Part 1
BRITISH MARINE PAINTING WITH ARTICLES BY A. L. BALDRY
1919
EDITED BY GEOFFREY HOLME “THE STUDIO” Lᵀᴰ· LONDON · PARIS · NEW YORK
CONTENTS
ARTICLES BY A. L. BALDRY
PAGE
British Marine Painting 9 Notes on the Illustrations 24
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR
Bayes, Walter, A.R.W.S. _The Timid Bather_ 113
Brangwyn, Frank, R.A. _In Port_ 75
Brooks, I. W. _In Cymyran Bay_ 129
Constable, John, R.A. _Chesil Beach_ 39
Cox, David _Calais Pier_ 49
Everett, John _Breakers_ 119
Fielding, Copley _Coast Scene_ 61
Flint, W. Russell, R.W.S. _The Fane Islands_ 93
Lavery, Sir John, A.R.A., R.S.A. _Evening--The Coast of Spain from Tangier_ 79
Moore, Henry, R.A. _A Breezy Day_ 8
Nevinson, C. R. W. _The Wave_ 123
Pears, Charles _The Needles_ 107
Simpson, Charles W., R.I., R.B.A. _Landing Fish_ 85
Stanfield, W. Clarkson, R.A. _Coast Scene_ 55
Turner, J. M. W., R.A. _Lowestoft_ 45
Whistler, J. McNeill _Marine_ 69
Wilkinson, Norman, R.I. _The Wave_ 101
ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOTONE
Allan, Robert W., R.W.S. _Off to the Fishing Grounds_ 84
Allfree, G. S. _Motor Launches_ 127
Bayes, Walter, A.R.W.S. _The Red Beach_ 112
Brett, John, A.R.A. _From the Dorsetshire Cliffs_ 67
Brooking, Charles _The Calm_ 35
Brooks, I. W. _Coast Scene_ 128 _Coast Scene_ 131
Brown, W. Marshall, A.R.S.A. _The Sea_ 109
Burgess, Arthur J. W., R.I. _The Watch that never ends_ 116 _The Scarborough Fleet_ 117
Chambers, George _Off Portsmouth_ 52
Cooke, E. W., R.A. _Dutch Boats in a Calm_ 58
Cotman, John Sell _A Galiot in a Storm_ 48
Cox, E. A., R.B.A. _Elizabeth Castle, Channel Islands_ 134 _The Good Ship “Rose Elizabeth Novey”_ 135
Crawford, E. T., R.S.A. _Closehauled, Crossing the Bar_ 59
Draper, Herbert _Flying Fish_ 87
Dyce, William, R.A. _Pegwell Bay, 1858_ 57
Emanuel, Frank L. _The Ancient Port of Fêques_ 133
Everett, John _The Deck of a Tea-Clipper in the Tropics_ 118
Flint, W. Russell, R.W.S. _Passing Sails_ 95
Hardy, T. B. _A Change of Wind: Boulogne Harbour_ 77
Hawksworth, W. T. M., R.B.A. _Low Water, Penzance_ 125
Hayes, Edwin, R.H.A., R.I. _Sunset at Sea: from Harlyn Bay, Cornwall_ 63
Hemy, C. Napier, R.A., R.W.S. _A Boat Adrift_ 78
Holloway, C. E. _The Wreck_ 68
Hook, J. C., R.A. _The Seaweed Raker_ 71
Hunter, Colin, A.R.A. _Farewell to Skye_ 73
King, Cecil _H.M.S. “Wolsey” in the Ice at Libau_ 97 _Regatta Day at Appledore_ 98
Knight, C. Parsons _The Kyles of Bute_ 65
Lindner, Moffat, A.R.W.S. _The Storm-Cloud, Christchurch Harbour_ 91
McBey, James _Margate_ 121
McTaggart, William, R.S.A. _The Sounding Sea_ 74
Moore, Henry, R.A. _A Break in the Cloud_ 72
Morland, George _Fishermen Hauling in a Boat_ 37
Müller, William J. _Dredging on the Medway_ 60
Murray, Sir David, R.A., P.R.I., A.R.S.A. _The Fiend’s Weather_ 89
Olsson, Julius, A.R.A. _The Night Wrack_ 110 _Heavy Weather in the Channel_ 111
Pears, Charles _The Yacht Race_ 105 _The Examination_ 106
Pyne, J. B. _Totland Bay_ 51
Robertson, Tom _Where the Somme meets the Sea_ 90
Smart, R. Borlase, R.B.A. _Wet Rocks, St. Ives_ 126
Smith, Hely, R.B.A. _Windbound_ 104
Somerscales, Thomas _Off Valparaiso_ 82 _Before the Gale_ 83
Stanfield, W. Clarkson, R.A. _The Port of La Rochelle_ 53 _Entrance to the Zuider Zee, Texel Island_ 54
Thomson of Duddingston, The Rev. John, R.S.A. _Fast Castle_ 47
Tollemache, The Hon. Duff _Storm on the Cornish Coast_ 115
Tuke, Henry S., R.A., R.W.S. _August Blue_ 88
Turner, J. M. W., R.A. _The Shipwreck_ 41 _The Prince of Orange landing at Torbay, November 5, 1688_ 42 _Yacht Racing in the Solent_ 43 _Farne Island_ 44
Wilkinson, Norman, R.I. _Etretat_ 99 _Plymouth Harbour_ 100 _Up Channel_ 103
Williams, Terrick, R.I. _Clouds over the Sea, Holland_ 132
Wilson, John H., R.S.A. _Seapiece_ 38
