Retracing the Past and Present... Harold Harvey.

Sometimes what is the most glaringly self-evident in life nevertheless strikes me as strange and fascinating and so it is with the blindingly obvious idea that places that have meant so much in one lifetime (mine, as it happens!) have likewise had as much significance in those of others, throughout time. The experiences and emotions associated with a particular setting are joined by many more, over the years, decades and centuries. Places become shared repositories for the lives lived there, yet each set of memories largely independant and unaware of those before and after them, like strata set in ancient rock. Looking at the work of Cornish artist Harold Harvey (1874–1941) - on display at Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance - in order to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, I had the odd feeling of the familiar, seen through a prism - the eyes of an artist long-dead, and yet whose painted scenes are still recognisable today. The work above, The Marsh Landscape (1922), represents the lakes and marshland near Marazion, and remains uncannily similar today.

When travelling to what will always be home - even if it is no longer where I live - this precise part at the tail-end of the trip back marks the final stretch towards Penzance, as the train track runs parallel to the shoreline off Mount's Bay, offering glimpses of St Michael's Mount and then the town with Newlyn in the distance, as seen in this detail above of his Seaweed Gatherers (1904) and presumably in Collecting Seaweed of 1903.

Funny how I could not wait to board a train heading out of the county, all those years ago, eager to discover something new and therefore surely 'better', only to realise finally that the best was already there, all around me. Here is Harvey's 1907 painting, Return from the Orchard, with Newlyn harbour just distinguishable in the distance...

Harold Harvey, born in Penzance in 1874, would presumably have observed the trains departing too, however he knew that he did not wish to leave indefinitely. He chose to stay; depicting the Cornish coastal landscapes and the local fishermen, farmers and miners who inhabited these with their children, eking out a living for themselves, as their ancestors had done before them. Following his studies at Penzance School of Arts under Irish artist Norman Garstin (1847-1926), Harvey would spend almost his entire life, finally dying in Newlyn during the Second World War years. He did, however, leave Cornwall and indeed England for several years in his younger years in the 1890s, going to Paris to further his artistic training at the Académie Julian, in a manner similar to that of later painters from the Newlyn School of Art. On his return to Penzance, inspired by the artistic approach of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), he painted plein-air in a style of naturalistic realism, working with his mentor Garstin, whilst influenced by the work of Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) - known as the ‘father of the Newlyn School’. Below is Unloading the Catch, Newlyn Harbour from 1905.

By 1911, Harvey had met and married a fellow artist, Gertrude Bodinnar.(1879-1966) and settled in Newlyn, frequenting other members of the artistic community in Cornwall, including Alfred Munnings, Lamorna Birch and Laura Knight. Exempted from military service in the Great War due to health issues, Harvey remained in Cornwall.

Although wholeheartedly devoted to painting the everyday Cornish genre scenes around him, Harvey's style gradually changed to become lighter, sometimes impressionistic, employing simpler forms. During the war years, national security measures meant that painting local outdoor scenes became problematic, so that interior scenes of his beloved home and life there with his wife predominate his work from that period. His figurative painting evolved into a distinctive style that reflected a shared approach with his friends Ernest and Dod Proctor, and indeed the two men set up the Harvey-Procter School together in Newlyn in 1920.

Leaving the human interest of the paintings to one side, I took details of the paintings on display in the exhibition in order to 'feel' the essence of the countryside and seascapes beyond, without the elements that would indicate a set time in history. Such is the case with the section of Harvey's 1924 piece, The Road to Market, with its timeless sweeping moors and vast skies above. His works were exhibited several times in the Royal Academy in London, but Harvey never left his beloved Cornwall for the great city for any prolonged period.

Above is a small detail of the work Blackberrying 1917, with a dramatic view across the Bay with St Michael's Mount just visible, whilst the later painting, the Little Maiden (1934) offers an image down over Newlyn harbour from another high vantage point. Children often featured in Harvey's pieces, while he and Gertrude were apparently childless yet both came from very sizeable families, eight and ten respectively. I don't know if this weighed on them as a couple or gave them a feeling of weightlessness, with no direct bloodline stemming from them, to anchor their lives, secure in the perspective of future generations.

