MARKETING IS ALL

This is a tale of two artists. One who died before his time, in the 1930s and in straightened circumstances, and one who is still living and producing art. Both were known as painters. The latter specialises in landscape painting. The other did plenty of landscape work but was accomplished in many subjects. Both worked in the same nation of the UK.

The living painter has said that he makes a lot of money from his art-more than a million pounds a year. The dead artist-let us call him Mr A never  obtained such wealth in his lifetime, even allowing for the change in purchasing power of the pound. The other artist, let us call him Mr B is happily still with us. He seems to be  a thoughtful, not to say religious person, and is working away to promote himself.

Mr A certainly did exhibit his work and was a member of an exclusive artists' group, but as I say he never had as much financial success as  Mr B; this is despite the fact that most people in the art world would see Mr B's work as negligible in comparison with that of Mr A. I have no doubt that Mr A was a very promising art student but he has not developed in accordance with his youthful promise. Much more promising was Mr A whose talent was recognised early in life and who was encouraged by some of the finest artists of his day.

So what happened? Mr B has claimed to be earning a considerable amount (he gives some of it away too), but I have known his oil paintings to be on sale recently at a price of £6000 from his dealer and the dealer wants a substantial cut from that price. Now to earn a million pounds a year from art at this rate you would have to produce and sell- an enormous number of works; do you want to do the maths? Whatever result you get it is a lot of paintings.And Mr B has said,one might think naively, that he does two or three paintings in a day. So there must be another income somewhere, and this is where marketing comes in. If you go to a certain region of the UK and enter a gift shop or a cafe you are very likely to see greetings cards or mugs with examples of Mr B's work.In the winter Mr B has a calendar available-and pricey it is.This may  be a good additional source of income as it appears to be self-published. Mr A's work was, I am fairly certain, not reproduced on mugs and greetings cards in his lifetime. Thus a mediocre-at best-artist Mr B  is making-as he says a fortune from his art but MrA whose  art is incomparably finer than Mr B's could never be financially secure.

Mr B had an exhibition in one of the UK capitals recently and he or his dealer, in some combination  has/have hired  a gallery in the city centre (twice).It must have cost a substantial sum but Mr B will now be able to say that he has exhibited in  a prestigious quarter-though not if course at a  prestigious gallery.I cannot find any independent reviews of these exhibitions.The information that an exhibition occurred will look good on Mr B's CV and will impress the credulous.But why Mr B needs to do this when he has been painting for years with so much financial success is beyond me. It seems like a vanity project and I would not recommend the expenditure to anyone trying to establish themselves in the art world.He also donates paintings to national institutions.He seems to have a strong need for recognition. Mr A would have laughed at all this.

The moral of this story may be that artists should not put all their eggs in one basket if they want financial success. This is an old idea. Many teach and some find ways of marketing their work in less expensive formats.But financial success is not everything as Mr B seems to know in his heart of hearts.(slightly edited, June 2019.)

DAVID JONES-A NEW BIOGRAPHY BY THOMAS DILWORTH

Vexilla Regis by David Jones, Kettle's Yard.

At last we have a full length biography of David Jones. It has been a long time coming and it is written by Thomas Dilworth for whom Jones has obviously been a lifelong interest. He met Jones at the end of his life so the author has had more than 40 years of interest in his subject. It must have been a huge task to take on  Jones's Celtic/Arthurian/historical interests and to explain them to the general reader.We already have an enlightening partial study by the same author which broke new ground on  David Jones and the Great War.

It is made quite clear that Jones, born to a Welsh father and an English mother in the southern London suburb of Brockley had decided that he saw himself as having Welsh culture before entering his teenage years.He was never much use at school and was often absent, not so much because of ill health but because his mother wanted a companion: he was her youngest child and the elder siblings noticed this special attention.This makes the later writings seem all the more remarkable.And though Wales was so important to him he got no maternal encouragement to learn Welsh. That interest came later and according to Dilworth he did acquire a  basic reading ability in the language.One is reminded of a similar maternal attitude in the case of a later Welsh artist, Kyffin Williams. His mother actively hindered Welsh language acquisition in her son. It was "common" to speak Welsh, only the poor and vulgar could speak it.

Personally, I never took to Jones's major  written works such as In Parenthesis and The Anathemata. I liked the war theme in In Parenthesis but I'm not ready for its fusion with he Celtic tradition. His interest in Joyce or Eliot (the latter published him) is obvious from Jones's personal voice. But I never took much to Eliot or Joyce so I have some way to go. But one remembers Auden's high opinion so maybe I shall try again.

