496. The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore (2)

The correspondence between Sturge Moore and Bottomley (see last week's blog) begins in March 1906 when Bottomley asks Sturge Moore for permission to include some of his poems in a production of James Guthrie's Pear Tree Press. This first section of the online resource ‘The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore’ runs from 1906 through December 1917, and contains no less than 253 letters, which, when printed, occupy almost 400 pages. The editor's work has been a mammoth undertaking, and we have to admire his perseverance. 

Charles Shannon, 'T. Sturge Moore in a Cloak' (1896)

Sturge Moore very often proves to be a self-assured teacher, while Bottomley's letters regularly contain intimate biographical and witty paragraphs that make one understand why a rather unknown poet and dramatist was appreciated, for example, by Ricketts and Shannon. Sturge Moore is often annoyed by the overflowing admiration in Bottomley's letters, while the latter, in his northern English isolation, shows gratitude for every sign of life (in 1914 Bottomley moved to the Sheiling, Silverdale, where he and his wife Emily lived from then on).

In 1930 Sturge Moore's character would almost lead to a break, as editor John Aplin observes in a footnote to letter 103 (19 July 1913): Sturge Moore's 'stubborn unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to entertain the legitimacy of alternative points of view is characteristically displayed here, and would eventually result in GB coming close to breaking off their correspondence at the end of 1930.' An example is Moore's hard-hitting commentary on an early version of Bottomley's play King Lear's Wife. 

All your arguments are neither here nor there as far as my point of view is concerned. My dogma is not at all as you state it. Your defence merely restates the initial error of all impressionists, the pathetic fal[l]acy that there is somewhere in an artist something loyalty to which alone gives value to his work. I deny this in toto. [...] What you say about Michael Angelo is as wrong as what you say about Yeats & Whistler. Read in Art & Life what I say about visionary art, and you will understand how superficial your idea is.

Meanwhile, his criticism is so merciless that his wife had to intervene and the letter was accompanied by an introductory note that had to be read first (letter 117, 20-3 June 1914). Bottomley kept telling Sturge Moore that he appreciated his criticism:

I feel now that this fault, which you have disentangled so delicately and justly, pervades all my earlier work poems and makes them seem to be written in a dead language which was never spoken by more than one man […]. 

(Letter 8, 22 September 1908).

Behind Sturge Moore's sometimes furious letters are views that the French poet and philosopher Paul Valéry also expressed: 

There is no finality: nothing is ever really finished; nothing that is that counts, that lives. A work of art goes on living and changing its sense & its form long after the artists bones have mouldered into dust.

Bottomley perhaps understands Sturge Moore better than the other way around (this correspondence is interesting for that reason alone). He replies, for example:

when you hit hard it is because you like and expect the other man to hit hard too; and that if I did not do my best according to the truth of my nature you would despise me either as a shirker or a woolly head, and I should lose you

(Letter 118, 1 July 1914).

Thomas Sturge Moore, 'Pan Mountain' (1893)

In June 1908 the Bottomleys visited London and met Sturge Moore for the first time, which gave Gordon 'much gratification and delight': 

Your "Siegfried" engravings are [...] haunting; you have a power over the romance of primeval things which comes close to my own desires, and in this series it takes complete possession of me. I value them very truly, and I am planning to hang them side by side where I shall constantly see them.

(Letter 4, 31 July 1908).

Charles Ricketts, 'Nimrod' (1893)

Meanwhile, one of their mutual friends is mentioned for the first time in letter 6 (16 August 1908). Bottomley discusses Charles Ricketts's drawing of Nimrod, which he mentions in connection with gestures that he himself tries to capture in words:

I long to depict in words such sudden, expressive gestures as the upthrust elbow of the awakened woman in Ingres' "Stratonice", the aversion of the woman's head in Rossetti's "Found" (the pen drawing), the filmy spasm that passes across the face of Nimrod in that tremendous early drawing by Ricketts (in the de Tabley book), or the surge of the horse in the last block of your own "Siegfried" series.

Bottomley and Sturge Moore discussed art and literature (including the works of Flaubert), but also theatre and music, such as Wagner's operas. Sturge Moore considered Hugo von Hofmannsthal 'the greatest poet now alive' (letter 11, 30 November 1908), he especially loved Elektra (at that time not yet a Strauss opera).

Their appreciation of the visual arts differed. Bottomley got in touch with Paul Nash early on, Sturge Moore viewed the post-impressionists with great suspicion and thought Van Gogh and Picasso were mostly idiots: 'Picasso was very tallented [sic] but seems to have lost his way & become silly [...]', and while he blamed the post-impressionists for lack of progress, he remained blind to true innovation (see letter 54, 3 February 1911).

The letters contain all sorts of little gems, partly because Sturge Moore tries to keep Bottomley abreast of what is happening in the London art world. He talks, for example, about the success of Otto Weininger's book Sex & Character and comments that Ricketts was absolutely delighted with the term 'henid', 'a vague, half-formed thought or feeling' (letter 13, 17 January 1909). We also read that Ricketts had no great opinion of Tagore: 'Ricketts is quite hopelessly out of it in denying him any real value' (letter 105, 15 September 1913).

