The Norwich School of Painting/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
Before unfolding the story of the Norwich School, and to assist in estimating its position and influence, the following facts should be recalled to our minds.
In these islands, as in every other part of Europe, traditions inherited from the grand past-masters of Italy and France restrained Art in fetters of gold until the close of the eighteenth century. That this should have been so is natural. In all Arts the precepts and practice of the most eminent become laws to their successors. Think for a moment of Claude Lorraine and Gaspar Poussin—the two painters whose landscapes are the crowning glory of their art. The first had, with the daring of an eagle, gazed at the very source of light; the second, following the great Italians, insisted on the value of a wealth of shade. No one can deny the worth of their teachings. But the enforcement of their methods of construction by academic prescription, in other climes than their own, hindered the growth of national schools. British artists were taught to Italianise their landscapes, as did the great Wilson, and to avoid the fresh salad green—that charming feature for which their well-watered land is envied—in favour of the siennas and russet browns of the burnt-up south! In 1760, we had painters like John Wooton and George Lambert representing, as Constable used to say, “English country gentlemen in their wigs, jockey caps, and top boots, with packs of hounds, careering in Italian landscapes resembling those of Gaspar Poussin in everything excepting truth and force.” When George III. unkindly returned to Wilson the Italianised view of Kew Gardens he had painted for the King, his action might have been excused on the score of common sense.
One of Wilson’s pupils—the kindly, accomplished, and travelled connoisseur, Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827)—became the fashionable leader of taste in the realm of landscape. At Cole Orton Hall, his newly-built seat in Leicestershire, surrounded by his Claudes, Poussins, and Wilsons, he spent each morning in his studio, which, being on the upper floor, commanded an extensive view of wellwooded and even mountainous scenery. Constable, who was his guest for five weeks in 1823, describes his studio practice thus (I quote it as a telling contrast between the old style and the new):—“Sir George placed a small landscape by Gaspar Poussin on his easel by the side of one he was himself painting, and observed, “Now, if I can match these tints, I am sure to be right” ‘But, suppose, Sir George,’ replied Constable, ‘Gaspar could rise from his grave, do you think he would know his own picture in its present state? Or, if he did, should we not find it difficult to persuade him that somebody had not smeared tar or cart-grease over its surface, and then wiped it imperfectly off?’”
On another occasion, Sir George recommended the colour of the varnish of an old Cremona violin for the prevailing tone of a landscape. Constable replied by taking the old fiddle and laying it on the green lawn before the house.
No doubt the continual study of brown Old Masters, mellowed by time and “comforted” (to use a restorers word) by many glazings of Dutch pink, had induced in him, as in most of the Italian-travelled artists, a positive abhorrence of that “salad” freshness of English meadows and groves which is their peculiar charm. Beaumont was a stickler for the “conventionalities” of the Academy, according to which in every landscape there should be a first, second, and a third light, besides at least one brown tree. To his query, “Do you find it very difficult to determine where to place your brown tree?” Constable replied, “Not in the least, for I never put such a thing into a picture.”
Such was the contrast between the bathos of the Old School and the fresh awakening of the new. As the result of endless copying, the glorious art of Claude, of Poussin, and of Wilson, had been succeeded by brown monotonies of the studio. Second-hand art, dull, lifeless, uninteresting. Canvases were never taken into the open air, and the water-colour sketches from which they were painted were only Indian ink drawings lightly washed over with local colours.
It must not be supposed that the New School leapt into the void suddenly. It had been prepared for by the scattering of Dutch pictures—particularly the sale of the Orleans collection in 1792, in this country. These becoming the fashion, a Soho watchmaker, travelling in Holland to dispose of his English watches, taking a fancy to panels by Cuyp, which he saw used as wall decorations in the wainscoting of the houses, bartered away his watches for them. Bringing these to London he found the transaction so remunerative that he devoted himself to the business of collecting Cuyp’s. Thus, England became the resting-place of the works of that grand master, who had painted so entirely from nature and so little in the studio, that at his death—in comparative poverty—not a single sketch or study was found in his house. These Dutch pictures had set the tide flowing against the dark school of Italy, and in favour of the daylight of the North. Instead of the Caracci, the Poussins, and Salvator Rosa, Van de Velde, Ruysdael, Hobbeina, and Cuyp, attracted those who must copy. But after all, this was little more than the transfer of allegiance from one set of alien masters to another, and a step in advance of some degree only because the latter were landscapists of our own latitude.
Our artists had yet to learn—what having learned, they must now always remember—viz., the self-evident truth, that those who follow never will lead, and that aspirants to eminence must seek their inspiration at first hand–in her own glorious temple from Nature herself. As Leonardo da Vinci wittily remarked, “One painter ought never to imitate the manner of another, because, in that case, he cannot be called the child of Nature but only the grandchild.” It is evident that no true “school” can ever be established by mimics of the masters of other lands or former times.
In attempting to write a history of the Norwich School, the Author finds himself confronted by the demand for a definition of the title. He commenced his task with the intention of limiting it to a description of the lives and works of that remarkable group of artists who, owing to the then comparative remoteness of Norwich from the Metropolis, and to their own poverty, were compelled to teach themselves and their pupils Art in the beautiful academy of nature that was opened to them. Uninfluenced by prescription or tradition, but surrounded by scenery of a special sort, with the delightful features of which they could not help being in love, they boldly declared NATURE THEIR ONLY GUIDE. And, when they founded their Society and held exhibitions of their works, it soon became evident to the world that their Art was distinguished by a speciality. Love of their native heathland rivers, mills, and woods had kept them so continually repeating the same views under every change of sunshine and shadow—their palettes were so constantly set with the same rich and mellow colours—that even when they went to other scenes their colouring and touch declared them still “of Norwich.”
To find any less general definition of the characteristics of the Norwich School than that of “looking only to Nature,” as announced on the catalogues of the Norwich Exhibitions, is not possible for a preface to the works of a number of artists each one of whom, of course, claimed the right to look at Nature in his own way. Indeed, in these latter days, when the emancipation of Art from academic prescription has been secured and freedom is the birthright of every artist, the importance of the claim is less apparent. Nevertheless, no one will deny that the Norwich School has had a powerful influence upon the Art of Great Britain, and has done its best towards raising British landscape to the envied position it holds to-day throughout Europe.
As a fitting close to this short introduction the writer thanks owners of pictures for the courtesy with which they have permitted him to view their treasures. Their names occur on every page and need not be recited here. But the patriotic zeal with which the late Mr. Colman, Mr. Geo. Holmes, Mr. Barwell, Canon Ripley, Mr. John Gurney, Mr. Geldart, and Mr. James Reeve, preserved for Norwich the masterpieces of its famous School, deserves to be recorded. The last gentleman, himself an artist, devoted over forty years to patiently gathering together the drawings, proof-etchings, and documentary remains of Norwich masters—treasures which but for him would have been scattered through the land, but which, in his intelligent keeping presented the only complete history of the School. So large and well-arranged were his collections, that the Author found himself working at them alone, day after day, for three entire weeks! Whey are now transferred to the Print-room of the British Museum. Mr. Reeve’s own contributions to the literature of the subject, particularly his valuable Memoir of John Sell Cotman, are well known to every student.
Christmas, 1905.