This is an installment in a diary series on art history. You can find the earlier diaries by searching on that tag.
A note on image formatting: I am reducing the size of the images used in these diaries to a small size that makes navigating the diary manageable and still gives an impression of the work. People with a particular interest in a painting will likely want to see a larger image that provides more detail. I am providing a link to a larger image on the internet beneath the title of the work. Just click on LINK.
The Newlyn School was an art colony located in the vicinity of Penzance. There was an active group of painters resident there from the 1880s until the early 20th C. They were drawn to the scenic area for its opportunities to paint en plein air as well as inexpensive living and models. Anyone who has spent time on the sea coast has likely observed that there are special qualities to the light there.
The Wiki article linked above list the following artists as having been associated with the group at various periods.
Albert Chevallier Tayler
Lamorna Birch
Henry Scott Tuke
Thomas Cooper Gotch
Norman Garstin
Stanhope Forbes
Walter Langley
Elizabeth Forbes
Annie Walke née Fearon
Harold Knight
Laura Knight
Alfred Munnings
Harold Harvey
Ayerst Ingram
Frank Bramley
Dod Proctor
Frederick Hall
Carey Morris
I have explored the work of all of these people and other than having spent time in the area and associated with the other artists, there doesn't seem to be a lot about their work that conclusively links them all into some sort of coherent movement of technique or subject matter. However, some of them shared an interest in the lives of the working class sea faring folk of the area. I find several of the paintings focusing on this topic to be powerful artistic statements. Some of the other members of the group are of interest for other reasons as well.
Walter Langley was the artist in the group who was most heavily focused on the lives of working class people. His work has a definite place in the social realist tradition. He was also politically active in socialist movements. He was the son of a tailor. To me his work manages to reflect not only the difficulties of working class life but to also show people who face it with dignity and humanity. Here are a few examples.
Walter Langley -Evening at Coverack
LINK
Walter Langley The Breadwinners 1896
LINK
Walter_Langley - Among The Missing 1884
LINK
Walter Langley - The Greeting 1904
LINK
Walter Langley - The Orphan 1889
LINK
Thomas Cooper Gotch is really more closely identified with the Pre-Raphaelitemovement. However, he did spend time at Newlyn. I am including one painting from him primarily because I like it so much. The interplay of light and color is just magical. This is definitely one to use the link to the larger image. The subject matter of a very ordinary woman performing a very ordinary domestic task is much more akin to Newlyn than to the dramatic flights of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Thomas Cooper Gotch - Shelling Peas
LINK
Elizabeth Forbes and Stanhope Forbes were wife and husband and both painters. They were among the original members of the Newlyn group and later founded the Forbes School that attracted a new generation of artist to the area. While their work shows a real interest in the life of the working people who were their neighbors, they were more diverse in their subjects than Langley and his strong social realism.
I included Elizabeth Forbes' painting School Is Out in my diary last week about Victorian children. It is definitely my favorite of her works and likely the most widely known of them. Her use of light and color is exceptional. I am including another one here that picks up a working class motif and shows the emotional sensitivity that is apparent in much of her work.
Elizabeth Forbes - Boy With a Hoe
LINK
Stanhope Forbes was the Newlyn artist whose work received the widest renown and recognition. His interests were in genre and landscape painting with some portraiture. The first painting was done while he was a student in France. The others are all of scenes in the Penzance area.
Stanhope Alexander Forbes - A Street in Brittany
LINK
Stanhope Forbes - Inner Harbour Abbey Slip
no larger image available
Stanhope Forbes - The Pier Head
LINK
Stanhope Alexander Forbes - A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach
LINK
I have saved for last the Newlyn artist in whom I have a particular personal interest. Henry Scott Tuke was a fairly openly gay man in the context of his times. As a gay man who is interested in gay history I am always very interested when I come across clear footprints from a time when it was mostly hush hush in the closet. Henry not only got by with it. He made money off of it.
He produced over 1300 paintings in his lifetime. Many of them were maritime works of ships at sea and such. He also did some paintings of the sailors in their nautical settings. I find these the most interesting of his work as he makes them come to life in a fairly three dimensional way.
Henry Scott Tuke - The Dog Watch
LINK
Henry Scott Tuke - The Midday Rest
LINK
However, Henry had an abiding interest in painting nude male figures. European art had a well established tradition for nude figure painting. There was a generally clear understanding of the way in which it should be presented in the service of a legitimate aesthetic purpose. The curriculum of art schools usually included what was referred to as life class where the students painted from nude models. It is of course the female nude that has by far been the most popular subject of artistic endeavor. However, there has always been a place for nude male figures. They usually fell either into the class of fierce gods and warriors or seriously sexless cupids. Henry set about building a niche in which he could produce pictures of nude male adolescents and young men at the sea shore without bursting the laces on the Victorian corset which constrained British moral perspective. He came up with a style that worked and produced a very substantial output of such oeuvre. Here are two examples.
Henry Scott Tuke - Lovers of the Sun
Link
Henry Scott Tuke - The Green Waterways
The Advocate
that discusses his resurrection.
There were a number of other people involved with the Newlyn School that I haven't dealt with here. I have just picked out a few that I find particularly interesting. I hope you have enjoyed them.