The abyss, Dickens, and our close and immediate past

St Marylebone workhouse, c. 1903

In E M Forster’s Howards End, the unfortunate – and ultimately tragic – Leonard Bast is described as standing, “at the extreme end of gentility. He was not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people who he knew had dropped in, and counted no more.” At the   time of Forster’s writing Howards End (completed 1909), people typically ‘dropped into the abyss’ if they lacked health, money, sanity, education, social status, connections. And the abyss took the form of homelessness, the workhouse, the debtor’s prison, the ‘lunatic’ asylum. It was grim and grey: a true nightmare. Moreover, the stigma of being pauperised haunted the lives of the very poor, and struck to the marrow of their being. Deference and respectability permeated the social fabric of Victorian and Edwardian society; and it is probably not an exaggeration to say that respectability took precedence over all other social considerations. I knew, in the 1970s, an old lady who had enough money put by for a decent (respectable) funeral. I also met a man who had worked as a porter in a Newcastle hospital in the early 1920s. He was once struck in the face by a doctor for having entered the open door of his room without first knocking.

Gustave Dore, London

In respect of the latter examples, the year 1900 is arbitrary, and what we call ‘Victorian England’ profoundly influencing the social and political life of the 20th century – and continues to influence us in unseen ways. The Poor Law was not abolished until 1948, and I remember being astonished when my step–grandmother told me that the workhouse too remained as an institution up to that year. She knew the couple who ran the workhouse in Bletchingley, Surrey. They were a Mr and Mrs Sneezum. Dickens need have looked no further for a name. It is thought that Dickens exaggerates. I doubt he had any need to. My mother remembers being taken to the London offices of my paternal grandfather during the war. She was particularly struck by a hat stand in a narrow upstairs corridor. It had on it a bowler hat thick with the dust of decades. Moreover, in Sidney Street, Cambridge, as recently as the mid–1990s, I saw a boy of about 14 running along the pavement, crying out excitedly, “Dropped a fiver, mine!” Once retrieved from the pavement, he held the grubby note briefly in the air, before – eyes shining – giving it a kiss! 

Faith in schools

Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State
for education, 2011–2014

The question of faith schools – good or bad? Desirable or not? – is very much in the air (even more so now that we are a multi–faith society). Well, I (we) do not have any children, and I may be insufficiently in touch to make relevant comment. However, I was for many years a 'consumer' – largely unwilling! – of general education, so perhaps my credentials are sufficient after all. 

The question of faith schools was not one that seemed to arise very much in the 1940 and 1950s when I was at school. The choice in Sussex, as far as I know, only existed between C of E and Catholic (although in the 1960s there was the Brighton and Hove Jewish Day School). Broadly, most children went to schools that were – either nominally or actively – C of E. And that was me, a 'nominal' in receipt of a Christianity so watered down that the disciples would scarcely have recognised it . . . Still, I would admit that moral threads of our 'school Christianity' blended seamlessly enough with the broad moral code of the society with in which we lived (and in which there were far more humanists and agnostics that might have been thought). So, would I say that the religious aspect of my schooling was a force for the good in terms of my moral development? Well, perhaps. However, I well remember an occasion when our RE (or RI) class was so boring, and the class so disruptive, that our teacher informed us that we all “heading for hell”. This defect of self–possession was of course scarcely inspiring, and was not I think lost on the least bright of us. These intimations of hellfire and damnation that reached our ears from time to time tended to promote a certain fearfulness and strain which were quite inimical to the nourishing of the kind of courage that we needed. And as for any teaching that might have even begun to reveal to us, for example, the true freedom of the Good Samaritan, we simply did not get it.

