The view from Richmond Hill

One of the most famous views in the history of landscape painting is "The View from Richmond Hill". In the last it was liked so much that it's now the only view in the UK which is specifically protected by an Act of Parliament.

I've created a small website about it - The View from Richmond Hill - for those who want to know exactly where it is and what the view looks like - and some more about the artists associated with painting the view from the hill e.g.

• Sir Joshua Reynolds whose home (Wick House on Richmond Hill) has this view, or 
• JMW Turner who painted it several time or 
• Jasper Francis Cropsey, the American landscape painter (Hudson River School) whose painting of the View of Richmond Hill recently sold at Bonhams in New York. Cropsey later produced a massive painting of the same view - some eight feet wide - based on this study (and presumably others he made at the same time).  This study is principally focused on the features of the landscape and doesn't have the figures seen in the later painting.

View of Richmond Hill - Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900)
previously exhibited as Study for Richmond Hill in the Summer of 1862
oil on canvas 12 1/2 x 20 1/2in
sold 21st May 2014 for $50,000 at Bonhams

Back in 2010 I visited to see what all the fuss was about. Like many such views I've visited in the past - the trees have grown!

I found it very tricky to get a place where you got a decent view of the bend in the river without running into other problems - like trees obscuring the view.

This is my "failed" photographic view. It's a classic one - with the horizon bisecting the image! You can at least see the river and the fact it has a curve and an island and some boats on it - plus some water meadows next to it!

The view from Richmond Hill - in 2010

This local photographer has had a go at showing us what is the magic of this place in this video

I'm thinking maybe a visit in winter when there are no leaves might prove more fruitful - although it would appear this brings different challenges

George Rowlett painting the River Thames and Uist

Today I saw a work by George Rowlett which had won a £1,500 Runner Up Prize in the art competition for the Lynn Painter Stainer Prize.

Advancing blue, yellow barges, Thames Barrier, early afternoon
by George Rowlett
Rinner Up, Lynn Painter Stainer Prize 2013

George's work is not so much impasto as huge slabs of paint which are trowelled onto and moved around the support - with a trowel. This is Mark Glazebrook writing about George Rowlett and the Art of Landscape
It was therefore fascinating to find out that there are a couple of videos on YouTube about how he paints plein air.  You will be amazed at the way he transports huge paintings covered in massive amounts of paint....

Here are two films:

George Rowlett painting the River Thames (and I know some of those locations!)



and

George Rowlett painting on Uist March 2011



and this is how he gets them back to his studio

Frost Fair on the Thames 1683 #1

There are a number of paintings and etchings of Frost Fairs on the River Thames and elsewhere.  This painting is of the celebrated frost fair which occurred in the winter of 1683–84.   Titled Frost Fair on the Thames, with Old London Bridge in the distance, it was painted by an unknown artist in 1685 and is owned by the Yale Centre for British Art.

I've also found an etching of the same scene - also of unknown origin - but it does identify a number of the subjects in the scene.  You can find more versions at The 1683-4 frost fair

Looking at both the painting and engraving makes me wonder why more people don't paint accounts of contemporaneous events today - they're such wonderful records of both time and place!

Frost fair 1683-4

The temperature dropped severely at the beginning of December 1683.  The River Thames froze and remained frozen for nine weeks until early February 1684.   A road developed - called "Temple Street" between Temple Steps on the north bank of the Thames and Southwark on the south bank.  This road is what is portrayed in both painting and etching.  Booths and stalls developed along Temple Street to serve the people passing to and fro across the frozen river - and doubtless sight-seeing too!

John Evelyn, the diarist wrote, 

Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs too and fro, as in the streets; sleds, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cooks, tipling and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water.London: Portrait of a City. Hudson, Roger (1998). The Folio Society. 

Frost Fair on the Thames, with Old London Bridge in the distance (1685)
unknown artist, 17th century, British;
Formerly attributed to Jan Wyck, ca. 1645-1700, Dutch, active in Britain (from about 1664)
Oil on canvas | 25 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches (64.1 x 76.8 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

I've taken the liberty of lightening the painting slightly - on the basis I don't believe any artist paints a scene of this sort do that it's dark - even if it has darkened with age.  On the Yale website, there is a fascinating set of images of the painting as it used to be and following treatment.

I also found an engraving of the exact same scene on Wikipedia.  I've cropped a large version of it to show more details included by the artist in the foreground.  Below this is the text at the bottom of the picture which tells you about all the things you can see in the engraving - and the painting! It seems very likely that the painting is based on this engraving.

The National Portrait Gallery identifies William Faithorne (1616 – 1691), English painter and engraver as the probably source of the engraving - he had a shop near Temple Bar.

