Stanhope Forbes, Penlee Cornwall
A thoroughly enjoyable visit to the fantastic current exhibition at Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance, Cornwall gave me an opportunity to study and ponder on the works of one of Cornwall’s greatest late 19/early 20th Century artists. Stanhope Forbes, Penlee Cornwall
Stanhope Forbes (1857 – 1947) accredited as being the ‘father’ of the Newlyn School of Art from around 1880s to the 20th Century.
Henry Scott Tuke, Elizabeth Forbes, Charles Napier, Walter Langley, Frank Bramley and Alfred Munnings were amongst the artists enjoying working in Newlyn at this time.
Stanhope Forbes, Penlee Cornwall
To try and understand Forbes’ works I concentrated my study on 4 of his earlier works:
These works seemed to me to typify Forbes fulfilling the period’s expectation of typical Cornish scenes and leading to him becoming a popular exhibitor at the Royal Academy (he became an Associate in 1892).
Stanhope Forbes, Penlee Cornwall
I noted that Forbes’ broad and rapid brush strokes brilliantly captured the particular light of Cornwall (he was one of the first to paint en plein-aire), stories for us to interpret of movement and the joy of the moment, through to the social-realism of the harsh life of the fishing and country folk.
It is evident that we have structure here of the confident ‘la belle epoch‘ era: secure verticals and horizontals, pre-occupation of the moment in time, even plentiful harvests from the sea with the avoidance of distressing realities such as …
Over time, many artists change their styles, they start or follow movements, they influence or are influenced to make changes in their approach. They mature, even recede.
My interpretation of Forbes …
Setting the scene …
. the Chadding crew, the young people in Gala – I couldn’t help thinking – what fate awaited them in 1914?
. Elizabeth Forbes, Stanhope’s wife, died from cancer in 1912.
. his son Alec was killed at The Somme in 1916.
Am I misplaced in pondering that from his post WW1 work we do indeed see a distinct change in his style? Whilst we have sunshine and optimism in his ‘On Paul Hill’ (1922)…
I nevertheless noted the faces. Gone are the close portraits, replaced by almost anonymous, generic features. We have a detachment, an avoidance of intimacy, a distance.
In his later works this is even more evident. We almost have, (dare I say?) kitsch images of idealistic scenes.
All full of life, vitality and colour with strong structures but the detail has gone. The personal closeness compared to his earlier works, is kept very much at bay.
Over the Cornish Peninsula a new movement was forming, the St. Ives School, English Modernism, Abstraction, reflecting the changing times and approaches to art. Ben Nicolson and Christopher Wood, through to Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gobo, Patrick Heron and Terry Frost.
Stanhope Forbes, Penlee Cornwall
Stanhope Forbes and his Newlyn contemporaries remaining firmly in the Victorian and Edwardian canon.