From my point of view as an artist I would say that the author deals well with Jones's painted and engraved work. It was a pleasure to see  that Dilworth gives the benign A S Hartrick with his emphasis on linear drawing, his deserved place as one of Jones's first teachers at Camberwell. Jones was also taught by Sickert. A curious combination one would have thought! Of his  mentor Eric Gill, Jones thought more highly of him as a man than as an artist.

Later in life Jones produced little work in oils. Watercolour and  graphic media  were what he preferred. His living circumstances were probably influential in that respect. For most of his life he never had a studio but produced his art in his room in the boarding house and later on  the hotel where he lived.

Jones 's political views seem to have been rather naive. He had high hopes of Chamberlain at Munich. He wrote a poem about Hitler and Mussolini meeting at the Brenner Pass (apparently Jones optimistically hoped for peace and good intentions). The idea of the Reich incorporating Bohemia and Moravia was something to be passed over. He seems to have been a naive idealist.But there are plenty of places where  his  humanity shines through. One example being his concern about the Nazi Nuremberg Laws and persecution of the Jews.

We get a picture of Jones's involvement in various circles of lay Catholic men and -much connected with this- the development of Jones's theory of art as a sacrament, deriving to a fair degree from the writings of Maritain.

I get the impression from Dilworth that Jones became more isolated from the company of fellow artists as he got older. Ben Nicholson a former associate in the 7 and 5 group seems to fade away. His friends were Welsh, Catholics and those who cared about his writings and paintings.It was fellow poets, and often younger poets, who took him up, to his delight, as he got older.

One thinks of other Arthurian minded artists such as Morris Rossetti and Burne-Jones. In a way, beside Jones they seem like mere amateurs of the Arthurian world. Jones seems like a person of the interior, an intellectual for whom the text was so important. I think that the general reader will find that Dilworth has covered these topics quite adequately.

This ideas chart made by the artist in 1943 suggests something of the complexity-and self-awareness of Jones's creative processes 

The man who was in the front line for longer than any other British writer ( the Somme and  Passchendaele) became a reclusive phobic. Dilworth enlarges on the topic of Jones's anxiety and breakdowns which may indeed have been what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He was wounded and also had a very serious bout of trench fever. But added to the tragedy, in later years there appear what seem to be iatrogenic problems caused by overprescription of amphetamines and sleeping tablets.Dilworth has information on the medication provided and these drugs seem to have had a counterproductive effect on the artist's health for many of his later years.The rationally fearful young soldier who went  "over the top" became a shadow of himself and full of anxiety. He was frightened even when officials came to discuss his forthcoming entitlement to old age pension and sent them away.He was a confirmed valetudinarian. A bout of flu sent him to bed for  weeks, rather than days.

He panicked when left alone in the foyer of the Royal Academy whilst his companion parked her car.He was there to see the great Bonnard exhibition. Jones had enormous admiration for Bonnard's "magic"-his word. That is something I didn't know and was delighted to learn. But the exhibition ran from January to mid-March of 1966 by the way, not 1965 as given here. This is one of quite a few misprints and errors which mar this excellent work.More of those later.

Jones  was lucky that he had many, often wealthy friends, most notably   Helen Sutherland and Kenneth Clark (he less close but very rich) who helped this man  who could talk by the hour on subjects which concerned him. Jonesian monologues about Welsh topics flowed readily. Jim Ede deserves particular  mention as an early encourager and offerer of hospitality.Harman Grisewood and Douglas Cleverdon gave unending support. People seem to have recognised that they were in the presence of a unique personality.

The story of how Ede got hold of Vexilla Regis is a tale of cunning to say the least. Still, we can be glad that it is available for inspection at Kettle's Yard when so many of Jones's works are still in private collections.In effect that means the collection of the heirs to Helen Sutherland, Jones's main and great patron. It was pleasure to learn  that the artist had a high regard for Vexilla Regis. I would say that it is his masterpiece. He did not want to part with it and set £500 as a then incredible price. Ede heard about its quality from Helen Sutherland who was obviously interested and he found a buyer at that price -his own elderly mother, and of course in a while Ede inherited the painting. On a minor point about this work, I cannot see how the stone circle which appears at mid-right can be a memory of Stonehenge. It looks like a detail from an engraving of the C17 or C18. Stonehenge does not have a central trilithon as shown here.

Many of Jones's his friends were female and often considerably younger than himself; he tended to become infatuated with them and suffered the inevitable heartbreak when they did not respond and  married someone of their own age. Women seem to have been particularly understanding of his frailty. He was engaged to Petra Gill but the relationship foundered, apparently because of his lack of attention.

