Mrs. Allingham is above all things a fair-weather painter. She has no pleasure in the storm, whether of rain or wind. Maybe this avoidance of the discomforts inseparable from a truthful portrayal of such conditions indicates the femininity of her nature. Doubtless it does. But is she to blame? Her work is framed upon the pleasure that it affords her, and it is certain that the result is none the less satisfactory because it only numbers the sunny hours and the halcyon days.
I ought perhaps to have qualified the expression “sunny hours,” for as a rule she does not affect a sunshine which casts strong shadows, but rather its condition when, through a thin veil of cloud, it suffuses all Nature with an equable light, and allows local colour to be seen at its best. In drawings which comprise any large amount of floral detail, the leaves, in full sunshine, give off an amount of reflected light that materially lessens the colour value of the flowers, and prevents their being properly distinguished. Mr. Elgood, the painter of flower-gardens par excellence, always observes this rule, not only because the effect is so much more satisfactory on paper, but because it is so much easier to paint under this aspect. As regards sky treatment, both he and Mrs. Allingham, it will be noted, confine themselves to the simplest sky effects, feeling that the main interest lies on the ground, where the detail is amply sufficient to warrant the accessories being kept as subservient as possible. For this reason it is that the glories of sunrise and sunset have no place in Mrs. Allingham’s work, the hours round mid-day sufficing for her needs.
To the curiously minded concerning her palette, it may be said that it is of the simplest character. Her paint-box is the smallest that will hold her colours in moist cake form, of which none are used save those which she considers to be permanent. It contains cobalt, permanent yellow, aureolin, raw sienna, yellow ochre, cadmium, rose madder, light red, and sepia. She now uses nothing save O.W. (old water-colour) paper. Mrs. Allingham’s method of laying on the colour differs from that of Birket Foster, who painted wet and in small touches. Her painting is on the dry side, letting her colours mingle on the paper. As a small bystander once remarked concerning it, “You do mess about a deal.”
Mrs. Allingham has been a constant worker for upwards of a quarter of a century, during which time, in addition to contributing to the Royal Society, she has held seven Exhibitions at The Fine Art Society’s, each of them averaging some seventy numbers. She has, therefore, upon her own calculation, put forth to the world nearly a thousand drawings. In spite of this, they seldom appear in the sale-room, and when they do they share with Birket Foster’s work the unusual distinction of always realising more than the artist received for them.
The illustrations which adorn this closing chapter have no connection with its subject, but are not on that account altogether out of place; for they are the only ones which are outside the title of the work, two being from Ireland, and two from Venice, and they are associated with two of the main incidents of the artist’s life, namely, her marriage, and her only art work abroad.
78. A CABIN AT BALLYSHANNON
From a Water-colour in the possession of the Artist.
Painted 1891.
Ballyshannon is the birthplace of Mr. William Allingham, who married Mrs. Allingham in 1874. It is situated in County Donegal, and was described by him as “an odd, out-of-the way little town on the extreme western verge of Europe; our next neighbours, sunset way, being citizens of the great Republic, which indeed to our imagination seemed little, if at all, farther off than England in the opposite direction. Before it spreads a great ocean, behind stretches many an islanded lake. On the south runs a wavy line of blue mountains, and on the north, over green, rocky hills, rise peaks of a more distant range. The trees hide in glens or cluster near the river; grey rocks and boulders lie scattered about the windy pastures.” Here Mr. Allingham was born of the good old stock of one of Cromwell’s settlers, and here he lived until he was two-and-twenty. The drawing now reproduced was made when Mrs. Allingham visited the place with his children after his death in 1889. Many ruined cabins lie around; money is scarce in Donegal, and each year the tenants become fewer, some emigrating, others who have done so sending to their relations to join them. Better times are indeed necessary if the country is not to become a desert.
