International studio (23.1904)

A Painter of Hardy s Wessex

have served the purpose of an illustration of several
of Mr. Hardy’s descriptions of scenery in “ Far
from the Madding Crowd” or “The Return of the
Native.” It was a truly Hardyesque subject, with
just that atmosphere which pervades the descrip-
tions of moorland and heather to be found in the
pages of the two novels we have mentioned.
In the July of the same year (1895) the artist
contributed 35 pictures to an exhibition of Wessex
paintings held in Bond Street, and it was very
generally conceded that he was in the truest sym-
pathy with the spirit of Wessex, and one of the
ablest exponents in colour of the varying atmo-
spheric conditions which prevail in that beautiful
and fascinating district of England. The exhibition
attracted considerable attention outside art circles
because of Mr. Hardy’s connection with the county
which-most of the pictures and sketches shown
depicted. One of the most effective of Mr. White-
head’s pictures was a delightful Near Stud land, with
a vigorous, heathery foreground and a distant peep
of Poole Harbour and Branksea Island. Smaller
in size, Maiden Castle, seen amid a sea “ wrack,”
was a notable though somewhat daring atmospheric
study. Very different, but entirely convincing, was
Egdon Heath, which plays so important a part in
“ The Return of the Native,” and is also mentioned
in “ Tess of the D’Urbervilles ” and other novels

and short stories, with its swart, dreary expanse of
moorland and wind-blown, stunted trees.
In the following year (1896) Mr. Whitehead was
represented in the Royal Academy by a picture
which appealed definitely to Wessex sportsmen,
entitled Autumn Floods—an excellent example of
the artist’s ability to treat a marshland subject, with
bird-life, naturally and effectively. Quite a different
picture was that hung in the Royal Academy in the
following year, called Heather, Gorse, and Sand,
possessing a spaciousness and atmosphere which
was positively exhilarating. Next year no less than
four of Mr. Whitehead’s pictures were hung—a
luminous and beautiful river scene on the Frome,
A Gipsy Encampment, Affpuddle, Dorset, and a
vigorous rendering of Wessex scenery near Bere
Regis. This little village, the King’s Bere of “Tess
of the D’Urbervilles,” is, as Mr. Hardy himself has
aptly described it, “ the half-dead townlet . . . the
spot of all spots in the world which could be con-
sidered the D’Urbervilles’ home.”
Since then some half-dozen pictures have been
hung in the Royal Academy and several in the
New Gallery. Of the former perhaps A Distant
View of Poole (the “ Havenpool ” of the Wessex
novels) in the exhibition of 1902 is the most
important.
Recently Mr. Whitehead has been engaged upon


no