Light on Water, Glowing Gorse...

Just a glance at this beautiful painting - The Fowling Pool of 1897 - along with others from the Flora exhibition at Penlee House Gallery and Museum plunges you into typical Cornish landscape, with the stunted bushes, scrubby gorse and of course light reflected on water, be that of pond, puddle or sea.

Samuel John'Lamorna' Birch (1869-1955) captured that particular atmospheric quality that makes Cornwall so instantly recognisable in any representation, be that on film, photo or canvas, as here in a later version of The Fowling Pool (1907).

The distinctive effect of light on gorse is so familiar that it seems timeless, as in the 1922 painting above, Chy-an-Mor, by Harold Harvey (1874-1941). I imagine I can hear that strange crackling noise the gorse seed pods make in the summer as they split open, not to mention that peculiar coconut smell of the bright yellow flowers that nestle amongst all those spines.

The same atmosphere is apparent in another of Birch's paintings, the above Spring Morning of 1904 which represents a view near Lamorna (unsurprisingly!) although it always reminds me of the landscape around Zennor, looking down towards the sea...

Likewise with A Landscape with Foxgloves by Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) with its majestic flowers that I instinctively associate with Cornwall, even though I have to admit that they can be found everywhere! The hunched and huddled forms of the hedgerow trees are surely unique however, and again their whole essence is caught by 'Lamorna' Birch in his work The Orchard c.1895.