Sturge Moore describes a new painting by Ricketts, 'Faust Riding the Centaur' (now at Manchester Art Gallery) and Bottomley regrets that he will not see the show, and hopes that he can view it later in Ricketts's studio:

His work, in all its forms, stimulates an intensity of vision in me which is like a thirst in my eyes; I am afraid you will laugh at my impotence when I say that on seeing things of his my first impulse is always a desire to rush and buy them, regardless of everything – but indeed it is so – until my lean and impotent purse brings its unfailing paralysis, and I return to earth ruefully. 

(Letter 16 1 March 1909)

Charles Ricketts, 'Faust Riding the Centaur' (1909)
[Collection: Manchester Art Gallery]

Elsewhere he wrote that it was now almost twenty years since he first encountered the name Ricketts (Letter 75, 9-13 August 1912): 

I think we shall see no man to come near him in our time, for he has that kind of universality in his nature which one recognises in only Shakespeare or Rembrandt. 

Sturge Moore replied: 

He could not work even as an artist on their scale because his perceptions are not richly varied enough are not so athletic. Such a scale is as impossible to him as their blunders, carelessness, or lapses into vulgarity would be. He comes for me nearer to Rossetti, Giorgione, He has their or Keats. He has their wonderfull [sic] and enchanting power of selecting and rehandling artistic material and is perhaps more successful and less limited than either. More successful than Rossetti less limited than Keats & Giorgione, though the chief limitation of both of these was possibly early death. 

(Letter 76, 27 August 1912).

Of course Bottomley disagreed with him:

I feel that you are right in saying that my comparison of Ricketts with Rembrandt and Shakespeare will not hold good in matters of scale and taste; but, on the other hand, I am not content to class him with Keats, Rossetti and Giorgione at all points. For a chief characteristic of these men is a pungency (almost an aroma) of manner which makes their personal point of view the most prominent thing in their work – as if they looked at the world through a tinted window; while Ricketts has some thread of the impersonal individuality of the greatest men, seeing the world in a white light, as they do. 

(Letter 78, 31 October 1912).

Ricketts was central to his art appreciation, and through Ricketts (and Yeats who they had met earlier), the Bottomleys became acquainted with many people, for example: Masefield, Lord Dunsany, Cippico, the Michael Fields, Pickford Waller ('in his house full of Conders and Shannons and Fantins and Rossettis'). 

For Bottomley, Oscar Wilde's work was also exceptionally relevant. Bottomley went through a crisis (probably both physically and mentally) around the time of Oscar Wilde's trial in 1895. (There seems to be a hint of homosexuality). In a later memoir he wrote about Wilde's work:

For he enchanted my youth: his light was the first glimmer of dawn for me: he first taught me to discern a pure and steadfast Beauty that was the greatest thing in life, and showed me how its essence could be expressed in word. 

(Letter 35, 18-22 January 1910).

Bottomley also wrote a touching letter about his father and his high school days when he hated poetry and was hooked on Natural Science. Bottomley's letters are wittier than Sturge Moore's. On a photograph of his own house, Bottomley writes: 'You will see that our house is practically composed of a chimney and a vestibule' (letter 37, 4 March 1910), and about Halley's comet he remarks: 'I've crept out of bed several mornings before the birds, to look for the comet in the dusk, leaning out of the open windows to see more sky. But I have missed it so far; perhaps because the sky is always cloudy and stormy – and a nightgown isn’t the proper garment for astronomical research' (letter 38, 4 May 1910).

I have to assume that the letters are well transcribed; the annotations are trustworthy, and convincing, but there are no illustrations of the letters, so there is no way to check the texts. However, we can rely on Aplin's record as an editor! 

Still, a few illustrations of the letters would not have been out of place. 

The notes contain a wealth of information and also quote many other letters, for instance to Michael Field, Sydney Cockerell, or Thomas Bird Mosher and letters from Charles Shannon to Bottomley.

To be continued (although I do not know exactly when; there is a mountain of letters!)

495. The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore (1)

Last year, the Gordon Bottomley-Thomas Sturge Moore correspondence, edited by John Aplin, was published online by InteLex Past Masters in Charlottesville, Virginia. The platform contains scholarly editions in the field of the humanities, such as the complete works of Freud, Montaigne, Plato, Defoe, and the  Brothers Grimm.

InteLex Past Masters: Bottomley-Sturge Moore letters

The letters of Thomas Sturge Moore and Gordon Bottomley, nine hundred and eleven in number, comprise three separate volumes, preceded by an introduction and followed by an index. The lives of the two poets and playwrights (Sturge Moore was also an artist who mainly made woodcuts) are briefly and excellently presented in the introduction. Gordon Bottomley (1874-1948), who suffered from a tubercular illness, would eventually survive Thomas Sturge Moore (1870-1944). They exchanged letters between 1906 and 1944, but the edition runs to 1948. The 1944-1948 letters include those written by the widow Marie Sturge Moore; the last letter, a report of Bottomley's death, was written to her by Mary Fletcher - the Fletcher's were close friends of Bottomley. The correspondence also includes letters written by Bottomley's wife Emily, his 'occasional amanuensis', and letters from Marie Sturge Moore from the period when the two men did not write to each other. Sturge Moore's letters are kept in the British Library; those of Bottomley are part of the Sturge Moore papers held in Special Collections at Senate House, University of London. A mile apart.

