CHARLES EASTLAKE’S JOURNEY IFRnOM PPLYMOuUTrH sTO uTHiE tNAToIONfAL AGALrLERt Y TEACHER’S NOTES Contents 2 • Introduction to the exhibition 3 • About the Teachers Pack 3 • Who was Sir Charles Eastlake? 4 • Selection of works in the exhibition 6 • Symbols in Art 14 • What can we do for you? 16 • How to book a visit 16 • Further resources 16 cover: Gerolamo dai Libri (c.1474-1555?) - The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (detail). © The National Gallery, London Introduction to the exhibition 3 The life and legacy of Sir Charles Eastlake (1793 – 1865), the first director of the National Gallery and seventh President of the Royal Academy, is honoured in this collaboration between Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and the National Gallery, London. Painter, scholar and arts administrator, Eastlake was born in Devon, a county that has produced many great British artists.This exhibition investigates Eastlake’s artistic development in Plymouth and subsequent activities as a central figure of the Victorian art world in London. The exhibition brings together a selection of paintings associated with some of Eastlake’s distinguished (Plymouth-born) art teachers, as well as by his friend J.M.W.Turner, from the collections of Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery. A selection of the Old Master paintings that Eastlake acquired for the National Gallery, will also be on display, along with rarely-seen documents from the National Gallery’s archive and library that demonstrate the extraordinary lengths to which he went to secure these masterpieces. One of Eastlake’s 36 travel notebooks, for instance, will be on show, revealing his thoughts about the authenticity, technique, state of preservation and fairness of the asking price of the pictures he saw. About the Teachers Pack The aim of this pack is to provide a way to look at, learn from, and engage with the various works and themes of the exhibition. Seven key works are discussed within this pack that you will find on display, along with an introduction to Sir Charles Eastlake himself. Elements of this pack can support your visit to the exhibition, and can also be adapted for use in the classroom pre- or post- visit. Please refer to page 16 for guidance on how to book a visit. Who was Sir Charles Eastlake? 4 Charles Eastlake was born in Plymouth on the 17 November 1793. He was born into a family already heavily involved in the arts in Plymouth. Eastlake’s father, George, who was Admiralty Law Agent in the city, set up the Plymouth Proprietary Library (which still exists on North Hill) in 1810, while the mayor Henry Woollcombe, a family friend, founded the Plymouth Institution in 1812. Eastlake in Plymouth Eastlake received his art education from two Plymouth-born painters, Samuel Prout and Benjamin Haydon, and learned much from the teachings of a third Devonian, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who had been the first President of the Royal Academy. Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery held a major exhibition of Sir Joshua Reynolds’ work in 2009. A Teacher’s Pack was produced and sent free to each school in the city, and is also available to download from our website. From 1815, the Plymouth Institution held art exhibitions, to which the young Eastlake lent his portrait of the Emperor Napoleon captive on board HMS Bellerophon off Plymouth Sound. This painting sold for an extraordinary amount of money, allowing him to travel to Italy. Eastlake maintained close ties with Plymouth and in 1832 was presented with the Freedom of the City. First Travels in Europe Plymouth was a thriving port during Eastlake’s early years, where news of great European events was first received before reaching London. Being an artist, and being interested in European art in particular, may also have led to his desire to travel. He made a brief trip to France in 1815, and then, in 1816, he travelled to Italy. He spent the next 14 years abroad, returning only on the death of his father, and later on to visit his brothers. While in Italy he was able to study the work of the Old Masters – includingTitian, Leonardo, and Raphael, and also to travel, making many notebooks of notes and sketches. His own paintings were very popular at the time, particularly his scenes of bandits and peasants in the Italian countryside. Most importantly, he began to develop his ideas on the theory and history of art, which would later be of great importance to his career. Eastlake’s interest in British Art 5 Perhaps best remembered for his acquisition of continental Old Masters, Eastlake sought in many ways, but with more limited success, to promote British art. Following in the footsteps of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Eastlake, as the seventh President of the Royal Academy, gave formal lectures or ‘Discourses’ to its art students. Eastlake also worked alongside established British painters during his quarter-century as Secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, during which time he commissioned scenes from British history and literature for the new Houses of Parliament. During his directorship of the National