Wyllie, W. L., R.A. _Blake’s Three Days Engagement with Van Tromp_ 81
THE EDITOR DESIRES TO EXPRESS HIS THANKS TO THE ARTISTS, COLLECTORS, AND THE AUTHORITIES OF PUBLIC GALLERIES WHO HAVE KINDLY ASSISTED HIM IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME BY PERMITTING THEIR PICTURES TO BE REPRODUCED. THEIR NAMES APPEAR UNDER THE ILLUSTRATIONS
BRITISH MARINE PAINTING
To most people it will seem quite natural that British artists should give much attention to marine painting. The sea plays a very important part in our national affairs, influences the character of the people, and affects the political policy of the country, so almost as a matter of course it has its place among the sources of inspiration for our native art. Sea painters of the higher rank have come with scarcely an exception from countries which have an extended coast-line and in which the seafaring habit has been developed by centuries of maritime activity--countries in which the use of the sea for purposes of commerce or communication has been a necessity. Dutch artists have painted the sea and shipping and incidents in the life of the dwellers on the coast with skill and distinction; there have been sea painters in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, some in France, a few in Italy and Spain; but it is in the British Isles most of all that the possibilities of marine painting have been recognized and the pictorial material that the sea provides has been turned to full account.
No doubt this is partly due to the fact that British art has concerned itself very greatly with what may be called the physical characteristics of the country. A considerable proportion of our painters have been devoted students of nature, and have occupied themselves with records of British scenery, and of those subtle effects of atmosphere and illumination which are the product of the variable British climate. Responsive themselves to the charm of their surroundings, they have catered for a public which appreciates the beauties of nature and likes to see them realized pictorially; lovers themselves of the land in which they live, they have striven to please the many people who are possessed by a similar sentiment and wish to have about them pictures in which this sentiment is agreeably reflected. No record of British scenery could be complete, and no appeal to British sentiment could be effective, if our artists ignored the wide variety of subjects which the sea offers them.
For the sea is with us a tradition, and the love of the sea is one of the strongest of our national instincts. Because we live on an island the sea is at the same time our protection from those who might seek to do us harm and our means of communication with the rest of the world; it safeguards us against dangers to which other less fortunately situated countries are constantly exposed, and yet it puts us directly in touch with even the most remote and apparently inaccessible peoples. Therefore we regard it naturally as a friendly influence in the lives of us all. But we owe it a debt of gratitude also for the effect it has had upon our British art. It is from our insular climate, from the mists and moisture which the sea brings, that those atmospheric qualities come which make the study of nature in the British Isles such a never-ending delight. It is the surrounding sea that encourages the rich growth of our vegetation, and that gives to our landscape its wealth of detail and its ample variety of colour. As the sea influences the manner of our national life, so it influences the quality, the sentiment, and the method of our art, helping us to build up a school which is insular in its merit and its expression, and national in its feeling and its intention.