The introduction includes a careful justification of the editorial principles and textual interventions. The editor John Aplin concludes his introduction, modestly, with: 

I cannot claim to have done more than make some of the essential archival materials available as a facility for new researchers, but in deciding to draw substantially upon the Bottomley papers in particular to inform the commentary underpinning the editorial notes, I have sought to provide the fullest possible biographical and critical context, conscious not only that this is the first publication to have examined these resources in any depth, but also that they are far too valuable to continue to be overlooked.

For aficionados of the work of Ricketts and Shannon, this edition is indispensable. Ricketts in particular played a huge role in the lives of both correspondents:

The fact that Ricketts was such a powerful force in the lives of both Moore and Bottomley, a constant point of reference in their exchanges, inevitably means that his is a looming presence throughout this correspondence. Neither man ever tires of discussing aspects of his work and personality, both of them articulating subtle perspectives of real insight, which means that their letters will continue to provide a rich resource for those seeking more information on the range of Ricketts’s output and his contemporary importance, not least as a designer for the theatre.

Navigating the Correspondence

In this blog, I concentrate on navigating the system: how does it work? The letters are numbered consecutively from 1 to 911 and divided into three sections. Each letter contains individually numbered annotations that follow immediately below the letter.

InteLex Past Masters: Bottomley-Sturge Moore letters: index (detail)

The index is helpfully comprehensive, with subject-by-subject headings referring to the letters (not pages). The lemma for Ricketts comprises two full pages of detailed references. Shannon occupies three quarter of a page. A check with a sample of references indicates that the index has been carefully compiled. Strange, by the way, to put Michael Field under M instead of F (which every library does), even though it is a pseudonym.

Numbers in the index are not clickable and do not take you directly to the relevant pages. It takes a while to find them via the table of contents, that chronologically lists the years of creation, but omits the numbers of the letters for each year. One has to guess in which year to look for a particular letter, or pick a year and then scroll forwards or backwards to the corresponding letter. A search for a particular letter is also possible via the somewhat primitive-looking dashboard.

InteLex Past Masters: Bottomley-Sturge Moore letters: search results

However, the search screen allows for a search in one go for the three parts together containing all the letters. In the list of results, all references are clickable: they take you directly to the page in question. That list can be presented in a new window (so you can always return to the results), or in the same window. It is also possible to search for a letter number, but then it is a bit of a puzzle to find out which reference is the one to the actual page; letter number 669 for instance yields 35 hits.

InteLex Past Masters: Bottomley-Sturge Moore letters: letter 669

It is possible to create PDFs of a single page and print them (this works best when using the single page view, otherwise the PDF will contain only the left-hand page of a spread).

So much for navigation. Next week we will continue with the epistolary narrative.

The Complete Correspondence of Gordon Bottomley and Thomas Sturge Moore.
ISBN: 978-1-57085-280-0
Language: English.

Link for quote on price: http://www.nlx.com/contact.

494. Swimmers and Others in Grey and in Sanguine (2)

Charles Hazelwood Shannon often made impressions of his lithographs in different colours. A large part of his lithographs (45 out of 96) were only printed in one colour (or combination of colours), but of the majority of his lithographs, impressions in two, three or even four colours can be compared. As mentioned last week (blog no. 493), these are not different states – the image is the same. 

Charles Shannon, 'The Snow. Winter' (1907): impression in dark green

[Image: British Museum, London: 1949,0411.888.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Where Shannon got the idea to print different prints in distinctive colours is not known. However, multicoloured lithos were no exception; on the contrary: from the 1890s onwards, multicoloured lithographs were fashionable, particularly in France, as Camille Pissarro noted in 1896. Shannon’s great example James McNeill Whistler made some experiments in multicoloured lithographs. However, the simultaneous publication of different coloured issues of one and the same print was not common at all. His colleague and friend William Rothenstein (for example) only rarely printed a few proofs in colours other than black, but all his published lithographs were printed in black only.

Charles Shannon, 'The Snow. Winter' (1907): impression in blue

[Image: British Museum, London: 1908,0403.7.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

From the very beginning, Shannon decided to print different issues, starting with his second lithograph in 1890, 'The Cellist'. There were fifteen impressions in black or in green ink. (The first lithograph, 'The Vale in the Snow' was printed in eight impressions only, all in grey.) Soon, editions would grow to twenty-five copies; forty to fifty impressions became the standard edition size for Shannon's lithographs.

 

Shannon had his own lithographic printing press, but sometimes hired assistants for the various operations needed to print a lithograph, such as the preparation of the stone, sponging it with a mixture of gum arabic and acid, moistening the surface, applying the ink, arranging the paper, and printing the lithograph. After each impression the printing surface of the stone had to be re-dampened and re-inked. 

