Dulwich and The Queen’s Picture
Galleries – David Wilkie and Winifred Knights
One day in Dulwich, the next
in Buckingham Palace (art gallery annexe). In Dulwich, the exhibition devoted
to the rather marvellous Winifred Knights, whose small oeuvre of masterpieces
is readily appreciated by the un-knowledgeable visitor. In the Queen’s Gallery,
paintings by Scottish artists owned by the monarch – mainly 18th and
19th century works.
There are a couple of main
reasons why those centuries are favoured. First, there was the golden age of
Scottish enlightenment in the late C18/early C19, which promoted confident
Scottish art. Second, the monarchs, especially Victoria, became very keen on
Scotland and Scottish traditions (the Balmoral estate was purchased by Victoria
and Albert).
The permanent collection at
Dulwich also has a largely royal provenance, though not such an obvious one as
the collection of generations of British kings and queens. In the late C18, two
well-known artists-dealers, based in London, were commissioned by the King of
Poland to form a Royal Collection of Old Masters. The two duly set about the
task. But as they laboured, so also did the fortunes of the Polish kingdom take
a downward turn. Powerful neighbours swallowed territory; eventually the King
was forced to abdicate and flee. The dealers were left without a client but in
possession of a magnificent collection (at this point, apparently, it was also
in their ownership). The survivor of the two, the Englishman Francis Bourgeois,
in turn became sole owner.
Bourgeois and his colleague
had earlier determined that that the collection should be left for public
exhibition (an approach to the British Museum was rebuffed). When Bourgeois died,
he bequeathed the collection to Dulwich College, together with the money to
build a public gallery (the first in England). Sir John Soane designed it. It
is now an independent foundation.
The DPG is a beautiful
building set in large grounds, in turn surrounded by parkland and sports
fields. It has a separate modern café. It is an immensely relaxing place to
visit.
By contrast, the Queen’s
Gallery, although a self contained annexe of Buckingham Palace, is inevitably
affected by the touristic froth which laps all around. It shares an entrance
with the Palace gift shop – a temple of right royal tat, with little of the
merchandise devoted to the art. The Gallery’s numerous staff do their best to
temper these impressions: they are all smiles and unsolicited friendly comments
– the Cabin Crew of Air Perfect.
For me the most interesting
painter among the royal Scots (predominantly producers of Highland scenes and
rich portraits) is David Wilkie.
Wilkie produced intriguing
and witty scenes of humble life (Blindman’s
Buff; The Penny Wedding).
He also painted a number of
pictures inspired by the war, in the early years of the C19, against Napoleon
in Spain, carried on by mainly guerrilla forces backed by British troops under
Wellington.
The paintings do not, as one
might have expected of a C19 society painter, extoll the redcoats of
Wellington, but have as their subjects mainly guerrilla fighters. Contrasted
with, say, Goya’s dark meditations on the horrors of the same conflict,
Wilkie’s paintings are pretty sentimental, in the noble peasant warrior
tradition (perhaps an affinity detected with the Highland clansman?).
Probably the best known of
the Spanish war paintings is the Defence
of Saragossa (successfully defended by the Spanish against a 2 month siege
by the French). It depicts a young woman in act of firing a cannon, having
seized the lanyard from a dying gunner.
Winifred Knights
Knights’s best works were all
painted in the 1920s. She blended modern
abstract techniques with a figurative naturalism. The
Deluge, showing a group of figures (many recognisably Knights herself,
family and friends) in stylised doomed flight from the dark geometric shapes of
the rising floods, whilst in the background the Ark floats heedlessly away.
This painting resides permanently at Tate Britain.
Many thought it painted by
Stanley Spencer. There are also strong elements of the Vorticist painters such
as Nevinson.
My favourite Knights is the
very haunting and ethereal Marriage at Cana.
According to the New Testament, Christ attended a marriage feast and
remedied a catering miscalculation by turning water into very decent wine (in
the opinion of the other guests).
One area of the painting is a
literal depiction of the biblical scene, with Jesus and others huddled round
the pitchers of water, shortly to become wine. Brown and black colours mainly,
but Jesus and a child in white.
But, in the main part of the
painting, waiting and watching intently at long outdoor tables covered by white
tablecloths, are modern figures in casual dress (but no shoes). Before them are
plates of pink watermelon quarters – and empty wine carafes. Knights herself is
there (twice in fact – peek into the loggia and she reappears as the bride in
the distance) and various other friends – and her lover and husband to be: a
handsome blond man in a white shirt.
The background is a
long-receding wood, peopled, like in a Brueghel painting, with those
indifferent to, or preoccupied with other matters than, the Important Event, including
sunbathing and, of course, sketching another scene entirely.
This painting is housed
permanently in New Zealand. It was good to see it in Dulwich.
Sept 2016
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