Yet, curiously enough, in the earlier period of British art history the names of few painters are recorded who perceived the pictorial interest of the sea or tried to realize its beauties. Indeed, at the beginning no attention was given to the study of open-air nature; landscape painting was not attempted seriously, and the study of atmospheric effects was generally disregarded. The artists of that time occupied themselves mainly with portraits--digressing occasionally into figure compositions--and took little account of anything but the purely human interest in art. They worked for the glorification of their patrons, to adorn the houses of the great, or to prove themselves good sons of the Church, not to bring about the conversion of the people who were insensible to nature’s charm.
It would be scarcely fair, however, to accuse the earlier British artists of insensibility because they worked in this manner within circumscribed limits; they only followed, after all, what was the fashion of the schools in other countries. In Italy, for instance, during the splendours of the Renaissance, the study of landscape for its own sake was as little thought of as it was in Great Britain at the time of the Tudors. Many of the Italian masters introduced landscape backgrounds in their figure compositions, but it was landscape of a formal and conventionalized kind, a weaving together of details to form a pattern which was used merely to fill space or to add something to the point of the pictured story. It was never landscape seen and set down as the motive of the painting; at best it was only a sort of still life.
But in Italy at that period the mission of the artist was very exactly defined, and even if he had been inclined to escape from the limitations imposed upon his activities, the custom of the time would have been too strong for him. He was the servant of the great noble and the obedient assistant of the Church, he decorated palaces, and he painted altar-pieces, he recorded scenes from ancient or contemporary history, and incidents in the lives of the saints. Neither the noble nor the churchman wanted from him studies of Italian scenery, or desired that he should show how he was impressed by the brightness of sunlight or by the glory of an evening sky. The severest discouragement would have awaited him if he had attempted anything so unconventional; he might even have incurred penalties as a man of unseemly and heterodox opinions.
For a long while British artists worked under restrictions hardly less rigid. What was demanded of them they supplied, but the demand that they should show to the public what nature is like was slow in coming. Word pictures of nature there were in plenty; a chorus of poets extolled her charm, but no one seemed to perceive that what they found so inspiring in their verse could be visualized and made apparent by the painters. When Herrick wrote:
“I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July flowers”
British artists were looking to Van Dyck as their leader, and were striving, as he did, to immortalize their contemporaries or to tell in paint purely human stories. The brooks and blossoms, birds and flowers did not claim their consideration or provide them with material for popular canvases, and it did not occur to them to paint the groves and twilights, the damasked meadows and the pebbly streams, which Herrick loved so well.
In fact, it was not until the eighteenth century that the representation of landscape subjects began to be recognized as a legitimate sphere of artistic activity. Even then what was required was a very dry and commonplace kind of topographical illustration--a certain number of people had developed an interest in British scenery and in the archæological relics which were to be found in different parts of the country, and accordingly it became the fashion to collect pictures of famous “views” and of ruined abbeys and other ancient buildings. But in producing these pictures little scope was allowed to the artist for the exercise of his imagination or for the expression of any æsthetic sentiment. The more precise and careful he was in his statement of fact, the more accurate his paintings were as portraits of the places or objects chosen, the better were his clients satisfied. He had to do what photography does now--he had to make a more or less literal diagram of his subject with as much of the detail as he could contrive to set down and with as little display as possible of his personal taste or fancy.
However, out of this limited and mechanical beginning grew very quickly a school of landscape practice which substituted the wider study of nature for the record of topographical realities. A number of artists broke away from restrictions by which they felt themselves to be hampered, and they found a considerable section of the public prepared to countenance them in their effort to attain freer and more significant expression. They brought a new spirit into the art of the country, a spirit of inquiry and investigation, and they taught people to look more closely at nature’s manifestations and to interest themselves intelligently in her elusive suggestions. In other words, they destroyed a convention which had been generally accepted, and in securing freedom for themselves to follow their personal inclinations towards a more rational treatment of nature they gained the sympathetic support of the many art lovers who had discovered how cramping the convention was, and how seriously it stood in the way of the right kind of development and progress.
