DOI article:
Hind, Charles Lewis: Alice Fanner's lyrical paintings
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21214#0207
Alice Fanner
“from the pier, lowestoft”
OIL PAINTING BY ALICE FANNER
he be formed by Nature into a Michael Angelo, or
a Michael Angelo Rooker, and surely in these grey
days it is no small gift to the world to be able
to offer it consistent and persistent cheerfulness.
I am grateful for the mere sight of a reproduction
of Spring in Hyde Park and From the Pier,
Lowestoft, and those racing yachts that make me
long to suffer a sea-change for the summer and the
sea. It is well that Miss Fanner is strong enough
to be herself, resolute to express her dainty passing
version of the eternal spring-song of Nature.
And Mendelssohn’s aubade flickered out in
happiness, and our talk rose and fell, and the
coffee stage of the luncheon passed, and we pre-
pared to fare forth to see such pictures as the
artist had in her fresh and cheerful little house
in old Chelsea. There, seeing her many studies
of effects on sea and land, the framed pictures on
the white walls, paeans of gladness for the light
and colour of Nature, and recalling the works I
had seen by her at the New English Art Club and
the Goupil Gallery Salon, I realised how seriously
she takes her art. Also noting the impulse of her
talent towards colour, movement, and light, I also
realised how wise she had been to put in a long
and strenuous groundwork of study at the Slade
School. That was in the brave days when Augustus
John and William Orpen were pupils. On this
foundation of sound drawing she encouraged her
love of Nature to play, seeking the sensitive effect,
never the literary fact—colour, atmosphere, wind,
light—the acts and wrays of man touched upon
only so far as they ministered to the acts and ways
of Nature.
Living within easy reach of Hampton Court,
Miss Fanner was early attracted to those formal,
gay gardens: there in that leisurely survival of
spacious, courtly days, where the landscape shades
of Watteau and Gainsborough may delight to
linger, she found a sympathetic painting-ground,
transferring her interest later to the vivacity of the
vivid summer life of our coast towns; but best of
all were the summers spent at Burnham-on-Crouch,
yachting in the “ Harmony,” and in the friendly
little six-tonner, learning and painting in wind and
calm, shine and mist, living to the uttermost. Ah,
those days, those happy days ! The war for the
present has stopped such harmless joys; a fierce
201
“from the pier, lowestoft”
OIL PAINTING BY ALICE FANNER
he be formed by Nature into a Michael Angelo, or
a Michael Angelo Rooker, and surely in these grey
days it is no small gift to the world to be able
to offer it consistent and persistent cheerfulness.
I am grateful for the mere sight of a reproduction
of Spring in Hyde Park and From the Pier,
Lowestoft, and those racing yachts that make me
long to suffer a sea-change for the summer and the
sea. It is well that Miss Fanner is strong enough
to be herself, resolute to express her dainty passing
version of the eternal spring-song of Nature.
And Mendelssohn’s aubade flickered out in
happiness, and our talk rose and fell, and the
coffee stage of the luncheon passed, and we pre-
pared to fare forth to see such pictures as the
artist had in her fresh and cheerful little house
in old Chelsea. There, seeing her many studies
of effects on sea and land, the framed pictures on
the white walls, paeans of gladness for the light
and colour of Nature, and recalling the works I
had seen by her at the New English Art Club and
the Goupil Gallery Salon, I realised how seriously
she takes her art. Also noting the impulse of her
talent towards colour, movement, and light, I also
realised how wise she had been to put in a long
and strenuous groundwork of study at the Slade
School. That was in the brave days when Augustus
John and William Orpen were pupils. On this
foundation of sound drawing she encouraged her
love of Nature to play, seeking the sensitive effect,
never the literary fact—colour, atmosphere, wind,
light—the acts and wrays of man touched upon
only so far as they ministered to the acts and ways
of Nature.
Living within easy reach of Hampton Court,
Miss Fanner was early attracted to those formal,
gay gardens: there in that leisurely survival of
spacious, courtly days, where the landscape shades
of Watteau and Gainsborough may delight to
linger, she found a sympathetic painting-ground,
transferring her interest later to the vivacity of the
vivid summer life of our coast towns; but best of
all were the summers spent at Burnham-on-Crouch,
yachting in the “ Harmony,” and in the friendly
little six-tonner, learning and painting in wind and
calm, shine and mist, living to the uttermost. Ah,
those days, those happy days ! The war for the
present has stopped such harmless joys; a fierce
201