Down the North Sea coast from Tyneside lies the small fishing village of Staithes. Geographically isolated from the rest of Yorkshire by the North York Moors, Staithes remained largely untouched by the dramatic changes brought about by industrialisation in the nineteenth century and the village's traditional way of life was preserved. However, the arrival of the railway to Staithes in 1875 opened Staithes up to the public and tourists soon discovered this unspoilt fishing community with its quaint customs. Among the visitors were the artists who were to make up The Staithes Group. At its height, the group was comprised of nearly 40 artists, some of whom lived permanently in the area while others visited for extended periods each year. They integrated themselves into the fishing community, often lodging with the locals or occupying attic spaces. This close proximity provided the artists with a first-hand experience of the villagers' arduous lives and, as a result, their paintings lend a unique insight into a long-forgotten way of life.
The art colony at Staithes saw its beginnings with Gilbert Foster, who, along with Frederick Jackson and Mark Senior, had established themselves in the area around 1880. Over the next three decades, the Yorkshire Coastline became a hub for nearly forty artists, including notable figures such as Harold and Laura Knight, Ernest Rigg, and Robert Jobling. A robust and adventurous group of artists, many of them enjoyed the challenges of painting en plein air whilst being subjected to the often harsh conditions prevalent in the Tynemouth area. Many of them had adopted the practice of painting en plein air after studying in Paris and Northern France and now found inspiration in Staithes, working from nature along this unspoilt stretch of coastline.
A native of the northeast, Robert Jobling’s enthusiasm for his craft equalled only that of his interest in the lives of fisherfolk local to the Tynemouth area. Jobling had previously spent much time working in the fishing village of Cullercoats, situated not far north of the industrial centre of North Shields, where he formed the Cullercoats Artists’ Colony. However, his future wife, Isa Jobling, had visited Staithes in 1892 and after her marriage to Robert in 1903 she persuaded him to forego painting trips to Cullercoats in favour of Staithes. Here, his works focused primarily on depicting fishermen at work. Off to the Fishing Ground is one such example which demonstrates how Jobling utilised his work to raise the labour of working-class individuals up to a position of reverence. Furthermore, this work demonstrates how Jobling, equally adept in oil and watercolour painting, attempted to capture many of the disappearing traditions that were unique to local fishing communities.
Another later arrival to the Staithes colony was Rowland Henry Hill, who was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Following extensive periods of studying and working abroad in France and Belgium, Hill settled in Hinderwell near the sheltered settlement of Runswick Bay, just south of Staithes. Here, he painted local landscape scenes with his particular brand of ruralism tending to focus on depicting the built environment, notably the exterior of traditional cottages. The loose brushstrokes and vibrant colour palette of The White Cottage demonstrate Hill’s remarkable skill at capturing the fresh atmosphere and bright light of the northeast coast. His works possess a quality of lightness and spontaneity as a result of working outside directly from his subjects.
A key member of the Staithes Group, Ernest Rigg settled in Hinderwell in the 1890s and became a founding member of the Staithes Art Club, as well as the Yorkshire Union of Artists. Like many of the Staithes artists, Rigg studied at the Académie Julian and his delightful outdoor scenes reveal the strong influence of French Impressionism. Rigg’s paintings are characterised by their vibrant colours and his figure scenes often capture the intimate relationship between humans and nature. In his painting Picking Blackberries at Hinderwell, the vivid pinks of the children's clothing and the lush green and golden hues of the blackberry bush are illuminated by the afternoon sunlight, creating striking colour contrasts. The painting exemplifies how Rigg was able to develop the inspiration he drew from the Impressionists into a style he felt was ideal for capturing the everyday moments of British country and coastal life.
In 1886, Ernest Rigg, along with his brother Arthur and the artist Henry Herbert La Thangue, established the Arcadian Art Club which they set up in Arthur's studio in Bradford. The goal of the club was to promote local artistic talent and to raise the profile of plein air painting amongst their audiences. The two brothers were native to Bradford, and La Thangue, while growing up in Croydon, spent much of his early career working in Bradford painting local portraits. La Thangue had previously spent time studying and working in France, where he had met Newlyn School founder Stanhope Forbes. In the summer of 1883, La Thangue was travelling down the Rhone Valley when he stopped at Donzère, a small town of around 1400 inhabitants. Here, he painted two canvases of dark interiors depicting peasant families, one of which was his large-scale work A Poor French Family. At the time La Thangue was very closely associated with plein air painting, being one of the strongest advocates of the rural Naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Léon Lhermitte - painters of field-labourers working outside in nature. This step into the darkness of a labourer's cottage was an unusual one, but it offered La Thangue and audiences of his work a deeper understanding and more intimate insight into the lives of French peasants at the time.
While the painter returned to the Rhone to work in full sunlight the following year, A Poor French Family was a talisman – both for his work and that of others. Following his somewhat transformative experience in Donzère, La Thangue would never shy away from revealing the reality of poverty in his peasant interiors, nor would his works patronise the poor. Furthermore, this painting set a precedent for other British artists. Dark Newlyn School interiors, yet to be painted by Fred Hall, Frank Bramley, Edwin Harris, Stanhope Forbes and others, certainly owe something to La Thangue's canvas.
Two works in particular by Forbes are reminiscent of La Thangue's earlier dark interior, but while La Thangue's composition is unified in its low tones, Forbes was more interested in the effects of using single light sources to create sharp areas of contrast between illuminated subjects and the darkness of their environment. In The Picture Book, light falls on the sitters' faces and on the pages of the picture book while the rest of the scene is thrown into darkness. Such treatment of light suggests that they have gathered around the only oil lamp in the humble cottage interior. Teatime fully demonstrates Forbes' confidence in the orchestration of dramatic interior light effects. The touches of blue make the complementary orange in the fire glow like a jewel in an otherwise shadowy setting, in which the figures seem to fade in and out of the background, becoming one with their dark environment.
A fully illustrated catalogue for our summer exhibition of British Impressionism is available to buy online and from our gallery in St. James's
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