A R Quinton

I first came across the artist A R Quinton years ago in a series of little cookery books that I found in a bookshop in Bakewell. I started collecting them as I really enjoyed looking at the cover illustrations and I also discovered that the recipes in them are actually very good. There must be about forty of these books now and I have 31 of them. Only the early ones in the series have illustrations by AR Quinton though, the later ones use other artists from the same era. The painting on the front of the Kentish recipes is of Smallhythe where the actress Ellen Terry lived. DH and I visited the house a few years ago and it still looks very much as it did in the painting. All the photos will enlarge if you click on them by the way.

In the same shop I eventually came across this book illustrated by Alfred Quinton and I enjoy it as much for the artwork as for the prose. In fact let's be honest here - the artwork is definitely the real reason that I love it!



When I'm in Suffolk I like to spend time exploring the lanes and villages that are off the main roads. Brent Eleigh is one of the places I came across and the view of this beautiful house is pretty much unchanged - only the geese and the horses are missing. If you click on the link it will take you to the post where I wrote about this village along with my photo of the house.

I would love to walk into this painting of Bossington in Somerset, it looks idyllic. I wonder whether it's still the lovely, quiet lane that appears here - I do hope so.

Gradually I came across one or two more books full of A.R.Quinton's paintings, some like the one above were second hand. Alfred Robert Quinton was born in 1853 in Peckham, London. He studied at Heatherley's Art School and by 1880 was sharing a studio with another artist at New Court, Lincoln's Inn. His watercolours were regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy and two of his paintings were bought by the then Duke and Duchess of York the parents of our present Queen. From the early 1900s Quinton travelled all round England painting local scenes which were published as postcards by the firm of J.Salmon Ltd. He paints the kind of rural scenes that appeal to me immensely and he has left a wonderful pictorial record of the England that existed before the advent of the car.

Another book of paintings, I enjoy just leafing through these and slipping back in time. It also goes with me if I'm travelling in areas where I know he painted so that I can try and find the villages and cottages.

This is Kersey in Suffolk then and now - certainly still recognizable as the place in the painting though the large tree has gone and the ever present cars and telegraph pole have appeared - neither improve the view! Most of the cottages have been done up too and have lost some of their charm as a result.

I discovered that there are lots of the Salmon postcards to be had so I have started collecting a few of the village and cottage ones. They are quite hard to find as many that are on ebay are views or of places like Oxford or Windsor. They are very nice but it's the rural ones that I really like.

This is my favourite book as it has a biography of A.R.Quinton along with lots of his paintings and a great deal more information about rural life in late Victorian and Edwardian times than appears in the other two books.

One of the paintings in the above book is this one of Cockington in Devon, it brings back a lot of happy memories for me as we always spent our annual holiday in either Paignton or Torquay when I was a little girl and we always went to Cockington. The painting is of the forge which dates back to the 1400s. When I was a child it was still a working forge, now I believe they sell miniature horseshoes to the tourists. Cockington is definitely one of those 'never go back' places I think, I'd rather remember the quiet, pretty village of my childhood.

Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm going to have to add all these to my book pile - the top of the pile too! I'm still ploughing through Mr Ditchfield's Vanishing England but I shall be rather glad when I've finished it and can move on to Alfred Quinton.
Blogger does seem to have come back to normal now so hopefully it will stay that way. I really didn't like being locked out of my own blog!

February Filldyke

February Filldyke is certainly living up to its reputation this afternoon and looks as though it is going to try even harder over the next couple of days! Still the old saying is

'If February brings no rain
Tis neither good for grass nor grain'.

The painting above is called February Filldyke and is by an artist called Benjamin William Leader (1831-1923). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881 to what was,I gather,a less than enthusiastic reception! Personally I like it a lot, it's very atmospheric.

