DOI issue:
No. 90 (August, 1904)
DOI article:Holland, Clive: The work of Frederick Whitehead, a painter of Thomas Hardy's "Wessex"
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26962#0156
A Painter of Hardy's IVessex
year, there is an infinite variety of most paintable
bits. And as I have told you already, some of the
most beautiful effects are so transitory, so fleeting,
that they would be gone if one had to open a
window or look for one’s hat. Here our only
window is the sky, or perhaps I should say the
tent door; and as for the hats, well! one doesn’t
often think about them. This outdoor life is
certainly the healthiest one can lead, and one
ought to paint well when one is fit.”
Regarding Wessex from purely a painter’s point
of view, Mr. Whitehead said, “ I consider that,
though almost the whole of the country has its
attractiveness and individual beauty, the River
Frome between Dorchester and Wareham, Poole
Harbour, almost all the heath and hillside from
Studland to Wareham, Lychett, the Blackmore
Vale, and the River Stour, round Sturminster
Newton, all excel in just what a landscape artist
would naturally seek for. The atmosphere is, of
course, everywhere, and one can scarcely convey
in mere conversation how inspiring and fascinating
this Wessex atmosphere is. It has something of
Scotland, something of Ireland, and even some-
thing of Normandy about it, whilst at the same
time being typically English. All one wants is the
seeing eye and the opportunity of rambling.
Then one can find material for a hundred pictures,
114
if one could paint them, in one short summer.
One of my largest pictures was of the beautiful
Blackmore Vale, taken from Bulbarrow, which
is described in ‘ Tess.’ And Mr. Hardy, who is
an able critic of art, was so pleased with it that he
commissioned me to paint another smaller one of
it for his own collection.
“ Though,” continued Mr. Whitehead, “ I have
worked chiefly—I may almost say entirely—in oils,
I have, during the last ten years, made a large
number of small water-colour drawings, and I very
frequently note down rapidly changing effects and
cloud studies in that medium. I also etch a little,
and pursuing the course I have always adopted
with my painting, I take the plate out to the spot
of which I wish to make an etching, and do most
of the work there. An unusual proceeding, I
agree, but one which I have found has its ad-
vantages.
“ It is a bit of a bother, I’ll admit, to take large
canvases out with one across heather and gorse, or
marshland, and up hillsides ; but I have always
been a great believer in painting direct from nature.
And in consequence it has been my practice for
many years to take even my big pictures to a spot
day after day, and work upon them until little or
nothing more remains to be done. I am not at all
a studio worker, although I like, so far as is con-
year, there is an infinite variety of most paintable
bits. And as I have told you already, some of the
most beautiful effects are so transitory, so fleeting,
that they would be gone if one had to open a
window or look for one’s hat. Here our only
window is the sky, or perhaps I should say the
tent door; and as for the hats, well! one doesn’t
often think about them. This outdoor life is
certainly the healthiest one can lead, and one
ought to paint well when one is fit.”
Regarding Wessex from purely a painter’s point
of view, Mr. Whitehead said, “ I consider that,
though almost the whole of the country has its
attractiveness and individual beauty, the River
Frome between Dorchester and Wareham, Poole
Harbour, almost all the heath and hillside from
Studland to Wareham, Lychett, the Blackmore
Vale, and the River Stour, round Sturminster
Newton, all excel in just what a landscape artist
would naturally seek for. The atmosphere is, of
course, everywhere, and one can scarcely convey
in mere conversation how inspiring and fascinating
this Wessex atmosphere is. It has something of
Scotland, something of Ireland, and even some-
thing of Normandy about it, whilst at the same
time being typically English. All one wants is the
seeing eye and the opportunity of rambling.
Then one can find material for a hundred pictures,
114
if one could paint them, in one short summer.
One of my largest pictures was of the beautiful
Blackmore Vale, taken from Bulbarrow, which
is described in ‘ Tess.’ And Mr. Hardy, who is
an able critic of art, was so pleased with it that he
commissioned me to paint another smaller one of
it for his own collection.
“ Though,” continued Mr. Whitehead, “ I have
worked chiefly—I may almost say entirely—in oils,
I have, during the last ten years, made a large
number of small water-colour drawings, and I very
frequently note down rapidly changing effects and
cloud studies in that medium. I also etch a little,
and pursuing the course I have always adopted
with my painting, I take the plate out to the spot
of which I wish to make an etching, and do most
of the work there. An unusual proceeding, I
agree, but one which I have found has its ad-
vantages.
“ It is a bit of a bother, I’ll admit, to take large
canvases out with one across heather and gorse, or
marshland, and up hillsides ; but I have always
been a great believer in painting direct from nature.
And in consequence it has been my practice for
many years to take even my big pictures to a spot
day after day, and work upon them until little or
nothing more remains to be done. I am not at all
a studio worker, although I like, so far as is con-