The Thames Frost Fair, 1683
probably by William Faithorne, published by William Warter
line engraving, circa 1684
15 in. x 18 7/8 in. (380 mm x 480 mm) paper size

Crop of foreground of the Engraving of the Frost Fair 1683

The text at the top states

AN

Exact and lively Mapp

or

REPRESENTATION

Of Booths and all the varieties of showes and

Humours upon the ICE on the River of

THAMES by LONDON

During that memorable Frost in the 35th yeare

of the Reigne of his Sacred Maty

King CHARLES the 2d

ANNO Dni MDCLXXXIII.

With an Alphabetical Explanation of the

most remarkeable Figures

The text at the bottom provides an explanation of the alphabetical annotations

The Temple Staires with People goeing upon the Ice to Temple Street A.
The Duke of Yorke's Coffee house B.
The Tory Booth C.
The Booth with a Phoenix on it and Insured as long as the Foundation Stand D.
The Roast Beefe Booth E.
The halfe way house F.
The Beare garden Shire Booth G.
The Musick Booth H.
The Printing Booth I.
The Lottery Booth K.
The Horne Tavern Booth L.
The Temple garden with Crowds of People looking over the wall M.
The Boat drawne with a Hors N.
The Drum Boat O.
the Boat drawne upon wheeles P.
the Bull baiting Q.
The Chair sliding in the Ring R.
The Boyes Sliding S.
The Nine Pinn Playing T.
The sliding on Scates V.
The sledge drawing Coales from the other side of the Thames W.
The Boyes climbing upon the Tree in the Temple garden to see ye Bull Baiting X.
The Toy Shopps Y.
London Bridge Z.
Source for text: visual inspection, and verified from Bentley's Miscellany, Volume 9 by Charles Dickens, William Harrison Ainsworth, Albert Smith; publisher: Richard Bentley; year: 1841; page 133, footnote 1.

In the background is the Old London Bridge which was started in 1176 and completed in 1212.  Over the years properties were built on top of it (see below an etching of it just three years earlier).  The bridge and its buildings survived the great fire of 1666 due to a fire break at the northern end caused by a previous fire.

Drawing of London Bridge from a 1682 London MapSurveyed by: Morgan, William, d. 1690. Published: London, London Topographical Society, 1904

To the south of the Bridge was a gate where the heads of those executed for treason used to be put on spikes - with the head of William Wallace being the first to appear on the gate, in 1305.  This practice stopped in 1660 - just 25 years before this painting.

The church in the background of the frost fair painting is Southwark Cathedral which lies just to the west of London Bridge.  

The Frozen Thames - looking like the Arctic

It's been snowing here in London - so I thought I'd have a look at the pictures of Frost Fairs on the Thames.  The first one had me unpicking the trail of the story behind the painting both in terms of content and who painted it.

Here's the first one - it's a painting of The Frozen Thames, Looking Eastwards towards Old London Bridge, London - painted in 1677 by a painter I'd not heard of before - Abraham Hondius (1625–1691).

The Frozen Thames, Looking Eastwards towards Old London Bridge, London (1677) 
by Abraham Hondius
Oil on canvas, 107.8 x 175.6 cm
Museum of London
Abraham Hondius [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The really interesting thing about this painting is that, according to the websites which have details about when the Thames froze, it didn't freeze on 1677!  In fact, it hadn't frozen for some years prior to this.

I'm wondering whether this painting is an imaginary interpretation of what the River Thames would look like if it froze.  This would account for why it looks so much like the Arctic(!) in his painting Arctic Adventure - also painted in 1677 (see below).  This latter painting is in the Fitzwilliam Museum.  Guess which painting I think was finished first!

Arctic Adventure (1677) Abraham Hondius
Oil on canvas, 55.4 x 84.7 cm
Fiztwilliam Museum

Hondius was a Dutch Golden Age artist who was noted for his portrayals of animals.  He moved to London in 1666 so this painting may very well have been a way of him bringing his work to the attention of collectors in London.

What's not obvious from the painting is the degree of devastation on one bank of the Thames at the time.  This is the year after the Great Fire of London and part of the City of London was wiped out (see an old map in the British Library of the impact of the Great Fire)

I'm very bothered by the church in the background.  In shape it looks like the old St Paul's Cathedral which had burnt down the previous year in Fire - but if the painting is looking east then it's on the wrong side of the Thames.  However if it's looking FROM the east then it makes sense and by definition must then be totally imaginary as the Cathedral no longer existed in 1667.

The Old St Paul's Cathedral in flames

The only church which was just beyond London Bridge at the time was St Thomas Church which now houses The Old Operating Theatre Museum - and which is totally the wrong shape.  (I should know - I used to work in the offices next door to it!)

