Frank Brangwyn’s ‘tragically impressive’ Street near Taormina Rebecca L. Edwards

British artist Frank Brangwyn Street near Taormina is a typical Albert Hall, attended by King (1867–1956) is represented in the example of Brangwyn’s etching style, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.10 Baillieu Library Print Collection by with heavily bitten lines and liberal Brangwyn travelled to Taormina, three etchings: The swineherd,1 Mostar 2 inking, trademarks of his dramatic approximately 50 kilometres away and Street near Taormina (illustrated mode of expression. Produced as part from the most severely earthquake- opposite). Upon initial viewing, the of a series, the etching records the affected areas, in 1909 and 1910, unassuming, small-scale and apparently aftermath of a major earthquake that the years immediately following the picturesque depiction of the exotic devastated part of the Italian coast on event.11 His purpose was to visit his street scene in Street near Taormina 28 December 1908. It occurred in the friend and patron Robert Kitson, does not seem to reflect the ‘inimitable Messina Straits, the narrow passage who commissioned the artist to sense of grandeur’ associated with between the eastern tip of Sicily design and produce the interior this artist.3 Yet an exploration beyond and the southern tip of Calabria. decorations for the dining room the scale and superficial effects of the The towns of Messina and Reggio of his Italian villa, Casa Cuseni. etching reveals the tragic realities of Calabria, located on opposite sides of British-born Kitson was also an artist the subject, and a more thoughtful the strait and only 50 kilometres from and had studied under Brangwyn at consideration of man’s relationship Taormina, were almost completely the London School of Art. The pair with nature. destroyed. The violent earthquake was remained close friends throughout Already a successful painter, said to have been felt up to their lives and Brangwyn went on Brangwyn began etching just before 400 kilometres away and in the days to design furniture for Kitson’s the turn of the 20th century, a time following the initial shock the region Italian villa.12 when there was a resurgence of was ravaged by fires.6 Reportedly, During his stay, Brangwyn and interest in the medium.4 Although waves up to 12 metres in height Kitson undertook numerous artistic printmaking had previously inundated the coastal towns.7 excursions together throughout the been regarded as mechanical and Although the exact numbers were surrounding region, recording the reproductive, a new emphasis on never accurately recorded, at least destructive wake of the earthquake in originality and on etchings produced 80,000 people died and the combined sketches, watercolours and ultimately by artists from life or developed from casualties from Messina and Reggio etchings.13 The eventual set included original sketches meant that these Calabria alone numbered more than seven works illustrating the near- works were becoming highly valued. 100,000, making the disaster the demolished town of Messina, and Contrary to the orthodoxy established deadliest earthquake Europe had two depicting sites in and around by earlier printmakers, Brangwyn ever experienced.8 The scale of the Taormina. The Baillieu Library’s pushed conventional etching tragedy struck a chord throughout Street near Taormina was etched on techniques to the limit, working on Europe and Britain.9 Within months the spot in Letojanni, a town less ‘offensive’ large scale, deeply incising several funds and charities had been than ten kilometres from Taormina.14 his lines and aggressively over-biting established to aid those affected, Following Brangwyn’s return his plates with acid.5 including a relief concert at Royal to England, the Messina set was

44 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 10, June 2012 Frank Brangwyn, Street near Taormina, 1910, etching and drypoint, 30.2 x 35.0 cm (plate). Reg. no. 1979.2046, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne © Copyright David Brangwyn

exhibited at the Fine Art Society opposing reactions, influenced more subject matter was eclipsed by galleries in New Bond Street, by the author’s own predisposition controversy over Brangwyn’s London, in November of 1910.15 towards the artist than by an objective etching style and technique. While Although the exhibition was evaluation of the works themselves. the reviewer for The Athenaeum advertised as watercolours and Reviews were regularly riddled with criticised Brangwyn’s inability to etchings of France, Italy and Sicily, it generalisations, expressing either ‘tone down’ his work, arguing that was the compelling Messina etchings fervent support for Brangwyn or although the etchings were clever, that attracted the most attention in impassioned hatred, with little they were also ‘monotonous’,17 the reviews that followed.16 discussion of the works in question. the writer for The Studio, a long- Unfortunately, the artist endured This was certainly the case with the time advocate of the artist’s work, a difficult relationship with British art English reception of Brangwyn’s regarded the series as a technical critics. His works frequently evoked Messina etchings, and the tragic triumph:

