This view is taken from the same bridle-path as is seen in Lord Alverstone’s “Hindhead,” but at a lower elevation, and looking some points more to the south; also at a later time of year, probably in early October, to judge by the browning hazels. The bracken-covered elevation in the distance is Grays Wood Common, which lies to the south of the railway, and the spur of blue hill seen in the distance is Blackdown. Aldworth, Lord Tennyson’s seat, lies just this side of where the hill falls away. The drawing is one of three only in the whole collection where Mrs. Allingham has introduced a draught animal.
22. THE FISH-SHOP, HASLEMERE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. A. E. Cumberbatch.
Painted 1887.
One can well understand the local builder in his daily round past this picturesque little tenement casting longing eyes upon its uneven roof, its diamond-paned lattices, its projecting shop front, and its spoutless eaves, which allowed the damp to rise up from the foundations and the green lichen to grow upon its walls, and that he rested not until he had set hands upon it, and taken one more old-world feature from the main thoroughfare at Haslemere. Such was actually the case here, for the shop has long ago disappeared, but it was not until, much to its owner’s regret, interference was necessary. Were it not that it indeed was the fish-shop of Haslemere, it might well have served for the toyshop in which the scene of “The Young Customers” was laid. In the days when this was painted the accommodation provided was probably sufficient for the intermittent supply of an inland village, for Haslemere was not, until the last few years, a country resort for those who seek fine air and beautiful scenery, and can afford to pay a high price for it.
CHAPTER V
THE INFLUENCE OF WITLEY
It will be readily understood that such a beneficial change in her life surroundings as that from Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, to Sandhills, Witley, was not without its effect upon Mrs. Allingham’s Art. Hitherto her work had, by the exigencies of fortune, lain almost wholly and entirely in the direction of the figure. It was studio work, done for the most part under pressure of time, the selection of subject being none of hers, and therefore oftentimes altogether unsympathetic. Finding herself now in the presence of Nature of a kind that appealed to her, and which she could appreciate untrammelled by any conditions, it is not surprising that—unwittingly, no doubt, at first—the preference was given to that side of Art which presented itself under so much more favourable conditions.
The delight of painting en plein air had first been tasted at Shere in the spring and summer of 1878, where she was passionately happy in watching the changes and developments of the seasons, being in the fields, lanes, and copses all day and every day.[9] Almost as full a feast had followed at Haslemere in 1880. When these were succeeded by a permanent residence in front of Nature, studio work became more and more trying and unsatisfactory.
To most people of an artistic temperament the abandonment of the figure for landscape would never have been the subject of a moment’s consideration, for it would have appeared to them the desertion of a higher for a lower grade of Art. But from the time of her arrival in the country there seems to have never been any doubt in Mrs. Allingham’s mind as to the direction which her Art should take. The pleasure to which we have referred of sitting down in the open air before Nature, whose aspects and moods she could select at her own will, and at her own time, was infinitely preferable to the toil and trouble of either illustrating the ideas of others, or building up scenes, oftentimes improbable ones, of her own creation. From this time onwards, then, we find her drifting away from the figure, but not altogether, or at once, for as her family grew up, scenes in her house life passed across her view which she enjoyed to place on record, and for which the world thanks her: scenes of infant life in the nursery, such as “Pat-a-cake” and “The Children’s Tea”; in the schoolroom, such as “Lessons”; and out of school hours, such as “Bubbles” and “The Children’s Maypole.” In one and all of these it is her own family who are the chief actors.
The portrayal of her children in heads of a larger size than her usual work was at this time seen by friends and others, who pressed upon her commissions for effigies of their own little ones, a branch of work which promptly drew down upon her the disapproval of Ruskin, who wrote: “I am indeed sorrowfully compelled to express my regret that she should have spent unavailing pains in finishing single heads, which are at the best uninteresting miniatures, instead of fulfilling her true gift, and doing what the Lord made her for in representing the gesture, character, and humour of charming children in country landscapes.”
But this change naturally did not pass over her work all at once, or even in a single year. Mrs. Allingham’s presentations of the countryside commenced in earnest shortly after her settling down at Witley in 1881; but as will be seen by the dates of the pictures which illustrate this chapter, the figure as the dominant feature continues for another six years; in fact, during the whole of her seven and a half years at Witley we find it now and again, and do not part with it as such until 1890. Since then hardly a single example has come from her brush. Mrs. Allingham gives as her reason for the change that she came to the conclusion that she could put as much interest into a figure two or three inches high as in one three times as large, and that she could paint it better; for in painting large figures out of doors it was always a difficulty in making them look anything else than they were, namely, “posing models.”