I love this illustration from the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. The Tres Riches Heures is a beautiful medieval Book of Hours part of which is a calendar illustrated with scenes of daily life in the village. In February we see people warming themselves by the fire in the farmhouse, a man chopping wood and another man driving a heavily laden donkey towards the village. The detail is exquisite and the more you look the more you see. Surmounting each monthly picture is a hemisphere containing the chariot of the sun and the appropriate sign of the Zodiac - for February these are Aquarius the Water Carrier and Pisces the Fishes. It really is worth enlarging this and looking at it more closely.

I don't think February is very high on anyone's list of favourite months but it does have some good things to offer, this morning on a wet walk in Eccleshall Woods I saw that the first of the herons is back and inspecting the nesting site, the pussywillow is appearing, the tight little hazel catkins are turning into fluffy lamb's tails and the small, heart-shaped green leaves of the lesser celandine are pushing up through the earth - Spring really is just around the corner.

John William Waterhouse

I've just spent a couple of days in London and the main purpose of my visit was to see the exhibition of paintings by John William Waterhouse at The Royal Academy. As I walked round I scribbled notes on my free guide about my thoughts as I finally saw in reality some of the paintings I've only seen in books or online before. The picture above is 'Circe Offering The Cup to Ulysses' and is the one chosen for the cover of the guide and for the publicity posters. What struck me about this was the way Waterhouse caught the wonderful diaphanous quality of Circe's robe. All the photographs are taken from the web of course as no photography was allowed in the actual Exhibition. I have to tell you now that I know nothing about art or the techniques involved, I simply know what I like - an attitude that infuriates my two artist friends both of whom are talented painters!



Another painting of the sorceress Circe - a very rare chance to see this as its usual home is the Art Gallery of South Australia. The title is Circe Invidiosa and it shows her in the seclusion of a quiet grotto poisoning the water where the beautiful nymph Scylla goes to bathe. The poisoned waters turn her rival into a dreadful sea monster. I loved this because of the wonderful vibrant turquoise of the water which isn't as obvious in the photograph as it is in the actual painting.



Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

The Mermaid was first shown at The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1901 and Waterhouse was inspired by the poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I loved this painting, he captures the sheen of the fishscales on her tail perfectly.



There were two paintings of The Lady of Shalott and this was my favourite of the two - "I am half sick of shadows said The Lady of Shalott" If you click on the quote it will take you to my post of the whole of Tennyson's beautiful poem.



Each year, as payment for the slaughter of Minos' son, the Athenians offered a tribute of youths and maidens to the Minotaur that dwelt in the Cretan labyrinth. Designed by Daedalus, the labyrinth was so large and complicated that nobody had ever escaped from it. Ariadne's father, Minos, the King of Crete, selected Theseus as part of the annual offering, but on his arrival at the island Ariadne fell in love with him and, not wanting to see him die, secretly gave him a spool of thread by which he could trace his way from the maze. Theseus slew the Minotaur and fled from Crete, carrying Ariadne away as his wife, but when they arrived at the island of Naxos the Olympic gods shrouded his mind with forgetfulness and he deserted her while she lay asleep.
That is the story behind this painting but what really attracted me were the two panthers which I think Waterhouse has captured beautifully. They are there because they are sacred to the god Bacchus who, in some versions of the legend, came to her rescue and made her his wife giving her a golden crown as a wedding gift. After her death he placed her golden crown in the heavens and turned it into the constellation still called Corona Borealis or the Northern Crown.



This was the painting that kept drawing me back, it is the largest of the works by John William Waterhouse and shows Mariamne, wife of King Herod, after she has been condemned to death for adultery. I found the figure of Mariamne so mesmerising that I hardly noticed the background and had to make a real effort to look at it.



Not all of Waterhouse's paintings were of beautiful women, this is one of his earliest works painted in 1876 and called 'After The Dance'. It shows a Roman interior with two children resting after their performance.



My final choice from the exhibits is this one 'Penelope and the Suitors' which was painted in 1912 towards the end of Waterhouse's life. Ulysses is believed to be dead by everyone but Penelope and she is being courted by many suitors, all obnoxious and none of whom she wants to marry. In order to delay the moment when she must choose among them, she starts weaving a shroud for her aged father-in-law Laertes saying that she will choose when it is done. When Ulysses finally returns home after twenty years she tells him how she deceived the suitors 'So then in the daytime I would weave the mighty web, and in the night unravel the same'.