(Below, we follow the numbering and descriptions of Paul Delaney's 1978 catalogue The Lithographs of Charles Shannon; excluded are magazine publications; included are the proofs for lithographs nos. 12, 19, 64, 65, 66 and 73).

Only one impression exists of forty-five of Shannon's lithographs; these were printed in black, dark green, grey, delicate grey, silvery grey, grey-black, sanguine, or in a combination of black, buff, dark green and yellow, the last one being the exceptionally large lithograph (no. 87) 'The Re-Birth of the Arts' which was not printed in his own studio and issued as part of a series of lithographs during the Great War.

 

Of course, it is no simple matter to distinguish between the different shades of grey and green. Limiting the nomenclature to basic colours, we find that Shannon had an absolute preference for grey (37 lithos) and black (5). Green and red only occur once each in this group of 45 lithographs.

Charles Shannon, 'Self-Portrait' (1918)
[Image: British Museum, London: 1925,1109.1.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

The second group consists of lithographs of which Shannon made two impressions in different colours. In this group of 34 lithographs more colours occur: bistre, black, blue, dark brown, green, dark green, grey, grey-black, grey-green, sanguine and sepia; four lithographs display combinations of (dark) blue and buff or buff and green. His preference (within this group) is sanguine (18), followed by black (15) and green (11). Grey variants only occur in eleven lithographs.  Brown and sepia are the exceptions (two each). The most commonly used set of colours is black and sanguine: of nine lithographs, both black and sanguine impressions were printed.

 

The third group consists of fourteen lithographs of which three different issues have been created. The colour palette for this group consists of black, blue, dark blue, brown, green, dark green, grey, dark grey, grey-black, red, and sanguine (not sure how to distinguish between the last two). The main colours are green (12 lithographs), black (8), and sanguine (7), equal to grey (7), and followed by blue (5), and finally brown (3).

There is one hard to date lithograph (no. 96, c. 1919) of which even four different coloured impressions are in circulation: there are prints in black, brown, green and sanguine. Two other lithographs (nos. 71-72) are printed either in black, blue, green or sanguine.

 

The entire set of lithographs shows that grey has indeed been the constant favourite. Prints in that colour occur a total of 52 times. In second place is black (31), followed by sanguine (29) and green (27). Blue (11) and brown (6) are less popular and at the back comes sepia which has only been chosen for two lithographs. Combinations of several colours occur a total of nine times.

Charles Shannon, 'The Wayfarers' (1904)
[Image: British Museum, London: 2019,7015.614.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

If Shannon intended to achieve certain effects using different colours, it seems logical to make a link with genre. There is one landscape, and there are thirteen portraits; there are interior scenes (including domestic scenes), this is a large group of 33 lithographs. There are outdoor scenes with children, women and sometimes men, mostly garden or beach scenes: 30 lithographs. Similar scenes with male nudes occur only five times. There are other outdoor scenes, depicting vintages and harvest (six lithographs) and there is a small group of mythical, biblical and classical themes (eight), but some of these can also be classified with the other groups.

No relation between colour and genre can be established. Grey has been used for all subjects; black and sanguine for six out of seven subjects, and almost all colours appear from the beginning to the end. Shannon must have liked the differences enough to continue publishing alternatively coloured prints during his whole career. He further varied by using different papers. 

 

Again, there may be more information now, but based on Delaney's 1978 catalogue we only know the type and colour of paper for twenty-eight lithographs, only a third of Shannon's production. The colours were neutral, certainly not outspoken: cream, white, buff, or grey-toned. There was Van Gelder paper (fourteen lithographs: nos. 10, 15-16, 35-39, 45, 49, 73, 76-78); additionally of certain lithographs it is known that most impressions were on Van Gelder paper as well (nos. 11, 14, 53). Spalding laid paper was used at least once (no. 13). Other anonymous papers were laid paper (no. 9, 52), Chine appliqué (no. 18), wove paper, some of it 'very fine' (nos. 19, 38-39, 61-63, 67, 73-74, 76-78), and wood-grained paper (no. 74). Once he used another material: parchment (no. 73). Favourite paper was Van Gelder.

To conclude: Charles Shannon ensured that his lithographs were printed in different ways by varying the types and colours of paper, but above all by making impressions in several colours of more than half of his lithographs - sometimes as many as four different colours. One could decorate a 'grey room', but just as well a 'red room', or a 'green room'. The 'sepia room' could be a very small one.

493. Swimmers and Others in Grey and in Sanguine (1)

Charles Shannon's first lithograph from 1889 was printed in grey, which would remain his favourite colour for this medium throughout his career. From the second lithograph, 'The Cellist' (1890), he made prints in different colours. There are copies in black ink, and there are copies in green. Usually his lithos were monochrome, although there are exceptions: there is one lithograph in four colours and there are a few in a combination of blue and buff and buff and green.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): printed in grey

The printing of the lithographs on his own press took place in three periods. The first produced his most popular and subtle lithographs and ran from 1889 to 1898. The second period started in 1904 and lasted until 1909, the period in which he achieved fame as a (portrait) painter. The third period was short and started in the First World War: 1917-1920.

