ESPECTRO || Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



John Atkinson Grimshaw (British painter) 1836 - 1893 
A Golden Country Road, s.d.
oi on canvas
76 x 63 cm. (29.92 x 24.8 in.)
signed l.r.: Atkinson Grimshaw/+
private collection

Catalogue Note Sotheby's
The Victorians had a huge appetite for pictures and literature in which the theme is of romantic intrigue. This was a prevalent theme in the novels, plays and poetry of the age and artists such as John Atkinson Grimshaw exploited the vogue for wistful melancholy and clandestine rendezvous. Grimshaw was inspired by the writings of Wordsworth, Browning, Shelley and in particular Tennyson. His modern biographer Alexander Robertson sums up thus; 'A few lines from Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden' seem to demonstrate this most succinctly:
'The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes,
The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall,
The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill
November dawns and dewy glooming downs,
The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves'

Throughout the 1880s and 1890s Grimshaw painted a series of views of suburban streets in autumn, predominantly painted in Yorkshire and lit by a brilliant ochre light. In these images of roads and lanes between the high stone walls hiding mansions and villas from prying eyes, the scenes are deserted except for a solitary female figure or a cart and horse making their way down a leaf and puddle strewn road. These paintings are perhaps the most evocative and typical of the artist, who was unrivalled in his depiction of the evening gloaming. Whether he was painting suburban roads, the docks at Whitby and Liverpool or the shopping streets of Leeds; chaotic and noisy places during the day, Grimshaw painted the silent solitary evening still, when the residents, dock-workers and shop assistants return home, leaving the streets deserted. The busy traffic of horses and carts bringing goods into the city from the outlying farms have left their impressions in the damp soil of the road, but most have long since departed and the gateways have been closed to the outside world. The only occupant of these radiant street-scapes is a young woman, a serving girl in one of the mansions or perhaps a shop worker making her way home. There is an emotive sense of stillness and calm which pervades these golden images of evening light. Grimshaw was arguably the most evocative painter of moonlit and evening scenes in which calmness and silence pervades these moody images and the subject is not a specific locality, but the effect of the light upon a generic suburban street. Unlike the pictures of the great cities of Britain and the fishing villages that Grimshaw painted, there are no landmarks in A Golden Country Road to place the exact location and the picture is therefore a more abstract summary of glorious light and autumnal splendour. The sense of mystery evoked by the appearance of the lonely road is further enhanced by the anonymity of the scene with the exact location withheld and the generic title which encapsulates a mood rather than a specific location.

A Golden Country Road probably dates from the mid to late 1880s and demonstrates the sophistication of style to which the artist had attained by this date. The notion of conclusion and decay is paramount in this image, the end of the day when the sun sets, the end of the year as the trees are stripped of leaves and the end of the daily routine of the worker making her solitary way home. However, as with most of Grimshaw's pictures of evening scenes, the mood is not pessimistic or melancholic. By flooding the scene with the diffused golden light, Grimshaw celebrates the beauty of the close of day.

In 1879 Grimshaw defaulted on a debt and the early 1880s was a time of financial hardship for the artist. However from an artistic perspective this was also a time of expansion and success when he painted many of his best works. A Golden Country Road was almost certainly painted during this period of heightened artistic activity. It is a display of the artist's extraordinary ability to depict atmosphere with the aureate evening skies, the leafless, autumnal trees and the rain soaked street acting in perfect harmony to create the sense of stillness and calm following a downpour. The light source from the fading sun in its last phase before night proceeds creates an intricate pattern as it shimmers through bare branches and reflects upon the droplets of rainwater caught in pools of leaves upon the soaked road.

* * *

Grimshaw lived in Leeds, and was self taught as an artist. He painted landscapes and towns, at first mostly in the north of England. Later he often worked in London, and had a studio in Chelsea in 1885-7. His early paintings are detailed Pre-Raphaelite landscapes, sunny and green. He then deliberately specialised in twilight or moonlight, with dark pictures of streets and docks, often with pavements shiny with rain. Although Grimshaw was not a friend of Whistler, he knew him and developed in a personal way Whistler's theme of towns at night.