy, which is eternal; and it is the army has caused me to learn that by being happy in the present state I am satisfied. But what is wonderful is that hy praying for the power to love purely or absolutely you get that power. I feel ashamed of what I would do when I first came out here, compared with what I would do now. The army ought to make any man an artist, because it ought to give any man these feelings which I have just expressed and which are essential to an artist. But I do wish I had my paints out here. The pearly sky at sunrise (in winter) tbe deep blue sea, and the shadows of big ships along the surface, and the bronze hills beyond. The regular ridges of foam all gleaming in the sun like a Claude. Before I got your book of Claude I said in a letter to Chute how this Gulf of Salonique reminded me of Claude and that was only a fortnight ago. It reminds me of 'The Jew of Malta'. Do you remember how he could see the ships, his ships, coming into the bay, coming in, and going out from the window of his room. I would love to have Marlowe's plays. Edward II is great and Tamburlane; oh yes I should like to read them all over again. Could you send me some sweet biscuits Patacakes or niece biscuits but not ginger nuts or ginger of any kind. That Claude book is an extraordinary comfort out here. Love from Cookham.

I British Library, Add. MS. 58399 (not yet foliated). 2 M. Collis, Stanley Spencer (London, 1962), The letters are among the Darwin and Cornford pp. 52-62. Papers presented in 1973 by the children of Pro- 3 Ibid., pp. 49-50, 67-8. fessor and Mrs. F. M. Cornford. I am grateful to 4 This note concerning the date is written on the Miss Unity Spencer for granting permission to letter. The letters were sent in an envelope marked publish the letters and to Mr. Richard Carline for 'Letters from Cookham'. encouraging me to proceed to publication. 168