There were a hundred paintings and drawings in the Exhibition and it was hard to choose my favourites, Waterhouse had an incredible talent for painting beautiful women and I was especially impressed by the way he painted their hair. I have shown just a handful from among the many beautiful paintings that I saw and it was hard to choose which to include and which to leave out. I did buy the full 'catalogue' so now I can look at them whenever I like. Why it is called a catalogue is beyond me, it is a large glossy book with over 200 pages and well worth the £18.95 that it cost me. I really enjoyed seeing these wonderful works of art and am glad I made the effort to go. It's made me want to look for other interesting exhibitions to visit in the future and I shall also make time for visits to the National Gallery and the Tate next time I'm in London.

Evening

The evening comes, the fields are still.
The tinkle of the thirsty rill,
Unheard all day, ascends again;
Deserted is the half-mown plain,
Silent the swaths! the ringing wain,
The mower`s cry, the dog`s alarms,
All housed within the sleeping farms!



The business of the day is done,
The last-left haymaker is gone.
And from the thyme upon the height,
And from the elder-blossom white
And pale dog-roses in the hedge,
And from the mint-plant in the sedge,
In puffs of balm the night-air blows
The perfume which the day forgoes.


And on the pure horizon far,
See, pulsing with the first-born star,
The liquid sky above the hill!
The evening comes, the fields are still.

By Matthew Arnold

A Midsummer Night's Dream

“Where the water whispers mid the shadowy rowan - trees
I have heard the Hidden People like the hum of swarming bees:
And when the moon has risen and the brown burn glisters grey
I have seen the Green Host marching in laughing disarray”

Fiona MacLeod


Tonight is Midsummer Eve when the veil between the worlds is thin, it is one of the few times of the year when it is possible to see the faery people as they hold their Midsummer Revels especially if you sit under an elder or hawthorn tree at midnight.
Tomorrow will be the longest day of the year, for a few days the sun rises and sets in the same place before the wheel of the year begins to turn again and the days begin to shorten once more. The Crown of the Year passes from the Oak King to the Holly King as we begin the journey to the fullness of the harvest and the long cold days of the winter.


Come faeries, take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you upon the wind
and dance upon the mountains like a flame

W.B.Yeats

For now, though, the sun is at the height of its strength and it is time to celebrate and enjoy all that summer has to offer - the scent of the wild honeysuckle drifting on the air, the brilliant blaze of red where the poppies grow in profusion and all the new young lives that are in every tree and field and woodland glade at this time of the year.





"I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight"

Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream

A very Happy Summer Solstice to all.

The paintings are
1.The Riders of the Sidhe by a 19th century Scottish painter called John Duncan.
2.Midsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes a Pre Raphaelite artist
3.Titania Sleeps by Frank Cadogan Cowper

La Belle Dame Sans Merci - Another Diversion

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.




I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.





And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.




La Belle Dame Sans Merci ( the beautiful woman without pity) is one of the sidhe, a beautiful faery woman who lures men to the Otherworld of faeryland. If a man kisses one of the sidhe then he is doomed to wander in the madness of love and never return to a normal life in the world of mortals. The knight in the poem is only one of many unsuspecting men who have fallen for her wiles and now languish on the hillside as pale shades of their former selves.

There are two versions of Keats' poem and the one I've used is the original written in 1819.
The illustrations are by Sir Frank Dicksee, Arthur Hughes, John William Waterhouse and Frank Cadogan Cowper. All are Pre-Raphaelite artists who were often inspired by medieval themes in poetry. Of the four paintings my favourite is the last one by Frank Cadogan Cowper and surprisingly, considering how much I love the work of John William Waterhouse, his is the one I like least. The original 'diversion' of the title is here for anyone who is interested.