It  is sad to learn that Jones seems to have been exploited by his art dealer Rex Nan Kivell. If Dilworth is correct, and he makes the accusation quite clear, then Rex Nan Kivell's behaviour was criminal.

 David Jones was much concerned about the production values when it came to his books such as In Parenthesis.As an example this volume is good to look at-at first. There are the inevitable difficulties dealing with the reproduction of Jones' detailed  and sometimes contrastless work. This is a problem for most books on the artist. Cape do their best, and of course the inscriptions come over well.  The layout with the illustrations  in-text means that photographs and words are  close neighgbours. It is easy to refer from one to the other and this is a great convenience.But this results in openings where there are no numbers to the pages because their space has been taken over by the illustrations- this happens several times over and once there are two such openings succeeding each other so you have no idea where you are. Where there are numbers only to an opening you get on the left the number of the page plus the name of the chapter you are in.On the right you get-if you get it at all, the page number plus the dates in Jones' life which are covered by that chapter. A good idea.

It would be helpful if  the notes at the end had the chapter name as well as number.

It does seem that no one has read the copy/proofs of this book with  care.You are left with the impression that Cape does not employ editors.The number of typos is  rather more than the  average. As far as I know no monks ever  lived at Pinknash ( insert an r) and there is certainly no Ashmoleum Museum at Oxford.Barmoor is spelt correctly and incorrectly on the same page.The Victorian author is given as Thackery. Votodini should be Votadini. Kensington is given for Kennington when it was earlier given correctly as the place where Jones attended a life-class. Centurion is given as centurian.  N K Sandars has her name spelt wrongly. Ivon Hitchens is given as Ivor. To the best of my knowledge it was Fred Mayor who ran the long established Mayor gallery, not Meyer.

 On factual matters it seems to me that the author implies that Rheged was Northumbria or part of it. That was  not the case. Rheged was a western kingdom-from the Solway southwards.It did invade Northumbria..

Outside this book I cannot find any reference to any Bernard Beard as being a great expert on Italian Renaissance art. Maybe Bernard Berenson?

Effie Ruskin did correspond with at least one artist but I think it safe to assume that he was her future husband Millais, and not the great French artist Millet as given here. 

The NHS -or what remains of it was not founded in 1946 but two years later.It was in 1948 that the service came into operation,the legislation had passed in 1946, that is true. No one as far as I know drinks Earl Gray Tea.

The author continually and almost always inaccurately uses the word convince when he means persuade.Why didn't an editor deal with this? I shouldn't have liked to try to convince Jones of anything.

David Jones in his room at the Monksdene Residential Hotel, Harrow

David Jones: Engraver, Soldier,Painter, Poet, by Thomas Dilworth, Jonathan Cape, 2017.
My earlier post about Helen Sutherland and her artist friends-including Jones at Rock is here.

IONA DRAWING

Iona North End : James Holland

I made this drawing on election day this year and I am working on a painting based on it.I chose the viewpoint-looking south-east to Mull because I had seen it used by S J Peploe in one of his Iona paintings. I liked the massive rock which is central to the composition and also features in  the more square format of Peploe's work. I stood as close as possible to Peploe's viewpoint.

IONA NORTH END:JAMES HOLLAND

Iona North End: James Holland,2017

Well this is the first painting made after our trip to Iona this year. I thought it was time for me to try a homage to all those excellent painters who have worked  there. Cadell is certainly my favourite but Peploe often surprises me.

 On the left is Cathedral Rock, in the distance is Lunga and on the right is what Coupe calls the Little Pinnacle. The rocks are quite strange here and the dark ones with flattish tops should maybe have names also. This painting is based on a drawing. I have drawings for another two compositions at least.

IONA PHOTOS

During a visit to Iona I thought I would take some photos in the evening as well as the full, glorious light you can get in the daytime in the Hebrides. I have no doubt that in some ways I have been influenced by the compositions of Cadell and Peploe who interest me very much. But then again I am a landscape painter -and no doubt compose  photos and paintings in a similar way. I also like to try and photograph the evening light. "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,The holy time, as quiet as a Nun...." Wordsworth.

The Ross of Mull from Iona.

This photo above was taken about 25 minutes before sunset-which in these  latitudes in early June is after 2200hrs..The contrasts should be more intense. The sunlight catching the rocks positively burned with colour.What is normally, in daylight a pinkish brown became something glowing with the intensity of yellowy-orange gorse on a summer day. It may be that my camera could not capture the dynamic range.It was an extraordinary visual experience.

Iona, Port Bhan with Dun Bhuirg.This geological feature appears as a subject of some significance to Cadell. But it doesn't appear as far as I know in Peploe.