Gallery, Eastlake bought portraits by Reynolds and Gainsborough, and Turner’s work became well represented as a result of the settlement of his contested will in 1856, when the Gallery received 19,000 of his drawings, watercolours and paintings. The majority of these have since been transferred to Tate Britain. Selection of works in the exhibition 6 • Samuel Prout (1783 – 1852), Plympton Grammar School • Ambrose Bowden Johns (1776 – 1858), View of Plymouth from Coxside • J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Plymouth from Mount Edgcumbe , 1814 • Charles Eastlake (1793 – 1865), Contemplation , c.1836 • Jacopo Bassano (active c.1535; died 1592), The Good Samaritan , c.1562 –3 • Gerolamo dai Libri (about 1474 – 1555?), The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne , 1510 – 18 • Giovanni Battista Moroni (1520/4 – 1579), Portrait of a Man holding a Letter (L’Avvocato) , c.1570 Samuel Prout (1783 – 1852) 7 Plympton Grammar School Oil on canvas Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery Aged 14, Eastlake attended Plympton Grammar School near his family’s second home, Hillside. It is unclear whether he received any art tuition here, but formerly the school had nurtured pupils who went on to make their name in the art world, notably Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose father, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, had been Headmaster of the school (further information can be found in theTeachers Pack for Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius , available from our website). Samuel Prout was another of these pupils. The schoolboys, who were taught in a single large classroom, would play under the Gothic-style portico. The school later became Hele’s School, and has since moved to a new site. Activity Clearly, Plympton Grammar School was a very important part of many artists’ lives, so much so that Samuel Prout decided to make a painting of the building. Think about the buildings that you spend the most time in – perhaps your house, your own school, or a favourite place to visit. What is it about that building that makes it special or important to you? The decoration? The materials it’s built out of? The people you share it with? Try drawing or painting a picture of this building that conveys this importance to the people viewing it. Can we think of this painting as a portrait? Ambrose Bowden Johns (1776 – 1858) 8 View of Plymouth from Coxside Oil on paper Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery Ambrose Bowden Johns, a landscape painter and drawing master, was at the centre of the Plymouth art world. He assisted various local artists including Prout and Benjamin Haydon in their early years, and was a friend of J.M.W. Turner during the 1810s. He also promoted exhibitions in the city and helped found the local sketching society. This view shows Coxside, the area that became the industrial heart of Plymouth during the 19th century, supplying the dockyard with everything from rope to candles. Activity During your visit to the exhibition at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, look closely at the wonderful paintings, drawings and other items on display, at the panels, labels and posters needed for interpretation, and at the cases and furniture used to enjoy these objects. If you were to stage an exhibition of your paintings in school, what kind of things would you need to consider when planning your exhibition, to ensure people know about the exhibition and want to visit, and to allow people to enjoy the exhibition when they do? We would call these decisions and processes ‘curation’, ‘marketing’, ‘graphic design’ and ‘spatial design’, and are among the many things we have to consider when staging professional exhibitions. J.M.W. Turner (1775 – 1851) 9 Plymouth from Mount Edgcumbe Watercolour Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery Eastlake first encounteredTurner while training at the Royal Academy. In 1811, he ensuredTurner visited his family when on his first trip Plymouth.They were also together in the summer of 1813 whenTurner returned for a second sketching tour.Turner, inspired by the ‘Italianate light’, meaning the artists believed the quality of light in the South West to be similar to that encountered in Italy, and aware of the many gifted painters from Devon, claimed falsely he was born in Barnstaple (his father had been born in South Molton, North Devon). Activity Why not combine your visit to the exhibition with a trip to the Hoe, Mount Batten, or Mount Edgcumbe? After seeing the landscape paintings of Ambrose Johns and J.M.W.Turner, and looking closely at the expert way in which they were able to capture light, movement, and view in one small watercolour, why not try for yourselves – outside?These artists would more often than not have carried a small watercolour box with them while sketching, and while these works would have undoubtedly been finished inside, the initial work may have been started outside.Today, we would call this way of working ‘en plein air’, and associate it with Impressionist painters such as Monet, who was himself influenced greatly by the work ofTurner.