Church At Anthony
I have just returned from Anthony with a view of Maryfield Church under a bursting blue grey sky. I battled hard for it I can tell you, dashing for shelter when the rain came and bounding back again when it let up. It was more Kinnock on the beach1 than Van Gogh in the mistral2, but exhilarating all the same and I’ve got something down at least. It is a small size 10 canvas dominated by the church which is set amongst trees, bushes, behind a rickety wooden fence and a grassy meadow with hints of poppy red to set the foreground. I must confess that I initially fell into the same pattern of dithering with the underpainting for too long but the weather put paid to that and as with the View from St John I felt something happening only when forced to act decisively. It seems that the initial sketch is a drawing and that painting is something very different and the two have to be reconciled somehow particularly when outside.
I will return to the area as there were immediately numerous subjects to paint and it is all so quiet, only a few people walking their dogs but they don’t take any notice, in fact I had more bother from the dogs - at one point a greyhound ran through my legs as I was taking a measurement - but to be honest I would like to talk to people. I was just yesterday considering the depressing narrowness of my encounters with people and it is something that worries me. The only people I ever speak to who are not directly connected with my life somehow are those I encounter when making transactions and then its pleasantries and an offer of 'cash back' (which I always refuse). This may be my fault for not joining a book club or something but I have an inkling that the social aspect of this project may have more to offer then we first thought and I intend to push it!
I’ll head back out here again tomorrow.
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1 Reference to a famous public relations gaff in which Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock is caught out by a freak wave as he and his wife walk along a beech.
2 Van Gogh famously battled the mistral in during his time in Arles in 1888. John may have also been thinking of the vivid description of Van Gogh painting Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather from 1882 in Van Gogh: The Life which John was reading at the time of this painting.