You can watch a slideshow of 14 more paintings by Hondius on the Your Paintings website

These are the Museums and Art Galleries where you can see paintings by Hondius

John Constable - Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge

I've been looking at views of the Thames by different artists this week and came across one which was attributed to John Constable but which just looked wrong to me.  I first found it on wikipaintings - and then noticed that they'd sourced it from one of those "we can paint you any painting you want" sites.

Finally, it dawned on me why it was wrong - the image had been reversed!  Maybe you have to have walked along this terrace to know these things?

So here is a small Constable oil sketch of Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge - the proper way round!  The real thing forms part of the Paul Mellon Collection in the Yale Center for British Art At Yale University in downtown New Haven.

Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge (c 1819) by John Constable (1776-1837)
Oil on panel, 6 1/8 x 7 3/8 inches (15.6 x 18.7 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

What's also interesting about this painting is:

• it's definitely a sketch/study - given the size and the quality of the finish.  Constable simply did not paint like this for his studio paintings but he did when painting studies for studio paintings.  It would be interesting to know whether he did anything with it.
• the sketch dates from before the Embankment was built along the edge of the Thames.  In those days Somerset House was on the banks of the Thames and didn't have a couple of roads and pavements and a wall between the terrace and the river.

The other names for this painting are:

• Somerset House Terrace and the Thames: a View from the North end of Waterloo Bridge with St. Paul's and Blackfriar's Bridge
• Somerset House, A View from Waterloo Bridge looking towards St. Paul's and the City

Whatever it's called it suggests that a good place to paint the Thames and the City of London is the north end of Waterloo Bridge.

The end of the terrace at Somerset House is not such a good spot for painting - you can see how much trees now interfere with the view in my post Sunday Papers at Somerset House on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog

View of the Thames by Childe Hassam

View of the Thames (1889) by Childe Hassam
watercolour

I'm very fond of paintings by Childe Hassam but only came across his painting of the Thames very recently.  I wasn't even aware he'd ever paid a visit to London.

Behind the boats is a view of Charing Cross Railway Bridge with Embankment Gardens and Cleopatra's Needle on the right and the Houses of Parliament in the background.  The Thames Embankment would still be very new when this was painted.

The mixing of pigments on the paper is very attractive and lifts what are ostensibly grey buildings and grey water into some far more interesting.  Why shouldn't be water and sky be yellow?  It seems entirely appropriate.

I spotted it partly because I saw some boats very like this last Saturday moored in the River Thames outside Old Billingsgate Market

Boats participating in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant Flotilla

Painting a River Pageant

Today, on the River Thames in the centre of London, crowds will see the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.  It's part of the official celebrations on this festive weekend which marks the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne of England.  There are some who are saying we've seen nothing like this in 350 years - in terms of the nature of the event and the number of vessels on the Thames.

Westminster Bridge from the north on Lord Mayor's Day (1746)
Oil on canvas, 96 x 137.5 cm
Location: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A history of river pageants

Previous monarchs and the City of London have used the River Thames for spectacular royal celebrations and pageants including:

• Anne Boleyn's coronation:  The coronation procession from Greenwich to the Tower of London on 29 May 1533 was a grand spectacle

Fifty barges of the London livery companies, decorated with banners and draped in gold cloth, accompanied the lavishly apparelled barges of the Lord Mayor and Crown, with a further 250 vessels forming an impressive armada.

• On 23 August 1662, King Charles II and Queen Catherine of Braganza were greeted by an extravagant pageant involving the twelve livery companies on their arrival at Whitehall from Hampton Court
• on 17 July 1717 a musical concert was held on the River Thames for King George I and his court.  Handel was commissioned to write 'Water Music', for wind and strings.

On Wednesday Evening… the King took Water at Whitehall in an open Barge… and went up River towards Chelsea. Many other Barges with Persons of Quality attended, and so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover’d; a City Company’s Barge was employ’d for the Musick, wherein were 50 instruments of all sorts, who play’d all the Way from Lambeth… the finest Symphonies compos’d express for this Occasion by Mr. Hendel; which his Majesty liked so well that he caus’d it to be plaid over three times in the going and returning.
The Daily Courant

Painting river pageants

In terms of paintings of pageants on the River Thames, Canaletto is the probably most well known artist.

I've tried working out how Canaletto would have created his paintings of river pageants.  This one in particular perplexes me.  While his perspective may be fine, he's not renowned for getting his proportions right or even painting things where they are actually are!

For example, the river looks too wide.  However, at the time it was painted the River Thames was a lot wider than it is today - it's been channelled and an Embankment built since then

But how do you tackle an aerial perspective of a view of the Thames before there was any means of being up in the air?  I haven't got a clue - any ideas?