The new school of landscape was deficient neither in enthusiasm nor energy. Men of marked originality and brilliant capacity rallied to it in large numbers, and with the vigorous initiative of pioneers in a land of promise set to work to make their discoveries effective. They wrested nature’s secrets from her one by one, secrets of colour, secrets of illumination and light and shade, secrets and mysteries of ever-changing atmospheric effect. There were still “views” to paint, but instead of being treated as matters of dry topography they were used as subjects for pictures in which the painter’s temperamental response to the inspiration he received was plainly manifested, and in which the impression made upon him by the motive in its various aspects was appropriately summed up. In a very short time the British landscape school became under the stimulus of the new thought and the new methods the most important in the world, and the most independent and progressive in its practice.
But, even then, few painters had realized the wonderful pictorial possibilities of the sea. There were some who attempted marine subjects and coast scenes but only as occasional diversions from their ordinary course of study--as illustrations of their capacity to deal with nature in any phase or mood, or it may be to gain experience in what was to them a novel kind of material. Probably in the eighteenth century an excursion to the coast was something of an adventure for men who lived inland; facilities for travel were very limited, and it was easier for an artist to record the subjects which were conveniently within his reach than to struggle against difficulties to reach places remote from his home. Moreover, his clients were mostly stay-at-home people, too, who knew the sea only as a sort of vague abstraction, as something they had heard about, but of which they had no personal knowledge, and therefore their interest in it was too indefinite to be remunerative to him. It was more to his advantage to paint the things they knew than to make them realize what seemed to them strange and surprising.
Anyhow, nearly all the earlier painters of marine subjects were men who had some particular reason for taking to this line of practice. One of the first--Charles Brooking, who was born in 1723--was brought up in Deptford Dockyard, and as a not unnatural consequence acquired considerable skill in the representation of shipping and naval incidents. During the latter part of his short life--he died at the age of thirty-six--he gave some instruction to Dominic Serres, a Frenchman by birth, who was a foundation member of the Royal Academy and was appointed to the post of Marine Painter to the King. Serres had been a sailor, and was captured by an English frigate in the war of 1752 when he was in command of a trading vessel; he settled in this country, and with Brooking’s assistance and a good deal of hard work on his own part became a painter of repute. In his choice of the direction he followed in his art he was, like Brooking, influenced by his earlier associations and by the desire to treat pictorially material with which he was thoroughly conversant.
Another artist of this period who was almost exclusively a marine painter was Nicholas Pocock, born in 1741. He, too, had been at sea, and had commanded a sailing vessel before he adopted the profession of painting. Yet another was John Cleveley, born 1745, who is supposed to have been the son of a draughtsman in Deptford Dockyard, and who in his youth held some post there himself; and there was another Cleveley, Robert by name, born about the same time, who gained distinction by his pictures of naval engagements. He, again, had had previous experience at sea. Then there was Clarkson Stanfield, born at Sunderland in 1793, who went to sea in his boyhood, and was for a while in the Navy, until an accident cut short his career; his particular place in art was determined by the knowledge of his subject which he had gained before he turned to the profession of sea painter. And to the list can be added George Chambers, born at Whitby in 1803, the son of a seaman, and himself a sailor when he was not more than ten years old.
That men like these should have specialized in sea painting is not surprising. It is evident, by their later success as artists, that they had the faculty of observation and the capacity to visualize their impressions, and almost as a matter of course they were inclined to put into a pictorial form the matters with which they were so well acquainted. The sea had become a part of their lives, and of shipping they had an exact and technical knowledge; and they were in touch with people who were no strangers to the sea, and who in consequence demanded that it should be represented with fidelity and understanding. Everything combined to make them the leaders in a branch of practice which requires close and accurate insight, and their works in the early days of the nature study development set a standard of accomplishment which was helpful in the highest degree; a standard which might never have been reached if sea painting had been nothing more than the diversion of the landsman who now and again went for a sketching trip to the coast. The marine painters of our modern days who work with conscience and a love of completeness owe, perhaps, more than they realize to these predecessors of theirs who established the tradition of serious effort to get things right, and who built this tradition upon first-hand knowledge.