'The Swimmer' was issued in 1905. It measures 333 x 485 mm, and is initialled C.H.S. and dated in the stone. There were impressions in sanguine or in grey, and they were sold through P. & D. Colnaghi and Obach.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): printed in sanguine

A description of this lithograph was given by R.A. Walker in the Print Collector's Quarterly (December 1914): 'Three men crouch at the edge of a swimming bath whilst a fourth figure is swimming overarm to the right. Another man on the left is climbing out of the bath.'

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): printed in sanguine and in grey

A comparison of the prints does not reveal any pictorial differences; there is only one state; the lithograph is not touched up in between, but only printed in a different colour of ink. The number of copies printed in each colour is unknown; the total number of prints was forty.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): initials and date

However, there are considerable differences between the effects of a print in grey and one in sanguine. The initials and the year in the lower left-hand corner are brighter, but so are other details.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): details

The sanguine is warmer than the grey; the contrasts between white and sanguine are greater than those between white and grey.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): details

Details in grey look more subtle than those in sanguine, in which they seem more distinctively pronounced. The overall impression of the print in sanguine is more dramatic, more focused on the actions, while in grey it is more dreamlike and atmospheric.

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): details

Both versions were signed in pencil by Shannon, if requested. (He never did so with lithographs printed in a magazine).

Charles Shannon, 'The Swimmer' (1905): signed copies

The question is, of course, which version he preferred. Judging from the many colours he used, one can assume that he was looking for certain effects, or that he wanted to satisfy the taste or personal preference of his buyers. The latter is not very plausible, at least not at the beginning of his career, but later, when his paintings attracted less attention, his dealer may well have asked him to use more colour.

To be continued.

492. The International Fine Arts Exhibition in Rome, 1911

Following the series of blog posts about the 1911 exhibition 'A Century of Art, 1810-1910' (blog posts 487, 488, 489, and 490), Jan Piggott authored the article below about the largest competing exhibition that year. 

The International Fine Arts Exhibition in Rome, 1911

In March 1911 Ricketts, home from Egypt, made frustrating preparations for his 'Century of Art, 1810-1910' exhibition, so full of character, at the Grafton Galleries on behalf of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers. The Globe reviewer (quoted in Post 490) mentioned one special difficulty the organisers had coped with: severe demands on lenders from 'huge' exhibitions of British art elsewhere. 

1,232 oil paintings, sculptures, watercolours, prints and drawings were consigned to Rome that year as the British Section of 'The International Fine Arts Exhibition', under the government aegis of the Board of Trade. This indigestible largesse included an oil-painting, a sculpture and a pen-and-ink drawing by Ricketts, and two oil-paintings by Shannon; three of these five works were lent by the artists themselves.

British pavilion's portico designed by Edwin Lutyens:
'The Main Entrance of the British Fine Art Palace'
(from: International Fine Arts Exhibition Rome 1911. Souvenir of the British Section)

This Fine Arts 'Expo' at Rome marked the fiftieth Jubilee of the Kingdom of a reunified Italy. It ran from April 29th to November 19th, with 7,409,145 visitors; this attendance, diminished by a cholera epidemic and poor weather, disappointed the organisers. Meanwhile at Turin, the 'Esposizione Internazionale delle Industrie e del Lavoro', its ambitious twin enterprise, which also featured competitive national displays, attracted just over four million visitors; at Florence a horticultural exhibition made it a triple commemoration.

The obvious sources have not yielded any reference as to how Ricketts and Shannon proceeded in this Roman venture, and what they thought of it. My source, the British Section Souvenir – perhaps rather too grandiose, and definitely weighty – is in effect a 656-page catalogue, liberally illustrated with photographs of the British galleries and many select exhibits, including one painting each by Ricketts and by Shannon. The Souvenir, printed at the Ballantyne Press, was published by the British Board of Trade, appointed agents by a Royal Commission of many distinguished participants. 

An Executive Committee selected the exhibits, chaired by Sir Edward Poynter, President of the Royal Academy. One member was the Vice-President of the International Society, William Strang, an old associate of the two artists from The Pageant and the Society of Twelve. The short biographical entries in the Souvenir for both Ricketts and Shannon mention their membership of the International Society. Ricketts had played an important part in its organisation; the Rome project was obviously relevant to its ideals. The Society perhaps administered the submission and the loans of their works from the two artists. 

Photograph of the portico of Sir Edwin Luytens, 1916

Home for the British School at Rome

(Wikimedia Commons: photo by Patterncutter, 2012)

The British Pavilion

Adjoining the grounds of the Villa Borghese, twelve national pavilions were erected, temporary white structures. These were in the familiar early twentieth-century Expo manner, but nothing like the wild national architectural flourishes at the vast Paris 'Exposition Universelle' in 1900: they neither anticipated Disneyland, nor were truly magnificent. At Rome the sober 'Palaces' were of concrete, rolled steel, and cement, with plaster façades; they resembled the wonderfully boring facsimiles of Parliament Houses, reduced in scale, built for the 'Festival of Empire' at the Sydenham Crystal Palace that same British Coronation year of 1911. 