Iona:The Bay at the Back of the Ocean, evening. This is on the west side of the island and so it catches the setting sun.

Iona North End. The Dutchman's Cap is on the horizon. Very much a composition such as Cadell or  Peploe might have painted.

Iona North End.The peculiarly shaped rocks in the sea feature regularly in the work of Cadell and Peploe-though they usually painted them when the tide was out or ebbing.The pointed rock at left is called Cathedral Rock and the large one at right is Pulpit Rock.The two central rocks don't have names but you will see them in the artists' paintings. Staffa appears like a battleship about 5 miles away to the top left of the middle rock.The peaks of Rum are faintly visible near Cathedral Rock and about 40 miles away.

Iona;Bay at the Back of the Ocean-looking towards Eilean Didil.

CRASTER PANORAMA

I have lost track of the number of time I have made the small expedition between Craster and Dunstanburgh Castle. Firstly it was as a cyclist in adolescence with my friends. I remember we were all a bit interested in archaeology and we looked at the masons' marks which are to be seen there, So familiarity led me to think that I wouldn't be finding anything very original in terms  of a view one late afternoon in May this year.I will admit that I only really saw this composition after we got home.Nor do I ever think much about cropping photos. I like to get the composition right first time. But having said that I remember that one of my oldest friends is particularly interested in cropping  photos. Colin Miller ARPS does a lot of cropping and makes a success of it. And he too is a veteran of the Dunstanburgh expeditions. But anyway, here is the final composition and after it the original version. I quite liked the idea of everything in the composition leading down to the left with the harbour structure as a kind of punctuation.And I have always liked panoramas in painting.

final crop

original composition.

TREE ANATOMY-OLD BEECH AT OLD MOOR HOUSE

I have often photographed the old beeches at Old Moor House.This place was the site of a rather basic inn alongside a drovers' route from Scotland.It is situated on rough moorland at what must have been an inclement height in winter. The alignment of the route was changed in the mid C19 to a lower position. The inn, which may have been called The Swinburne Arms, probably fell into disuse about that time.It would have been a hard enough living to earn at the best of times but if the drovers no longer passed by it must have become even more precarious.These  beeches provide shelter and pollarded wood , again perhaps into the C19 but eventually they were left to develop. They are planted in a regular formation and give the local sheep a green oasis and shelter. A burn runs through the middle.It was Tennyson who wrote of "the serpent-rooted beech" and the phrase is entirely apt here.

TREE ANATOMY

TREE ANATOMY 1

TREE ANATOMY 2

ART AT ROCK-DAVID JONES,BEN NICHOLSON AND THE COLLECTOR HELEN SUTHERLAND

Rock village is a hamlet in Northumberland with a claim to be of some importance in the history of modern British art. Rock Hall was leased  from its owners the Bosanquet family by the wealthy collector and patron Helen Sutherland from 1929-39. She is buried in the graveyard only a short distance from the Hall.

Ben and Winifred Nicholson were vistors in the late 1920s.So too, about the same time was David Jones. Sutherland's small but well chosen collection in particular featured Ben Nicholson and David Jones.At the time of her death she owned 47 works by Ben Nicholson.

For several decades a minor work by Ben Nicholson actually stood in the church. It was a collection box which he had made in 1925 for the building. It was Murray McCheyne who first mentioned it to me about 1970 and I remember going to look  at it at that time.It wouldn't have qualified as one of Nicholson's best works but it was obviously something he had made.The box is no longer at the church.It was sold  at Sotheby's in 2001. it was too valuable to leave there unattended.

Offertory Box by Ben Nicholson. Formerly at Rock Church. Now in a Swiss collection.

About that time David Jones also became a regular guest. The view from his window above the front door of Rock Hall inspired some of his watercolours including The Chapel in the Park, now at Tate Britain. Jones was wrapped up in Welsh and Arthurian history and legend. He seems to have identified the church at Rock with the Chapel Perilous of Arthurian legend.

St Philip and St James Rock, Northumberland.

The Chapel in the Park

This is the painting in the Tate Gallery. It was not a part of the Sutherland collection. Jones made more than one view from the window at Rock. In the catalogue for the Kendal showing of  Sutherland's collection (1964)  is listed  her watercolour ;The Chapel Perilous:from a window at Rock. We can presume that the views were similar .
 In this version the church appears on the left almost three quarters of the way up the picture. The medieval bridge appears  on the right at almost the same height . You should be able to see the pyramidal caps on the corners and the round arch.

Medieval bridge near Rock Church.

Rock hall seen from the churchyard. David Jones always had the room over the front door.

