BROTHERHOODS AND SISTERLY SCHOOLS

Reading the obituary a few days ago of Ann Arnold, I learnt that she was a member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, a group formed in 1975, its name suggested by Laurie Lee of bucolic Cider with Rosie fame. The Ruralists, who lived in the West Country, concentrated on figurative and often mystical landscape painting, paying obeisance to the values of much earlier artists; the Ruralists were not admired by the Modernist Metropolitan critical elite. Ann Arnold painted the group in a typically leafy Ruralist composition (she is on the far right). Another member, Peter Blake, set out their position: “Our aims are the continuation of a certain kind of English painting. We admire Samuel Palmer, Stanley Spencer, Thomas Hardy, Elgar, cricket.” This sounds a very attractive list to me and I wish to recall some other Brotherhoods which broadly shared these values.

The Brotherhood of Ruralists by Ann Arnold

Blake had mentioned Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) and although he was really a one-man school, his Cookham (Berkshire) paintings were much admired for their quirky religious themes and striking originality.

The Resurrection, Cookham by Stanley Spencer (1927) 

A Brotherhood has a set of common values and the founders of The Newlyn School all believed that they should paint figurative subjects in natural light –En plein air, in the phrase borrowed from the Barbizon School in France. In the 1880s, an artists’ colony gradually formed in and around the Cornish fishing-village of Newlyn and lasted until about 1914. Their paintings were naturalistic, with political and social comment being largely absent. They displayed much technical skill and conveyed their love of coastal and country life. Typical is Walter Langley’s Between the Tides

Between the Tides by Walter Langley

Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) was one of the finest Newlyn painters and he celebrated the WW1 civilian effort with his The Munitions Girls.

The Munitions Girls by Stanhope Forbes (1918)

An eminent later painter of the Newlyn School was Alfred Munnings (1891-1959) who became President of the Royal Academy and a very conservative voice. His own speciality was the painting of horses.

Anarchist by Alfred Munnings

An inebriated Munnings gave a presidential address on live radio in 1949 which became notorious. He dismissed Gauguin and Degas as “daubers” but saved his savagery for Picasso. He said he had warmly agreed with Winston Churchill (another conservative painter!) who had remarked “If, Alfred, you saw Picasso coming up the road would you join me in kicking his something something?”.

The most famous artistic Brotherhood was The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (the PRB) who revolted against the conventions of the Victorian Royal Academy.

The Hireling Shepherd by William Holman Hunt

The PRB was founded in 1848, a revolutionary year, by the painters John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti with 4 other poets and critics. They sought to return to the vibrant art and colours of the Quattrocento and to paint with precise accuracy. They accepted religious subjects, revered the medieval spirit but tried also to relate to the modern world. The PRB quickly broke up formally but its influence, through critics like Ruskin, through a succession of fine artists and through The Arts and Crafts movement, lasted many years. Typical images are set out below.

Christ in his father's carpenter's shop by John Everett Millais (1850)

Work by Ford Madox Brown (1868)

The PRB paintings are often packed with symbolism, allusion and social comment and reward time spent on their decoding. They are of estimable quality and achievement.

I have only touched on the influence of these Brotherhoods – a fuller account would run to many pages.

Getting into the swing, I propose to found The Post-Thatcherite Brotherhood, a more political group, and adapting Ruralist Peter Blake’s manifesto above, I declare:

Our aims are the continuation of a distinctive British way of life, free from European entanglements. We love the Yorkshire Dales, the Scottish heather moors, the Welsh sea-coast and Ulster’s Mountains of Mourne. We admire the poetry of John Betjeman, the humour of Arthur Marshall, the writings of Alan Bennett and cricket too. In brief, we love all things British!

The Boyhood of Raleigh by John Everett Millais (1870)

SMD

13.01.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016