If it was painted from a bridge - which bridge?  The location of the painter seems to be the vicinity of the Hungerford Rail Bridge and the current Golden Jubilee Footbridges - but so far as I'm aware they weren't there at the time.

So where was he painting from?  Or is it completely from his imagination?

The Web Gallery of Art provides an explanation of the painting London: Westminster Bridge from the North on Lord Mayor's Day

In this picture he combines a view of its whole span with a depiction of festivities, which, although tamer than the Venetian spectacles he generally painted, partially recall them. The celebrations accompanied the appointment of the new Lord Mayor of London. The largest City Barge is shown taking him to Westminster Hall, by the Abbey at the right, where he will be sworn in. The prominent building on the horizon to the left of it is St John's Church, Smith Square, and over on the other side of the river is Lambeth Palace, the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. All the other spectacular barges are those of the different city guilds (Skinners, Goldsmiths, Fishmongers, Clothworkers, Vinters, Merchant Taylors, Mercers and Dyers); a number of them are firing salutes to honour the Mayor. In order to encapsulate all of this activity within such a broad panorama Canaletto has adopted an imaginary vantage point high above the Thames.

Westminster Bridge

One of the things which I didn't know is that the Westminster Bridge in the painting was relatively new at the time - and is not the one which is there today.  The first bridge opened in 1750 - some 3 years before this painting was painted.  However it was troubled by subsidence and had to be replaced in the nineteenth century and a new cast iron bridge was opened in 1862.

Below you can see the very famous painting by Canaletto - painted while the first Westminster Bridge was being constructed

London: Seen Through an Arch of Westminster Bridge (1747) by Canaletto
oil on canvas, 57 x 95 cm
Location: Syon House, Middlesex

Painting a River Pageant today

I wonder who's going to be out there today collecting material and generating sketches and studies for painting the pageant?  Who's the modern day Canaletto of figurative paintings of the River Thames?  Do we have one?

It did occur to me that various painters might have a go at painting the River Pageant today.  I expect there might be members of the Wapping Group out on the banks of the Thames somewhere attempting to paint today.

I know I had planned to go down to the River today - but that was before the rain!

It rained on the Coronation Day in 1953 - and it's raining again today (as in I couldn't see Canary Wharf at all this morning - which means very low rain clouds along the Thames!).  Which means my planned vantage point is going to be overrun with people trying to stay dry!

Which is partly why we went down to the Thames yesterday - while it was still dry and sunny - to see the Avenue of Sail - which comprises the sailing ships gathered  in the Pool of London either side of the Tower of London.

Billingsgate Fish Market in 1876
By Illustrated London News [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I tried sketching a couple of Thames Barges outside Old Billingsgate Market yesterday.  It was very weird to be seeing the type of vessels which might have visited the market in the past, moored right next to it.

Thames Sailing Barges at Billingsgate 2nd June 2012

It's the first time I've ever tried to sketch anything which moved constantly while sketching - from side to side and down (ther tide was going out) - and also while the owners were putting up the bunting for today's Pageant!  I'll come and leave a link here when I've posted it online.

If you had a go at painting the Pageant why not enter The Big Diamond Jubilee Art Challenge

Links:

• About Canaletto - Italian Painter
• previous posts on The Art of the Landscape:
• Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and Canaletto's Thames Pageants #1
• Canaletto - Painting Britain

Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant and Canaletto's Thames Pageants #1

The River Thames with St. Paul's Cathedral on Lord Mayor's Day (1746)

Canaletto
oil on canvas, 26.8 x 37.6 cm
The Lobkowicz Collections, Prague Castle, Czech Republic

There's going to be a Pageant on the River Thames to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee of her accession to the Throne.

1,000 boats are going to make their way down the Thames on Sunday 3rd June - mustering between Hammersmith and Battersea and dispersing from Tower Bridge to West India Docks.

The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant has its very own website.  The BBC is also going to be out filming people painting from a bridge - although my own feeling is that the only way to capture the view - as Canaletto did - is to get up much higher than a bridge.  I've got a couple of spots in mind!

There are a couple of famous Canaletto paintings of pageants on the Thames.  The one featured above is currently being portrayed as a mural on a temporary wall at the entrance to London Bridge station.

The painting is currently on loan to the The National Maritime Museum (one of the Royal Museums at Greenwich) for Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames the exhibition to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

If you want to find out more about Canaletto and his verdute or "view paintings" try my resource About Canaletto - Italian Painter

A veduta (Italian for "view"; plural vedute) is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, actually more often print, of a cityscape or some other vista.