 Helen Sutherland is buried in the churchyard but  her gravestone is not of the quality  which I would have associated with such a fastidious collector. It is certainly a work of the 1960s and the lettering on the back is crude in design . It is ironic that Helen Sutherland was associated with David Jones that remarkable designer of inscriptions. Here the quality is lacking.

The  verse on the back of the stone is unknown to me. I am guessing that Kathleen Raine, another friend might be a possible source.If anyone knows the name of the creator of the verse or the actual carving I would really appreciate it if they can leave a comment.Ms Sutherland did not die at Rock and had indeed removed long before her death to the Lakes but her time there must have been of particular importance to her.

The chi-rho device on the back of the stone and on which the text appears superimposed it will be remembered as standing for the first two letters of the Greek word Christos. Helen Sutherland was a Christian.

The church from the south. The curious plan of the churchyard suggests a building of considerable antiquity.Helen Sutherland's grave is at the far left-with the triangular top.

Finally let me add that on Sunday 21 July 1935 Helen Sutherland had 17 miners from Ashington to tea. David Jones was assigned to explain the modern paintings. He was apprehensive but soon found out that the miners were, "intelligent & sensitive, 20 times more "aware" than most people one meets".

Some of these miners were part of the group who were later to be known as the "Pitmen Painters".

Also in the churchyard are graves of the Bosanquet family. Of particular note are those of  the archaeologist  and also the university administrator who are also commemorated in Leonard Evett's excellent  window inside the church-from which I reproduce a detail.I have written more about this window in an earlier post in this earlier post.

My review of Thomas Dilworth's new biography of David Jones is to be found in this post.

LIGHT SHIP SMITH'S KNOLL-A FINE WATERCOLOUR BY RICHARD HOBSON

Light Ship Smith's Knoll- Richard Hobson

This large and impressive 1975 watercolour by Richard Hobson was sold by Anderson &Garland in their Newcastle rooms on 21 March 2017. If I remember  rightly the estimate was somewhere near £1000/£1200 . The hammer price was in fact £4000- and well deserved it was.This is surely one of Hobson's finest watercolours- and for that reason is interesting-let alone the unusual subject.

I have added -with apologies to Trinity House-a photograph of the actual lightship which apparently dates from 1972. At the time they were checking out the possibility of a helicopter platform for delivering crew to the lightship.But if the photo is correctly dated 1972 and the watercolour is correctly dated 1975 then what happened to the platform shown at the after end if the vessel-but not in Richard's watercolour? In the watercolour the ship clearly has a mast and not a platform.Was the experiment a failure or is the artwork misdated to 1975when it should be 1972? And this watercolour perhaps shows the ship in dock and ready for maintenance?

Lightship "Smith's Knoll" with helicopter practising  lowering crew members.

CAFE DRAWINGS AGAIN-PARENTS AND CHILDREN

Mother and daughter.

I have posted before about drawing in cafes.You can see some examples here. It is a challenge to draw someone quickly and to get at the essence of a posture before they change it. And they will change it-quite quickly! I think that  practice is helping me get better. Trying to capture this essence  gives you some confidence. I'll give some further thoughts  as we go. My first thought is that maybe a small intimate cafe is not the best place to draw anonymously. The place where I mostly go is quite large and I sit so that I can observe the queue at the counter.So most of my drawings are back or side views but that is fine because  everything helps you to understand the human figure.

 All sorts of people come in, from schoolchildren to an old person who uses a walking/shopping frame with wheels. I have noticed that he must be  a regular because the staff usually look out for him and someone goes to open the door. And if the staff don't notice it is very likely that a customer will. I have sketched this gentleman on occasions because he is a distinctive personality. He will never know that I may do his portrait some day.

You get a lot of families in the cafe: they may  have buggies laden with shopping and maybe they are carrying children. So here follows a selection of drawings of parents with children. At first when I began to draw I didn't visually understand how to describe the way  parents hold their  children or how the children cling sometimes to their parents: but now I think I'm improving. And I have to say that once you build up a schemata-in Gombrich's sense you will be able to refine it as time and practice go on.So here they are. (All on A5 paper)

A mother with her fairly new baby.

Here the child occurs at left and again in its mother's arms.When you look at the child's anatomy on the right you will see that it isn't quite correct and the legs don't quite correspond with the torso. But the drawing does give an impression of  the way a mother has to balance herself while holding her daughter.

Father and daughter

Don't worry about making a finished drawing. Your aim should be to improve your understanding. If your drawing looks good that is an extra to welcome, Your subject will move so don't use your most expensive paper. I sometimes tidy up my work as I go, or perhaps at home. The grey wash is often added later in order  to clarify the forms .