682. Charles Shannon in Sleaford

Charles Shannon spent most of his adult life in London, but apart from the long trips abroad he made with Ricketts or others, he occasionally returned to the area where he came from. In September 1918, for example, he spent ten days with his sisters Helen and Catherine in Sleaford (Lincolnshire), the village where he had grown up and where his father, the reverend Frederick William Shannon, had been a rector of Quarrington and Old Sleaford from 1861 to 1909. Shannon's father would die a year later, and was buried by the north door of Quarrington Church where a cross marks his grave. After his own death in 1929, Shannon's ashes were interned in front of this grave.

Exactly when is undisclosed, but at some point Shannon designed a new cover for the baptismal font for Quarrington Church.

Charles Shannon, cover for the baptismal font
of Quarrington Church
[Photo: Chris Hodgson]

The font itself reputedly dates back to the late fourteenth century, and probably was brought to Quarrington in the late 1800s, but in the late twentieth century the new Shannon cover was discarded by the church, probably because of the enormous weight of the iron construction which made it not easy to use as it required at least three people to open the cover for a christening ceremony. It is now privately owned.

Carre Gallery director Christopher Hodgson and the Shannon display

The Sleaford Gallery Arts Trust hosts a permanent display relating to Shannon in its Carre Gallery. [See the website of Carre Gallery.] Shannon prints and ephemera were collected by Christopher Micklethwaite and donated by the family to the Carre Gallery to honour Shannon and Micklethwaite, both residents of Sleaford.

[Thanks are due to Christopher Hodgson.]

681. A Prophetic Book: Vale, Vale

In his articles for The Academy, Robert Ross was free to experiment. In the 29 September 1906 episode, the starting point is Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909), who was still alive when Ross published his article. In 1868, the poet had published a study on William Blake (1757-1827) and Ross wrote: 'Much has been discovered about Blake since 1866' [1868]. However, 'it would be idle at this time of day to criticise'.

William Rothenstein, 'Portrait of Robert Ross'
(National Portrait Gallery, London)

Instead, Ross makes a big turn by imagining that Blake could have been inspired by Swinburne:

How fascinated Blake would have been with Mr. Swinburne if by some exquisite accident he had lived after him. We should have had, I fancy, another Prophetic Book - something of this kind.

Then follows a conversation between Ross and a certain Theodormon in a landscape next to ‘the gulf of oblivion'. He promises that Ross will get to see Swinburne, he does wander around and his 'permanent address is the Peaks, Parnassus', a joke on Swinburne's place of residence The Pines in Putney.

They come to a printing house where William Morris is 'reverting to type and transmitting art to the middle classes', but a voice sounds from inside the building.

'Vale, Vale,' cried Charles Ricketts from the interior. I was rather vexed as I wanted to ask Ricketts his opinions about various things and people and to see his wonderful collection. Shannon, however, presented me with a lithograph, and a copy of “Memorable Fancies” by C.R.

Then follows the rendering of this 24-line poem purportedly written by Ricketts making fun of all art historians, - each line could be given at least two footnotes to address all the innuendos-  while beginning with the non-academic background of Ricketts himself.

Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon,
cover for The Dial, No. 1 (1889)
(from Yellow Nineties 2.0)

How sweet I roamed from school to school,

But I attached myself to none;

I simply sat upon my Dial,

And watched the other artists' fun.

Will Rothenstein can guard the faith,

Safe in Academic fold;

'T was very wise of William Strang,

What need have I for Chantrey's gold?

Let the old masters be my share,

And let them fall on B.B.'s corn;

Let the Uffizi take to Steer,

What do I care for Herbert Horn?

Or the stately Holmes of England,

Whose glories never fade;

The Constable of Burlington,

Who holds the Oxford Slade.

It's Titian here and Titian there,

And come to have a look;

But "thanks of course Giorgione,"

With Mr. Herbert Cook.

For MacColl is an intellectual thing,

And Hugh P. Lane keeps Dublin awake;

And Fry to New York has taken wing,

And Charles Holroyd has got the cake.

Ross could go quite far with his innuendos and even write about homosexuality, in a short piece on John Addington Symonds (1840-1893):

He published at the Kelmscott the other day 'An Ode to a Grecian Urning.' The proceeds of the sale went to the Arts and Krafts Ebbing Guild, but the issue of 'Aretino's Bosom and other Poems' has been postponed.

In 1873 Symonds had written about pederasty and homosexuality in A Problem in Greek Ethics (published anonymously in 1883). Ross refers to this by inserting the word for pederast (urning) in the title of a poem by Keats and by introducing the name of the German psychiatrist and sexologist Richard Krafft Ebing in the name of the Arts and Crafts Society. But he was careful enough not to include allusions to his (or his own) homosexuality in the Ricketts poem.

For the reader, solving all the art historical references in this poem is a pleasant summer puzzle.

Robert Ross, 'Swinblake: A Prophetic Book, With Home Zarathrusts',
The Academy, 29 September 1906

(Robert Ross, 'Swinblake: A Prophetic Book, With Home Zarathrusts', The Academy, 29 September 1906, p. 3078.)

680. The Cecil Rhodes of Art

During the time Robert Ross ran the Carfax Gallery, he regularly wrote articles for The Academy that were somewhere between review, commentary, anecdote and fiction written in a personal style with plenty of inside jokes and inimitable humour. The name of Ricketts often appeared in the columns, which mainly indicates that Ross and Ricketts spoke to each other frequently and not just about art (the latter is especially evident in their personal correspondence). Some of his pieces were collected by Ross in the publication Masques and Phases (1909), but by no means all of them. 

Robert Ross, 'The Drama. Mr. Arthur Symons's Morality'
(The Academy, 21 April 1906) (fragment)

His 'review' of an Arthur Symons play led him to contemplate the rise of small theatre groups, including The Literary Theatre Society which involved Ricketts and his friends. Ross, evidently, argued there were too many small coteries:

It seems to me a great pity that the Stage Society should not amalgamate with the New Stage Club, The Literary Theatre Club and all the better dramatic societies. I am in favour of imperialism on the stage, if not elsewhere. The Illicit Theatres Limited would be a good name for the company. For the romantic symbolist and poetic drama they would obtain the services of that Cecil Rhodes of art, Mr. Charles Ricketts, and those Jameson raiders of poetry, Mr. Sturge Moore. Mr. Laurence Binyon and Mr. Arthur Symons. (Robert Ross, The Drama. Mr. Arthur Symons's Morality', The Academy, 21 April 1906, p. 383.)

Of course, the comparison of Ricketts to Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) is viewed in a very different perspective today, but in London in 1906 the imperialist flavour was not considered as negative, and Rhodes, a mining magnate and politician who founded Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), was seen as an energetic man 'who got things done'.

679. A Series of Cartoons by Charles Shannon (4)

Shannon's final drawing in The Alarum depicts a domestic scene with a woman and a man in their living room between plants on side tables, rattan chairs, a piano, tall windows with curtains, a work of art on a chest of drawers (or a cabinet), a tea table, and a carpet.

Charles Shannon, 'A Diplomatic Answer', The Alarum, Vol. 1, No. 4 (10 November 1886), p. 7.

All his drawings in this magazine are not only signed with his full name, but also dated. The latter has a reason. Magazines by no means always published such drawings, for which they paid, in the next issue. To prevent an artist, once famous, from being criticised for such drawings, the signature proved that it was an early work, which the artist no longer had to account for. Indeed, some of the drawings for Judy remained unpublished for several years - Shannon himself had since taken a different path.