Rebecca L. Edwards, ‘Frank Brangwyn’s “tragically impressive” Street near Taormina’ 45 This collection was Marx’s words strongly resonate and abandoned, crumbling churches specially remarkable for its with the Baillieu Library’s Street do not suggest a community expressiveness; for the way in near Taormina. Although the site reborn, but one still suffering and which it set forth an artistic portrayed was some distance from struggling to rebuild after such a conviction that is exceptionally the areas of greatest devastation, loss of human life. logical and consistent, and thus lacking the sheer destruction Initially the cityscape of Street for the knowledge that depicted in the other Messina near Taormina appears deserted, was displayed in it of the etchings, a similar sense of quiet devoid of people, the emptiness management of technical tragedy remains. Discussing the interrupted only by remnants processes. Mr. Brangwyn’s set, Walter Shaw-Sparrow stated of collapsed walls. Eventually splendid decorative sense and most aptly that it revealed ‘what however, faces materialise within wonderful control over devices a tragedian artist feels when he the rubble. Dark profiles line the of craftsmanship give dignity stands among awful ruins thronged streets, cowering in the shadows and significance to everything with death by one of Nature’s of the fragile buildings that dwarf he produces, whatever may be convulsions’.20 them. The decorative effect of the the medium he employs.18 Brangwyn had been immediately braces propping up the city walls struck by the destroyed Italian and casting shadows across the The tragic subject of the series was landscape, and in 1941 recalled: barren ground is subordinated by not addressed until two years later ‘Messina was fine and impressive … memory of the disaster that had put when the works were exhibited at after the earthquake. It was lighted them there. The few human figures the George Petit Galleries in Paris. up with the great electric lights, and represented are insignificant in scale Art critic Roger Marx reflected in the deep shadows with the deep when compared to the towering the Gazette des Beaux-Arts: night sky was wonderful with the structures and scaffolds that fires of the encampments of the threaten to crumble down around Only he [Brangwyn] dared homeless and the soldiers it was them. Their almost imperceptible to tackle the horror of the grand’.21 presence serves to further highlight calamity, to render the Despite Brangwyn’s romantic the void left by those who are desolation of devastated account of the ‘grand’ disaster forever missing. Messina, the collapsed ground, site and his evident delight in In 1919 Shaw-Sparrow wrote, the disembowelled houses, to experimenting with the dramatic ‘it is imperative that painters, like raise two vast sections of wall effects of chiaroscuro, his etchings other historians, should gather towards the sky, gleaming in also betray a more sober sentiment, from disaster all that Brangwyn the sun, while their shadows attuned to the scale of the tragedy. learnt both of nature and of human descend and cut across, a Although two years had passed nature amid the wreckage, grand gaping wound like a black hole and life had continued in Messina, and mean, at Messina’.22 The artist’s amongst clear flesh.19 Brangwyn’s scenes of desolate streets depictions of the aftermath of an