The great exception, however, among the Roman pavilions was acknowledged on all sides to be the British, designed by Edwin Lutyens in the 'English Baroque' manner. The portico reproduced the upper order of Wren's St. Paul's cathedral; the pediment asserted the royal coat of arms in relief, supported by a splendid lion and unicorn. Lutyens's design was so much admired by the mayor and people of Rome, history relates, that they gave the site to the British nation and even rebuilt it in permanent materials during World War One. It now houses the British School at Rome, the famous research institute. The other foreign pavilions were those of Germany, France, Austria, Hungary, Spain, Russia, the United States and Japan; Italy itself filled the remaining three. 

The British works, borrowed, catalogued and consigned to Rome, were elegantly displayed in twelve spacious galleries, divided as 'Old Masters' and 'Living Artists'; the rooms were papered in red, the dado and doors painted black. This was (and surely still is) the most comprehensive display of British art ever seen on the Continent; the Foreword to the Souvenir claimed it was also 'admittedly unsurpassed either in artistic importance or historical completeness by any other nation'.

Charles Shannon, 'The Man in a Black Shirt' (1898)
[Self Portrait: London, National Portrait Gallery]

The Paris Expo 1900

The display was significantly larger than the British art exhibition at the Paris Expo in 1900. Among the 397 paintings by 292 old masters and living artists on view then was Shannon's self-portrait, 'The Man in a Black Shirt'; he and William Rothenstein had been awarded silver medals, while Walter Crane and Sir John Lavery got bronze. Ricketts did not submit, though invited. Ricketts thought the Modern British Art section at Paris 'singularly lifeless'. The selectors had been 'too democratic' and tried to include everyone. In The Art Journal book commemorating the Paris Exposition Joseph Pennell in the course of a review, 'Black-and-White at the Paris Exhibition', complained about the omissions in the prints and drawings section: 'To judge by the exhibition C.H. Shannon might never have made any lithographs, William Morris and his followers might not have done anything for the decoration of the book' (The Paris Exhibition 1900, ed. D.C. Thomson (London, The Art Journal, 1901, p. 335).

'The Clou of the Whole Art Exhibition'

At Rome in 1911 the British press (quoted at length in the Souvenir) was comically chauvinist: the Palace dominated all the others, on the finest site; it crowned the whole Expo; a foreigner had called its contents 'the clou of the whole art exhibition'. Again, the British Palace was 59 cm taller than the German, and 97 cm taller than the principal Italian one. Joseph Comyns Carr, the influential art critic and a founding Director of both the Grosvenor and the New Galleries, wrote for the Souvenir itself a discursive historical and critical introduction, explaining how this enterprise was 'the first time in any exhibition overseas a serious endeavour had been made to illustrate the progressive movement of the English School of painting'. In a particularly expansive section explaining the Pre-Raphaelite School (which was very well-represented on the walls) he pointed out that their works had only been known in Rome till now from reproductions. The exhibition was well enough established by the time the Souvenir appeared to record in it the 'sensation' actually made by their work at Rome, and likewise by Aubrey Beardsley, whom the Souvenir called 'a marvel' and generously illustrated. 

Charles Shannon, 'The Bath' (1908)
[said to be part of the Sydney Gallery collection c. 1920;
sold at auction in 2014; whereabouts unknown]

The catalogue entry for Shannon tells us he is an Associate of the Royal Academy, a 'painter in oil and lithographer'. He lent 'The Bath' and 'Portrait of the Artist' (now untraced), the latter reproduced in the Souvenir. This was also known as 'The Marble Torso' (see blog post 458): Shannon is looking at a portfolio of lithographs, the maimed classical statue behind. 

Ricketts is described as a 'painter in oil, sculptor, draughtsman and engraver on wood, book-printer of eminence'. His oil-painting was 'The Betrayal', lent by 'His Hon. Judge William Evans' (now at Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle, bequeathed by Gordon Bottomley) and it was reproduced in the Souvenir. The sculpture was a bronze, 'The Tragic Man', lent by himself. 

Charles Ricketts, 'The Betrayal' (1904)
[Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle]

Lewis Hind, in 'Charles Ricketts. A Commentary on his Activities', in The Studio for January 1910 (see blog post 375) tells us this represented 'a Christ before the people, known as The Tragic Man, a modern version of the Laocöon'. Hind wrote, 'I have spoken of Mr. Ricketts as modeller, not as sculptor, for sculpture seems to denote something larger than the little bronzes which it is his delight to fashion. The penalty of producing works of this nature, so charming and sensitive to those who take the trouble to seek them out, is that in a large gallery they are apt to be overlooked by the cursory visitor. Mr. Ricketts exhibited four at a recent exhibition of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers'.