Perhaps this partly led Harold Harvey to convert to Catholicism in the latter years of his life; a spiritual journey not shared by his wife, but that is just speculation on my part. Home was certainly important to him and domestic scenes of his house and garden, generally featuring his wife, represent a significant proportion of an impressive artistic output, but of all of his art on display at Penlee House, the landscape details were my favourite....

A Burst of Beauty...

Sometimes you just wonder how Nature can create such marvels... What else can you say?

This too shall pass...

As the years go by, I find something strangely comforting in looking at portraits of individuals long departed. As they stare out at us, across the centuries that separate their lives from ours, I try to read any emotion that may lie behind their quizzical air and imagine the personality beyond, and likewise seek to piece together a notion of their existence from the scraps of information offered. Most of these endeavours do not lead very far, for even if I learn of the broad framework of their life events from my twenty-first century vantage point, I can never grasp how their lives were led, or understand the full extent of the power exerted on these by forces and influences that have relatively little hold or impact for the majority of us nowadays. However, I can recognise that these individuals experienced much the same gamut of feelings that we do today, and why wouldn't it be so? Hope, fear, love, grudges, ambition, disappointment; all crisscrossed past lives and drove existences much in the same way as they do now, albeit then untempered by the knowledge, science and technology and indeed hindsight that shape society today. They indeed posed the same fundamental questions concerning our time on Earth that we might today, if only we were not so preoccupied by consuming life in every possible sense. Ultimately they had a clearer understanding than us that life is short, regardless of how many years it extends, and that each stage and event passes and leads inevitably to the next, waxing and waning until death itself. Nothing lasts...

This summer I discovered the portrait above of Sir Henry Unton (1558-1596) at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and was rather suprised to see it referred to as a 'well-known' piece, for I had certainly never heard of it. The artist himmself is unidentified and yet his work lives on, hundreds of years on! And what an intriguing painting this proved to be... Set amongst many other Tudor portraits, this work was indeed unique. Unlike the full-length or the bust portraits that focus primarily on the figure, here the relatively youthful face of this diplomat - decked out in his Elizabethan finery - is surrounded by insightful vignettes of his existence, from cradle to grave. Commissioned by his widow, following his death in 1596, the ‘story picture’ of Sir Henry Unton lays out the key events of his 39 years in an anti-clockwise sequence that starts in the bottom right-hand corner. In almost each of these scenes - excepting his birth and death - we see miniature images of Sir Unton as the protagonist, all virtually the same scaled-down version of the main central portrait. The memorial portrait was very much in keeping with the interest of Elizabethan and Jacobean society for life's ephemerality but here, instead of being a rather dismal memento mori to 'remember that we must die', this visual narrative appears to be more a celebration of a short but active existence that also offers us a glimpse of life in the late 16th century.

In the detail above, we see the baby Henry in the arms of his mother, Anne Dudley (née Seymour), the Countess of Warwick, in Unton House. Her status is apparent from her fine clothes, the lady's maids, the odd little dog lying by her feet, and the richly-dressed table in the background. We have no real notion, however, of just how remarkable this particular individual was in her own right. Indeed, thanks to her Humanist education, along with her sisters (Jane and Margaret), she composed Latin poetry to honour Marguerite de Navarre on her death - the first published work written by English women before the 1560s; quite a feat. Towards the end of her relatively short life (dying in 1588 at just 50 years), Anne suffered from episodes of madness and was finally in the custody of her son, Henry. In this portrait however, we simply see the infant Henry seemingly scowling at a nurse who prepares to relieve the mother!

Youthful Henry is later depicted at study in Oriel College, Oxford, in 1573 before he went on to study Law in London and to travel beyond the Alps to Venice and Padua. I love the wonky perspective of the architecture around Henry, and the image of him as the studious young man, disportionally large, with his nose buried in a book at the open window!

We also see Henry on horse-back, holding up a parasol, whilst riding a strangely lumpen white stead, before going on to serve with the English army in the Netherlands (1585-86), a duty for which he was knighted in 1586.