46 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 10, June 2012 earthquake, which had captured 3 Walter Shaw-Sparrow, Frank Brangwyn There was a silence, and then all over what and his work, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, had been a sleeping city broke forth the the attention of the Western Trübner, 1911, p. 203. Brangwyn worked shrieks of the wounded, the yells of those who world, showed that regardless of prolifically as a painter, printmaker and had suddenly gone mad, the frantic prayers of humankind’s achievements and decorator. He was particularly well known women, curses from many men, the fierce for his mural paintings, which undoubtedly howling of dogs.’ Robert Hichens, ‘After the advancements, man remained contributed to the sense of ‘largeness’ in his work. earthquake’, The Century Illustrated Monthly powerless in the face of natural 4 Martin Hopkinson, ‘Brangwyn’s first etchings’, Magazine, no. 77, 1909, pp. 928–9. disaster. The ‘tragically impressive’ Print Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2, 2007, p. 162. 10 The Times [London], Thursday 4 February Brangwyn began exhibiting paintings in 1909, p. 6. Messina series, including the the late 1880s and began etching 11 Horner, Frank Brangwyn: A mission to decorate Baillieu Library Print Collection’s professionally towards the end of the century life, p. 232. Street near Taormina, is an apt (Rodney Brangwyn, Brangwyn, London: 12 Horner and Naylor, Frank Brangwyn William Kimber, 1978, p. 43; Libby Horner, 1867–1956, p. 135. visualisation of this understanding Frank Brangwyn: A mission to decorate life, 13 University of Leeds, Website of the University and a poignant memorial to those London: Fine Art Society, 2006, p. 115). Art Collection, www.leeds.ac.uk/gallery/ affected by the disaster.23 5 In his ‘Propositions’ Whistler famously wrote highlights-drawings.htm, accessed a list of stylistic and technical guidelines 26 September 2011. concerning etching. His fifth proposition 14 William Gaunt, The etchings of Frank Rebecca L. Edwards is a PhD candidate in art was often quoted in criticisms of Brangwyn’s Brangwyn, R.A.: A catalogue raisonné, London: history at the University of Melbourne. Her etchings: ‘the huge plate, therefore, is an The Studio, 1926. research examines the work of Frank Brangwyn, offence—its undertaking an unbecoming 15 Fine Art Society, One hundred years of with a particular focus on his impact in Australia display of determination and ignorance— exhibitions at the Fine Art Society Ltd: in the early 20th century. Rebecca undertook an its accomplishment a triumph of unthinking Centenary 1876–1976, London: The Fine Art internship in the Baillieu Library Print Collection earnestness and uncontrolled energy— Society, 1976, n.p. in 2011 and is the 2012 Gordon Darling Intern endowments of the “duffer”’. ( James Abbott 16 Advertised in The Athenaeum, no. 4333, in the Department of Australian Prints and McNeill Whistler, The gentle art of making 12 November 1910, p. 600; The Times Drawings at the National Gallery of Australia. enemies, London: Heinemann, 1890, available [London], Saturday 26 November 1910, p. 4. at Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ 17 ‘Mr Brangwyn’s paintings and etchings’, ebooks/24650, accessed 20 March 2012.) The Athenaeum, no. 4333, 12 November 1910, 6 Nicola Alessandro Pino and others, ‘The pp. 600–1. The Baillieu Library Print Collection is 28 December 1908 Messina Straits earthquake 18 ‘Studio talk’, The Studio, no. 213, December available for research and the catalogue can (Mw 7.1): A great earthquake throughout 1910, pp. 226–8. be explored online; see www.lib.unimelb.edu. a century of seismology’, Seismological Research 19 Roger Marx, ‘L’oeuvre gravé de M. Frank au/collections/special/prints/. Letters, March 2009, p. 1. Brangwyn’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 7 Libby Horner and Gillian Naylor, Frank 1st semester, 1912, p. 41 (translated by Brangwyn 1867–1956, Leeds Museum and Rebecca Edwards). Galleries, 2006, p. 194. 20 Walter Shaw-Sparrow, Prints and drawings by 8 Pino and others, ‘The 28 December 1908 Frank Brangwyn with some other phases of his 1 Frank Brangwyn, The swineherd (Le porcher), Messina Straits earthquake’, p. 1. art, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1923, etching and drypoint, 30.5 x 39.0 cm 9 The earthquake was reported as far away as 1919, p. 155. (plate). Reg. no. 1959.2365, gift of Dr J. Orde America where writers painted a devastating 21 Frank Brangwyn, Letter to Elinor Pugh, Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print picture of the event: ‘This roaring voice of 29 November 1941, quoted in Horner, Frank Collection, University of Melbourne. the earth was succeeded by a strange and Brangwyn: A mission to decorate life, p. 233. 2 Frank Brangwyn, Mostar, 1924, drypoint, horrible silence after Messina had fallen in 22 Shaw-Sparrow, Prints and drawings, p. 240. 15.1 x 14.9 cm (plate). Reg. no. 1997.2009, ruins, after the houses had toppled, the 23 Malcolm Salaman, Modern masters of etching: Baillieu Library Print Collection, University barracks and churches had crashed to the Frank Brangwyn R.A., London: The Studio, of Melbourne. ground, the hotels had buried their inmates. 1925, p. 6.

Rebecca L. Edwards, ‘Frank Brangwyn’s “tragically impressive” Street near Taormina’ 47