Studio: international art (5.1895)

Henry Scott Tuke

glittering sand, and then up again until you came " How long have you lived at Falmouth ? "

upon it suddenly at the foot of the swelling downs " I was here as a youngster for a dozen years,

that crown the sturdy cliffs. and then returned, in 1885, for a short visit, when

As you enter, you discover that it is a real work- I was so charmed with the place that I have re-

ing studio, devoid of ornament, outside or in ; with mained here, excepting occasional trips to the

an appropriate nautical flavour suggested by a most Continent, ever since. Soon after I came, I bought

ingenious arrangement of ropes, which turn out to the Juliey an old French brigantine. The hold

be, not rigging as you first thought, but a com- was cleared out, giving me a studio 60 feet long;

plicated system of cords for adjusting the many but the upper deck I kept intact, with masts and

blinds of the roof and windows to the required sails in their places. I lived abroad for the best

light. Mr. Tuke, in sailor costume—the genuine, part of three years."

not the amateur variety—looking as if he had just " Was All Hands to the Pump, your first Chantrey

stepped out from one of his own canvases, some- bequest picture, painted on the Julie ? "

what demurs to the idea of taking his studio " Yes, and Euchre, Land in Sight, A Fdcstle

seriously, as the birthplace of his paintings. Yarn, and several other pictures. That study

" My studio is 1 out of doors,' he says. " I [pointing to the one reproduced on page 96]

paint all my pictures in the open air. Of course at shows the look-out from the vessel as she lay

times I repaint portions of them here, because the moored in mid-stream, opposite the market-strand."

harmony that looks all right beside the sunlit " To hark back a little, when did you begin to

model may look very different when inspected study ?"

critically in the studio the next day; but the pictures " I was at the Slade, under Poynter, for a short

themselves are practically begun and finished in the time, and then under Legros. From there I went

open." to Paris, working by turns under Laurens, Olivier-

" You came to Falmouth to paint the sea, I Merson, and others."

suppose?" "Was your first picture exhibited at the R.A. ?"

" The sea is certainly the keynote of my pictures, "Yes; it was while I was at the Slade; I am

but my object in living here is not to be a not proud of it now. It was an imitation old

marine painter—I do not reckon myself one—but master, The Good Samaritan. A curious thing

primarily to paint the nude in the open air; here happened in connection with it. A workman who

there are quiet beaches, some of them hardly had seen it wrote from Coventry to say he could

accessible except by boat, where one may paint not afford to buy it, would I exchange it for a

from the life model undisturbed." moonstone ring, which he sent up on approval.

THE FISHERMAN " FROM A PAINTING BY H. S. TUKE

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