He became a resident ambassador to France in 1591, but returned to England the following year suffering from jaundice. Back in his home land, Henry was elected as an MP for Berkshire in 1593 and his worldy success is reflected in the banquet scene, where he sits in a central position, almost with a twinkle of glee in his eye!

In another scene, Henry plays the lute while a masque of Mercury and Diana is performed around him but these festivities are offset by calmer moments, given to music-making, study or discussion....

I love the image of Henry below, cutting a solitary figure, with his strangely-proportioned arms stuck in front of him, as if as a hasty addition on the part of the artist to give Sir Unton more gravitas!

Henry again took up an ambassadorial role in 1595-6, as he returned to France but this was ended by an almost fatal fall from a horse, followed by a fever that indeed resulted in his demise, despite care from the royal physician to Henri IV. Henry is represented on his death-bed in the painting, with individuals at his side, displaying varying degrees of emotional response...

Apparently Henry's body was transported across the Channel to England in a black ship, as a mark of respect, and this we see in the background of the painting, with the hearse being brought back to his home of Wadley House, near Oxford.

From there, the funeral procession leads on to All Saint’s Church, Faringdon, where his funeral was held in 1596. The somber line of mourners in their long black clothing accompany the pall-bearers who carry Henry's coffin, likewise swathed in black...

Sir Henry Unton's final resting place is an imposing tomb monument which bears his effigy in recumbent form, leaning on one elbow, a large sword by his side and his widowed wife kneeling above him.

Presiding over all of these different scenes is, of course, the central image of Henry Unton himself, in his prime. He is seated in an impressive chair with a cameo necklace honouring the French king, Henry IV, resting on the desk from which he writes. Just by his shoulders, are the allegorical figures of Fame and Death, the one as an angel blowing a trumpet and holding out a coronet to herald elevated status and success, whilst the other is a skeletal form that brandishes a hour-glass to mark the ephemeral nature of Life, along with its trials and tribulations.

Life and Death, light and darkness are also underlined by the symbolic sun and crescent moon images in the corners of the work, with beams directed at the figure of Sir Henry in the different scenes, guiding us where the inscriptions can no longer do, having become illegible with the passing of time - how fitting!

Glorious Glass - Sainte-Chapelle...

Having visited Sainte-Chapelle a few months ago, I keep gazing at the glorious stained-glass windows that seem to make up most of the structure and space of its upper chapel. There seems to be so much modern-day ugliness on every possible level today, be that socially, culturally, or politically speaking, that I want to retreat from it all and find solace, peace and pleasure in pure beauty.

How is it possible that such a beautiful jewel could have been created and consecrated centuries ago - around 1248 - and indeed survived to the present day?

Ascending the narrow, time-worn stone steps up from the lower chapel below, which once served as a parish church for those living in the Palais de la Cité, visitors have little idea of just how magnificent this vast glass vessel will prove to be. What must this sensorial experience have been in centuries past, well before eyes and spirits were jaded through an incessant glut of 21st century screen-induced stimulation?

Commissioned by Louis IX to provide a palatine chapel in the Medieval royal residence, to house the sacred Holy relics in the most venerable manner, the upper level of Sainte-Chapelle stands on the lower chapel, in a two-storey design also found in Noyon Cathedral. Constructed in the Rayonnant Gothic style, the architectural design is staggeringly lofty; a tower of light, twice as high as it is wide, sending out a myriad of colour, even under darkening skies.

No supporting pillar obscures the long expanse that leads to the apse at the far east end, where the Holy relics were held in the grand châsse - an imposing reliquary casket - beneath the ornate baldaquin and surrounded by seven bays of towering stained-glass windows.

The west end of the chapel, is dominated by the vast rose window that was created in the Flamboyant Gothic style in the 15th century, with a flame-like design in the stone-work details and enamel-painted glass. The ceiling that runs from east to west above is divided into vaulted sections adorned with dark blue paint-work with rich gold stars...

The apparent weighlessness of the curtains of glass, without the use of masonry walls inside or buttresses outside, is reliant on bar tracery and iron rods and chains that provide tension and support. Furthermore, the pillars employed are cleverly 'disguised' by a series of slender stem-like structures that soar above, thus emphasizing the height as opposed to the thickness of the whole.

