PAINTING IN WEST CORNWALL

For at least two centuries, the light and landscape of Cornwall has attracted artists. Early visitors included J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), Joseph Farington (1747-1821), Samuel Prout and William Brooks, while home-grown artists included the "Cornish Wonder" John Opie (1761-1807), as well as less well known painters such as Richard T. Pentreath (1806-1869) and John Henry Martin (1835-1908). The majority of the works produced by these painters were landscapes and seascapes, with very few genre works which were the hallmark of the later Newlyn artists

The single most painted scene in Cornwall is almost certainly the enchanting landmark of St. Michael's Mount, situated in Mount's Bay, in the far west of the county. Artists have been capturing its qualities in every conceivable aspect, lit by brilliant sunshine or thrashed by raging storms, for many centuries.

As well as St Michael's Mount, west Cornwall boasts two famous fishing ports whose names have become synonymous with two eras of British painting - Newlyn and St. Ives. Separated by the neck of the Penwith peninsula, Newlyn lies on the South coast of the peninsula, with St Ives some seven miles away on the North coast.

In the late 1800s, artists from all over Europe and from America flocked to Brittany, in particular to Concarneau and Pont Aven, attracted by the clear light and abundance of subject matter and following a vogue for painting 'en plein air'. In the 1880s, British artists began to discover that west Cornwall provided a similar source of inspiration closer to home. Soon, a whole host of artists began to settle in the tiny fishing port of Newlyn, to the west of Mount's Bay, forming the renowned artists' colony known as the 'Newlyn School'.

The painter Thomas Cooper Gotch (1854-1931) and his wife-to-be, a fellow artist, Caroline Yates (1854-1945), visited Newlyn in 1880, but it was the artist Walter Langley (1852-1922) who was the first to settle, making the village his home in 1882. Trained in Birmingham Langley had visited Newlyn in both 1880 and 1881, having also spent time painting in Brittany. His arrival was closely followed that of his friend Edwin Harris, who was also from Birmingham.

In 1884, Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) arrived, writing to his mother that "Newlyn is a sort of English Concarneau and is the haunt of many artists". In a matter of a few years, the colony of artists had grown considerably, and by September 1884 'The Cornishman' newspaper noted that there were no less than twenty-seven artists residing in Newlyn. These included Frank Wright Bourdillon, Frank Bramley, Percy Craft, W.T. Blandford Fletcher, Elizabeth Forbes (née Armstrong), Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Thomas Cooper Gotch , Frederick Hall, Edwin Harris, Harold Harvey, Walter Langley, Leghe Suthers, Albert Chevallier Tayler, Ralph Todd and Henry Scott Tuke.

By the end of the century the group began to disperse, with only a small number of artists still living in the Newlyn/Penzance area. Aiming to rebuild the Newlyn Colony after the departure of many of the original artists, Stanhope and Elizabeth Forbes founded a School of Painting in 1899, which brought a new generation of artists to west Cornwall. Their school attracted a large number of students, who were taught the 'plein air' techniques of painting outdoors, capturing the effects of ever-changing weather conditions upon the landscape, with models painted in situ.

Newlyn's artistic and social life was regenerated and continued to flourish between 1900 and the First World War. A whole new generation of artists developed, although the majority of these chose to base themselves in the nearby village of Lamorna, a small cove with dramatic cliffs a few miles along the coast from Newlyn. Perhaps the most influential artist in this group was S. J. 'Lamorna' Birch , who had arrived from Lancashire to settle in Penzance in 1892. Others included Dod Procter (née Shaw), Ernest Procter, Eleanor and Robert Hughes, Ruth Allison, Kathleen Earle, Frank Heath and Margaret Bruford, as well as Harold and Laura Knight, Ella and Charles Naper and Alethea Garstin.

Whereas the Newlyn artists had largely depicted the lives of the local fishing community with earthy realism, the Lamorna Artists' style of painting was more concerned with the colours and shapes of the landscape in strong sunlight. These artists used a much brighter palette than their Newlyn predecessors and often painted 'straight from the tube', not softening the vibrant hues of ready-made oil paints by mixing them.

While Walter Langley and Stanhope Forbes were establishing themselves in Newlyn, St Ives was also developing as a gathering place for artists. St. Ives was far more cosmopolitan than Newlyn, with artists coming from countries as far away as America, Scandinavia and even Australia to study the coastline, made beautiful by the ever-changing light and moods of the sea. Visiting British painters included James McNeil Whistler and Walter Sickert, who spent the winter of 1883 sketching the sea, sky and beach in a loose impressionistic style.

1888 saw the emergence of an Artists' Club, which enabled painters of the sea, such as Julius Olsson, Arnesby Brown, Adrian Stokes and Algernon Talmage, to get together and discuss different techniques for capturing the essence of the wild and rugged north coast of Cornwall.

As art historians now view it, the birth of the St Ives colony as a recognised entity came in 1928, when Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood 'discovered' Alfred Wallis, a retired fisherman who took up painting "for company" after the death of his wife. Wallis' naïve paintings were to inspire and influence many of the Modernist artists who were to form the St Ives group.

Although the initial era was short-lived (Nicholson and his wife Winifred did not remain in the area, and Christopher Wood met a tragic death in 1930), it sowed the seed for the development of the later group. In 1939, Nicholson was to return, this time with his second wife, Barbara Hepworth, at the invitation of the writer and artist Adrian Stokes. Naum Gabo, a fellow member of the international Constructivist Movement, and a number of other artists, including Sven Berlin and Herbert Read, followed them, staying in St Ives as an 'escape' from the Second World War. The art of this group is frequently exhibited at the Tate Gallery, St Ives.

Many artists still choose to settle in Penzance or St Ives and their surrounding areas on the Penwith peninsula. The Penwith landscape, featuring St Michael's Mount, historic fishing villages, dramatic cliffs, bleak moorlands peppered with ancient sites and vast, sculptural rock forms, together with the clarity of the light and the sparkling azure seas, continue to inspire artists and craftsmen alike. Once experienced by an artist, it seems that the West Cornwall peninsula cannot but leave a permanent impact on their lives and their art.