DOI Heft:
No. 28 (July, 1895)
DOI Artikel:Charlton, Edward William: Letters to artists, Ringwood as a sketching ground
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17294#0160
Ringwood as a Sketching Ground
You can get capital stretchers, cases for carrying wet
canvases, and such-like—even a punt for painting
purposes if you want one, made by local carpenters
who are well up in those matters, but you must
bring your stock of colours, canvas, and brushes
with you.
Neither is the railway station on a branch line.
On the contrary, it is on an important main line
between London and Weymouth. There is a
branch line through Christchurch to Bournemouth,
a distance of twelve miles. Southampton, which
you pass on your way down, and Salisbury,
eighteen miles by road northwards, are, besides
Bournemouth, the chief places within hail. You
can have a long day in London if you get off by
the first train. This, I think, upsets your friend's
idea that Ringwood—let it be as humdrum as
it likes—is out of the way and removed from
civilisation.
I notice both of you are under the impression
it is in the New Forest. As a matter of fact, it lies
between two and three miles outside the western
boundary—just far enough to be free from the
conventional New Forest scenery; and to my mind,
grand as the Royal woodland is, Ringwood is
superior in subjects on account of its position.
You evidently do not quite recognise its most
important claims upon an artist or its chief fasci-
nations as a sketching ground.
To begin with, there is the river—the Avon—
flowing through a broad and beautiful valley.
These essentially constitute the two most interest-
ing gifts of Nature to the locality, for both form
the source from which spring the many accessories
necessary to the complete work of the landscape
painter, exemplified by the many streams and
water meadows studded with old willows and
poplars, the tall reeds and the wealth of wild
flowers, besides the numberless indispensable
adjuncts, natural or artificial, which go to the for-
mation of the sketch or finish of the picture.
The town itself, as far as painting or sketching
is concerned, you could do without. Pictorially,
it possesses little to fascinate. Artists do not
go to Ringwood to sit about the streets. Certainly
there is one part of the main street close to the
First Bridge out of the town, captivating to the
eye—a row of quaint old thatched cottages ending
at the mill-stream—but it is a " bit " that has
been done to death. The true sketching ground
is of quite another style, though I warn you it is
by no means easy to express. You will have
subtle colour to battle with, drawing of much
perplexity with little to " catch hold of," intricate
RINGWOOD WATER MEADOWS
BY E. W. CHARLTON
141
You can get capital stretchers, cases for carrying wet
canvases, and such-like—even a punt for painting
purposes if you want one, made by local carpenters
who are well up in those matters, but you must
bring your stock of colours, canvas, and brushes
with you.
Neither is the railway station on a branch line.
On the contrary, it is on an important main line
between London and Weymouth. There is a
branch line through Christchurch to Bournemouth,
a distance of twelve miles. Southampton, which
you pass on your way down, and Salisbury,
eighteen miles by road northwards, are, besides
Bournemouth, the chief places within hail. You
can have a long day in London if you get off by
the first train. This, I think, upsets your friend's
idea that Ringwood—let it be as humdrum as
it likes—is out of the way and removed from
civilisation.
I notice both of you are under the impression
it is in the New Forest. As a matter of fact, it lies
between two and three miles outside the western
boundary—just far enough to be free from the
conventional New Forest scenery; and to my mind,
grand as the Royal woodland is, Ringwood is
superior in subjects on account of its position.
You evidently do not quite recognise its most
important claims upon an artist or its chief fasci-
nations as a sketching ground.
To begin with, there is the river—the Avon—
flowing through a broad and beautiful valley.
These essentially constitute the two most interest-
ing gifts of Nature to the locality, for both form
the source from which spring the many accessories
necessary to the complete work of the landscape
painter, exemplified by the many streams and
water meadows studded with old willows and
poplars, the tall reeds and the wealth of wild
flowers, besides the numberless indispensable
adjuncts, natural or artificial, which go to the for-
mation of the sketch or finish of the picture.
The town itself, as far as painting or sketching
is concerned, you could do without. Pictorially,
it possesses little to fascinate. Artists do not
go to Ringwood to sit about the streets. Certainly
there is one part of the main street close to the
First Bridge out of the town, captivating to the
eye—a row of quaint old thatched cottages ending
at the mill-stream—but it is a " bit " that has
been done to death. The true sketching ground
is of quite another style, though I warn you it is
by no means easy to express. You will have
subtle colour to battle with, drawing of much
perplexity with little to " catch hold of," intricate
RINGWOOD WATER MEADOWS
BY E. W. CHARLTON
141