At the base of these ribbed columns stand apostles, and you cannot help but wonder what and who they have seen over the centuries! Having witnessed damage and destruction by the fire and flooding visited on Sainte-Chapelle, its desecration during the French Revolution and then disolution in the aftermath, these silent witnesses have also observed the pre-emptive measures taken in WW2, with the windows removed and later returned to avoid damage. Incredibly, two-thirds of the stained glass that we see in Sainte-Chapelle today are the original pieces from the Medieval period, whilst the spire is, in fact, the fifth to have adorned the monument!

Although Sainte-Chapelle managed to survive the social and political turmoil of the Revolution years, by the early decades of the 19th century there were plans to destroy it completely in order to make way for a new palais de justice. Fortunately, Victor Hugo swayed public opinion and Sainte-Chapelle was the object of a vast restoration project that went on from 1840-1863.

Much of the paint-work had to be recreated or restored, along with the sculptures, but models were taken from other monuments of the period in order to respect the original design. Typically, the fleur-de-lys image figures significantly, in reference to the royal heritage of Louis IX to the Capetian dynasty and then the castle of the kingdom of Castile in reference to his mother, Blanche de Castile.

A visit to Sainte-Chapelle is an immersion into an exquisite golden chamber of light, colour and weightlessness that is the perfect antidote to the dark, bland, heavy void we seem to have thrust upon us nowadays, whether we like it or not...

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose...

On a recent early visit to Hyde Park, I admired the beautiful lilies and roses all still in bloom, gradually coming to life as the morning sun gathered height in the summer sky. This is one of my perfect images of England and 'Englishness' and one that I seek out everytime I return and this time was no exception. I was immediately reminded of the twisted, silhouetted forms of those same flowers that play an integral part in the painting Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose painted in 1885/6 by John Singer Sargent (1856–1925). This painting is often considered to be quintessentially English and having met great acclaim when exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1887, today is often taken to be the artist's most notable work, displayed in the Tate Britain.

The glow radiating out from the delicate Chinese paper lanterns, the play of light and colour across the girls' white dresses, the flowers and their stark forms and outlines, all captured as twilight gives way to night, ensured Sargent's renown as the 'English Impressionist'. Indeed, up close the delicate rendering of flowers, fabric or flesh reveals itself to be achieved through remarkably bold yet deftly applied brushstrokes, with the artist said to have resembled a fencer, darting repeatedly towards the canvas with precision and skill. The fact that the work took two years to accomplish has also added a certain intrigue to the painting - with the children - Holly and Polly - caught at a particular, fleeting moment of the day that lasted mere minutes. Apparently Sargent played tennis whilst waiting for the instant when he could tackle his work, and had to adapt to changing circumstances accordingly, exchanging the real flowers for artificial ones when the season was over, for example.

Sargent's artistic output does, however, go far beyond this one painting and ultimately the crisp prettiness of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose has perhaps done Sargent a disservice and lead to a number of misconceptions over the years. Firstly, although John Singer Sargent spent a large part of his adult life in England, he was in fact born to expatriate American parents in Florence, Italy, and travelled from one European city and country to another during his formative years.

Despite being an American national, he was consequently more cosmopolitan by nature, and his itinerant lifestyle meant that he felt forever the foreigner, and sometimes the outsider, reputedly feeling shy in large social settings in spite of his ability to speak five languages. Furthermore, his work encompassed other mediums than simply oil paint, and his truly prolific production throughout his career included countless charcoal and watercolour works and vast murals. Likewise, although he was lauded as an unparalleled, highly sought-after portrait painter and that a considerable part of his career was devoted to this field, he covered many other areas of subject material - landscapes, architecture, sculpture etc - and relished the opportunity to escape oil portraiture and the creation of pretty pictures for wealthy figures. In addition - and linked to the previous point - Sargent's work has often been mispresented - reproached for being superficial and lacking true substance; I certainly remember being taught to view his paintings as clever representations of frills and frocks but with no real 'message'. However, surely that is to miss the intention of Sargent as an artist and to fail to set him in an artistic context.