Black and White Drawings

The British 'Black-and-white Drawings, Etchings, Engravings' gallery, with work by living and deceased artists, showed no wood-engravings or books, although there were drawings for illustrations by Beardsley (out of six, four for Salomé) and by two other artists. Here the intriguing (presumably lost) item by Ricketts was a pen and ink drawing, 'Invitation Card for a "Black and White" Smoking Evening.' This was lent by Marion Harry Spielmann, brother of Sir Isidor Spielmann, Commissioner General of the British Section. Spielmann, author of the 1898 life of Millais, was a prolific writer. He was also the editor of The Magazine of Art from 1887 to 1904, very hospitable to black-and-white work by Ricketts (from 1890), among it an especially fine Shakespearean songs series. The same goes for Black and White, a Weekly Illustrated Record and Review (1891-1912) that had contributions by Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Jerome K. Jerome, and Samuel Levy Bensusan, brother-in-law of Lucien Pissarro. (For Ricketts's early illustrations in Black and White, see blog post 45).

Ricketts and Shannon are unlikely to have been happy with the company their works kept among very many of the 255 British paintings by 235 'Living Artists' on view. Ricketts would most likely have thought pusillanimous decency and fairness once again spoiled  an official selection of British art for the Continent, just as it had been in Paris in 1900: The Times (6 May 1911) put it that 'The lions of the New English and the International have lain down with the lambs of the Royal Academy and the R.W.S. [Royal Watercolour Society]; all have worked together, and the result is that justice has been done to everybody'. However, associates and friends brightened the British Section: Edmund Davis lent Rossetti's wonderful drawing 'Paolo and Francesca'; Glyn Philpot (who was 26) showed 'Manuelito, the Circus Boy' (reproduced in the Souvenir), William Rothenstein (of The Pageant and the Society of Twelve) showed two oil-paintings, and Alphonse Legros a portrait etching of Charles Holroyd.

                                                                                                                   Jan Piggott

491. Longing for the Sun

One hundred years ago, Charles Ricketts wrote in his diary:

My temper or mind always goes eastwards and southwards. I long for the sun and the sense of antiquity. Yes, Peking, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Angkor, Burmah, Ceylon, Egypt. I would like all these, but shall we ever have money enough or energy enough? 
(Letter to Cecil Lewis in Peking, 24 December 1920, published in Self-Portrait, 1939, pp. 326-327).

Suzuki Harunobu, colour woodcut bequeathed to the

British Museum: 423024001 by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license]

Of these places and countries, Ricketts only visited Egypt (twice, in 1911 and 1912). Later, in 1927, he would make a trip to Tunisia. He did not travel to Asia. However, there were many Asian works of art in his collection.

490. A Century of Art (4)

The exhibition A Century of Art, 1810-1910 at the Grafton Galleries was by no means the only one in the summer of 1911, competition was tough and the show ended with a loss. However, there was no lack of interest from the newspapers and magazines. 

Grafton Galleries: The Long Gallery (1893)

One day before the opening a private view was held, and the same day at least two newspapers published a review. On 2 June The Times argued that the title was 'ambitious':

It is almost needless to say that, though there are many interesting pictures and other works in the collection, it in no way represents the finest Art of the last 100 years. Many artists here exhibited are those we are accustomed to meet in the ordinary annual shows, and the men whom time has pronounced great are for the most part represented by works which they themselves would not have considered masterpieces.

However, there certainly were paintings of the first rank by Watts, Turner, Burne-Jones, Manet, Holman Hunt and Whistler ('Cremorne Nocturne').

J.M. Whistler, 'Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Cremorne Lights' (1872)
[Tate, London, Bequeathed by Arthur Studd 1919, N03420]

Most reviews repeat the same pattern and criticise the title (does not cover the scope) and the selection of paintings (too few masterpieces), but one section is surprising: the one with prints and drawings. The Times decided this to be: 'By far the best room':

These [prints] cover a great deal of ground, and are on the whole well chosen. The British school, from Blake to Mr. Crawhill, and the chief foreign schools of 50 or 80 years ago, may here be more or less systematically studied, in works which have evidently been selected by a good judge.

The Times singled out the art of David Wilkie to make its point: 'His nine drawings ought to bring back into notice an artist who has latterly been rather driven out of public notice [...].' The work of Joseph Crawhill was likened to that of Hokusai - now they were on display in the same room.

Thomas Lawrence, 'Lady Elizabeth Foster' (1805)
[The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin]

The newspaper also referred to an unexhibited painting by Thomas Lawrence: 'Lady Elizabeth Foster':

[...] it is unlike the portraits of this lady which Reynolds and others have left. It is a dark picture, a little over-sentimental in expression, and the right arm seems to have suffered; but it is characteristic Lawrence, with a fine landscape background.

At the end of the review, some modern painters are mentioned, including Charles Shannon and Ricketts, who in his notes for A Century of Art, 1810-1910 refrained from mentioning their own names.

