Thursday 5 February 2009

The Snow Storm. Note 16

Seventeenth and eighteenth century painters from the Low Countries were more fluent in depicting the flurries we are currently experiencing than their few contemporary British cousins. Previously a setting for some winter activity, it was a hundred years later that British artists made an extensive snow-clad scene a subject in itself, sometimes animated by a bird or group of hardy ewes (for example the Scot, Joseph Farqhuarson (1846-1935), whose painting Beneath the Snow Encumbered Branches went unsold last December with an estimate of £150,000-250,000!). Another hundred years and the stark outlines of snow-laden trees, field and hill patterns gave inspiration to painters interested in exploring the almost geometric nature of snow-bound landscape: Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1929), C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946), his exact contemporary Paul Nash, and Paul's younger brother, John. Also Eric Ravilious (1903-1941). So far as the sporting artist is concerned, an impetus to paint snow arrived at Christmas, 1836.

But before that time, the name Julius Caesar Ibbotson (1759-1817) springs to mind. Usually painting in watercolour, his figures glide over the ice with great panache knowing how well the artist will depict them and their tumbling friends. Portraying a usually less well-to-do strata of rustic England, George Morland (1763-1804) stands head and shoulders above his near contemporaries. He painted the countryside with an unerring ease and atmosphere, often among the rural poor: the farmyard buildings with snow-capped thatch, a frozen trough, stamping shaggy horses, and sheep brought in to shelter. Although beautifully painted these pictures were not popular in their day, and even now are treated with some disparagement, best used as Christmas cards. The Alken family, Joseph Barker (fl.1840s) and Thomas Smythe (1825-1906) worked in the same vein. The last two painted in East Anglia where we have come to think there is more snow than elsewhere, except Scotland.

As far as I can discover from our limited knowledge there is no correlation between the actual weather and a consequent dash for the paint-box - apart from in 1836. In the early autumn of that year a correspondent of the Penny Magazine wrote that there had been an extraordinary lack of snow since 1832. So sorely to have tempted Providence, even before winter had set in, seems with hindsight to have been extremely foolish. Providence rose to the challenge and, not satisfied with arranging a snowstorm the violence of which had not been experienced for a hundred years, she orchestrated a hurricane and floods as well.

The hurricane occurred on November 29. In London the ball and cross of St Paul's was seen to vibrate. Blackfriars Bridge was damaged and the wind caught the skirts of ladies crossing London Bridge throwing them violently against the parapets. In Kensington Gardens, 50 mature lime trees were uprooted and at Brighton a platform of the Chain Pier was lifted by a strong gust and snapped. The hurricane lasted only a few hours, and the weather was reassuringly mild until Christmas. 'The Snow Storm', as it was reported at the time, started on Christmas Eve, obliterating the normal outlines of the countryside and generally bringing life to a standstill. Fears of many fatalities were happily unfounded, but the storm did not abate until December 30. However the opportunity to tell the stories of coaches stranded in ten-foot drifts, while the guards 'got through' with the mail against all odds, was too much for artists such as James Pollard (1792-1867) and Charles Cooper Henderson (1803-1877) to resist. Writers were of the same opinion. Having hung out 'a flag of distress - a red wipe', Mr Jorrocks had to be manhandled out of an upstairs window of his Brighton inn. 'The storm stopped all wisiting,' he reported. 'And even the Countess of Winterton's ball was obliged to be put off.'

James Pollard was the master of the animated snow scene. His precise depiction of carriages in a snow-drifting or flooded landscape gives enormous pleasure. Some will say condescendingly that these pictures are no more than 'decorative' objects. True, but in their nearly naive way, they have life as well (Lowry?). Nostalgia comes into our liking of them, and one must remember that what is painted, happened. In 1836 Cooper Henderson was living near Bracknell and well able to see the havoc created on those early roads to the West by the snow. While less decorative than pictures by Pollard, Henderson's ability to paint a coach at speed is second to none. In this field the work of the Shayer family of painters (and of Herring Snr. and Jnr.) deserve recognition, but there is stiffness that leaves them some way behind.

Jumping forward to the twentieth century, Alfred Munnings produced some dazzling landscapes and pictures of hounds exercising in snow. These were mainly painted before the dreadful winter of 1947 when Britain was held in a snow and icy grip for a period of three months while struggling to overcome the debilitating effects of the War. Today, the unpopularity of hunting by those perceived to buy art results in there being few artists attempting to paint this sport, except for 'retiring' portraits. Snow appears in the occasional steeplchase scene, but nobody really wants to be reminded of the cold in our snug and centrally heated life. We therefore fall back on nostalgia. Those Pollard paintings and prints that make our present inconvenience seem very minor, make snow look positively cheerful!