Having trained in Paris in the atelier of the realist portrait painter Carolus-Duran - and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts - Sargent learnt to paint au premier coup and acquired a swiftness in approach that must surely be unmatched. Like Velázquez, he developed an ability to reproduce incredible detail with deceptively broad, visible strokes, apparently weilding large brushes rather like those of an artisan rather than an artist, to recreate an unbelievable degree of realism and accuracy with minimal detail. Influenced by French impressionism (he was friends with Monet) but still rooted in concrete reality, Sargent did not merely explore impressions from light and shadow but seemed to seek the physical and material sustance of the subject, not primarily their soul.

His portraits capture the essence of the individual in that moment, but do not attempt to offer a narrative or reveal social background; little or none is proposed. Sargent is said to have selected the two girls for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose for their hair colour and not solely direct sentiment and likewise was fascinated with the famously pale luminosity of Madame Gautreau's skin, as opposed to being infatuated with this grand figure from Parisian society. How ironic that the scandal that followed Sargent's presentation of Madame X at the Salon of 1884 in Paris , ultimately led to his leaving France and his success in England with Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose just two years later.

For a public fed on 'meaningful' paintings with heavy references to historical events or offering some kind of insight into the nature of the sitter or subject, this would pass for a sorry lack of depth. His work could thus entrance and intrigue due its technical skill but would not haunt the viewer, and no amount of talent in execution could compensate the perceived spiritual emptiness. This could perhaps explain why Sargent's art fell out of favour shortly after his death in 1925, yet when you look at the skill and breadth of his artistic production, it seems a shocking error of judgement or reputation. The quality and incredible quantity of his outcome is utterly breath-taking and Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose is just one of many, many works...

Vanishing Beauty in the Woods...

Just over a hundred years ago, this long alleyway led to the grand Château de Toussicourt, set behind a majestic central pond and looking down over the sweeping landscape that is now indistinct agricultural land. I had learnt of Toussicourt a number of years ago, when looking into the history of the area of Hermonville and its unwitting involvement in the Great World - 1914-1918.

Finding itself at the heart of hostilities from the very beginning of the war, the region around Hermonville and further beyond was the focus of many brutal - yet ultimately futile military missions - with lives, land and livelihood literally obliterated. The village itself was employed as army training base in espionnage and the numerous châteaux (of which there were initially seven), served as encampment grounds.

These impressive domains were cruelly damaged during the war years and some were left in ruins - as was the case for Toussicourt. Having belonged to the Krafft family in the final chapter of its life, the château was abandonned to the wilderness as Hugues Krafft dedicated himself to the preservation of the architectural heritage of Reims with the foundation of the Société des Amis du Vieux Reims (SAVR) and the purchase of the Hôtel Le Vergeur.

I managed to track down Toussicourt a few years ago, in winter months, just weeks before global lockdown made such walks in the countryside seem illusory... The visit of the final remains of this once-grand residence was dreamlike in itself and now in the summer months, years on, there was a similar feeling of halted or suspended reality, as if you could somehow conjure up the past if only you find the correct opening.

The stark branches, stripped foliage and visible stonework of the winter have now been clothed in shrouds of vivid green with darts of sunlight breaking through the leafy canopies above whilst dense undergrowth carpet and conceal paths underfoot...

Moss and ivy are draped everywhere, as is lichen, whilst Nature takes its claim on these traces of human history...

No indentifiable structural vestiges remain of the château itself, apart from the odd turret-shaped form that originally stood near the pond, and is now sumberged by the trees and saplings that stand where once the main building rose up. The stonework of this final construction is gradually being carved up by inclement weather that drives in cracks and crevaces where the war hostilities had failed...

Although hidden from view in summer months, the pond still offers a peaceful glimpse of what once was; past elegance and tranquility. I couldn't help but reflect on that loss in the present too as we have entered unchartered territory in almost every aspect of life since my last visit.

As I left, feeling a little wistful, I caught a glimpse of this strangely faded Peacock butterfly; vanishing beauty indeed!