Edward Steichen, portrait of Auguste Rodin (photogravure, c 1911)
[Collection Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York]

The Scotsman (2 June 1911) deemed the show representative, and a 'worthy display', although 'important' (unspecified) omissions were noted. Among the foreign and British art was 'a gorgeous unfamiliar Raeburn' ('Two Boys and Landscape'). The reviewer remarked that the 'collection by living artists is small', the names of Ricketts, Sargent, Orpen, Nicholson, and Strang were mentioned, and 'Rodin, the International's president has two pieces of sculpture'. Ricketts and Shannon had organised the show for the International Society. In a way, it was Ricketts's answer to Roger Fry's Post-Impressionist Exhibition. There were three hundred works in the show, and only eight that Ricketts himself would gladly have dismissed - including mediocre works by Daubigny, Corot, Watts and - even - Rossetti.

Another early review was published in the Leicester Daily Post of Saturday 3 June 1911. The selection of works - a subject addressed by every critic - was called representative:

The range and heterogeneity of subject, style and genre leave the mind somewhat bewildered and overcrowded.

The collection of Pre-Raphaelite works was, perhaps, 'the most striking', Daubigny's work showed 'some exquisite examples of his vague poetic colourings', there were 'several of Watts's tumultuous and chaotic creations', and a 'large and visionary company of Blake's engravings' impressed the reviewer.

The art critic of The Sheffield Daily Telegraph wrote on the Monday following the opening that the exhibition illustrated 'the major tendencies of the last hundred years of effort and development in England and France', and supposed that the Post-Impressionists had been left out because of the recent Fry show: 'Even Mr. John, a member of the council, does not exhibit'. Augustus John was a member of the International Society. The reviewer noted some 'rather unusual Constables', an 'exquisite flower and fruit painting' by Fantin-Latour, but the hall with works by contemporary artists was deemed less successful - works by Livens and Peppercorn were lacking.

On 7 June 1911 Truth published a review:

To give a picture-show a name is usually to hang pictures which most people will declare to be quite unrepresentative. [...] It is, therefore a remarkable feat on the part of the "International" authorities to have arranged at the Grafton Galleries, a Century of Art exhibition which is at once so representative, so coherent, and so well calculated to ward off prejudice.

Coteries, monopolies, and favouritism were not promoted by the show - and the critic was struck by this policy. His review described works by Manet and Holman Hunt, and argued that the 'whole Prae-Raphaelite Brotherhood holds it ground well among the other schools.' The visitor 'should note particularly the exquisite "Portrait of Mrs. Lushington" [by Rossetti]'. From the French painters, especially Corot, Millet, and Courbet were mentioned, but the great heroine in this section was Berthe Morisot:

One of the most delightful portraits is the "Deux Femmes assises" by Berthe Morisot, whose experience of working under both Corot and Manet produce a remarkable subtle effect. The delicacy, the restraint, and sheer beauty of this picture are combined in the rarest degree.

Berthe Morisot, 'Two Sisters on a Couch' (1869)

The reviewer also noted 'some beautiful little drawings by Ruskin which make one forget that he was ever a pedant'.

That many other exhibitions had been organised was recorded in a review in the Globe (7 June 1911):

To fill so large a wall space as that at the Grafton Galleries with first-rate material at a time when semi-centenary, Coronation, and other huge exhibitions have worried the owners of pictures and left bare spaces on almost every collector's walls, is a difficult matter, although not so much so perhaps with the International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Engravers, who only appeal to a limited, and not so popular a form of art, as is in demand for the shows we have mentioned. Nevertheless, space and the difficulty mentioned have played a part in preventing the fulfil[l]ment of the ambition that clearly were in the mind of the promoters, and while they have gathered together an exceedingly interesting collection it can hardly be called representative of the activities in art of France and England in the hundred years between 1810 and 1911.

The reviewer did not explain his statement, summed up the important artists, and concluded that 'the most interesting section of the exhibition is that of the graphic arts of the past century, for it includes specimens of Rowlandson, Blake, Goya, Ingres, Wilkie, Delacroix, Daumier, Corot, Millais, Gavarni, Stevens, Keene, Conder, and even Hokusai'.

The exhibition invited to compare French and English works of art. The Graphic (17 June 1911) opted for a nationalist approach:

If the best work of all the masters is not included - as how should it be - yet some of their more interesting work is here, and it is of a character which enables the spectator to essay that most delightful of occupations in art criticism, which is to trace the relationships of the various schools. In the first room, for example, there hang a fine Constable and a beautiful Cotman, which emphasise the debt that the best of French landscape art owes to English sources.

E.S. Grew, in The Graphic, mentioned the same Morisot painting as did the critic of Truth:

It is a simple picture of two sisters sitting on a chintz-covered couch. But the charm and grace of this beautiful painting, the ease and fluency of the technique, are quite irreproducible. One must see the picture.

The collection of drawings was simply 'magnificent', 'from the virile William Blake to the degenerate Aubrey Beardsley'.

Charles Ricketts, 'Orpheus and Euridyce' (1905-1907)
[Collection: Tate Gallery, London]

The Queen (17 June 1911) missed the works of John Thomson of Duddington, and some others, and, 'our native school of water colour art', but there was gathered a 'superb selection of Prae-Raphaelite work'. This is the only review to mention Charles Ricketts's own sculpture 'Orpheus and Euridyce'. A painting by Ricketts was mentioned in the Illustrated London News (24 June 1911): his 'beautiful "Don Juan".'