However, if I am not particularly in favour of faith schools – and I am not – then I do not think that is only because of my own experiences. Principally, I am against them because of their apparent tendency to be divisive in the wider community. It is bad enough that ethnic minorities are so often 'ghettoised' in terms of housing areas; but when children are not meeting and mixing at school either, is it surprising that mutual suspicion and hatred tend to flourish? And why should children be denied the opportunity of enrichment through friendship with those from radically different cultures to their own? That mixed schools have their own problems I do not doubt, but unless these prove to be insurmountable, that is no argument against them: every solution has its associated problems.

Agreed there is the very difficult problem of how to conduct assemblies in multi–faith schools. But then do assemblies have to be religious? I see no reason why they should be. Moreover, any attempt to give due weight to all the faiths represented in the school is bound to fail. The possible alternatives – of either being excused assembly or sitting through in silence are not good.

Another problem I have with the idea and practice of faith schools is that I do not believe that children can – by any stretch of the imagination – be religious. It is a concept for grownups. The interests of children are so quick in so many directions that they can well be spared what is – or used to be – called 'religious instruction'. I would be inclined to go even further, and say that only exceptionally mature and balanced teenagers are able to think clearly enough to make a faith–based choice. The desire to play safe and embrace a creed that maps out your life for you remains an ever–present threat; and the university years can in this respect – for the most vulnerable students – have fatal results: from the rejection of parents and family resulting from extreme radicalisation.  

  

Hastings pier: the strange appeal of a ruined structure

Travelling by bus from Rye to Hastings, I was surprised to           see –  as the promenade came into view – the bare superstructure of Hastings pier (destroyed by fire in October, 2010). I say ‘surprised’ because although I was perfectly aware of the pier’s ‘fate’, I had only seen photographs of the fire and its aftermath – and no photograph ever quite prepares you for the immediacy of anything you see with your own eyes. I also say ‘surprised’ because the pier as a bare iron structure – stripped of its perfectly hideous ‘pavilion topping’ – has an aesthetic appeal (for me at least) which was quite unexpected; and I realise that my original comment – that the pier had been ‘tragically destroyed’ – was perhaps an ‘expected’ reaction, rather than something that I truly felt. If anything, I perhaps experienced a very mild sense of sadness that such a prominent feature of my childhood was no more. After all, the pier had been in a state of desuetude for years; it was closed, as an unsafe structure; nobody seems to have known what to do with it; and I would be surprised if anyone now has a viable plan. (It is true that in Weston–super–Mare – following the total destruction, again by fire, of the pier in 2008 – a combination of determination, will, imagination, and multi–million finance worked to such effect that a new pier was opened in 2010. However, it is hard not to imagine that this points to the difference between a rich and a poor borough.)

How to account though for the appeal of the pier as a structural ruin? Well, it is just so much more interesting now! (And if you think I'm alone in feeling this, then it was also the reaction of a German woman I met taking photographs of the pier, and of senior citizen I got into conversation with on the promenade.) The following passage, from Ruskin’s The Elements of Drawing, should help to explicate the feelings that at least some have:

    122. (2.) Avoid all very neat things. They are exceedingly difficult to draw, and very ugly when drawn. Choose rough, worn, and clumsy–looking things as much as possible; for instance you cannot have a more difficult or profitless study than a newly painted Thames wherry, nor a better study than an old empty coal–barge, lying ashore at low tide: in general, everything that you think very ugly will be good for you to draw. 

This reminds me that when – at Hastings School of Art – we were sent out to draw the pier, it   was the underside structure that we concentrated on; and had anyone returned with a conventional ‘broadside’ view they would have been laughed into embarrassment – and quite right too! Few were into kitsch at that time (1960).  

I think that it is possible to further illustrate Ruskin’s point by considering Constable’s masterpiece, Chain Pier, Brighton, 1826–1827. Here the pier itself is a fine horizontal structure – sectioned by four suspension towers – to set against the ever restless environment in which it was ‘grounded’. More to the point, consider the clutter and disarray of the fishing tackle and gear to the left of the painting. Some would describe this as an unsightly mess (were they to see it in actuality and not in Constable’s depiction): a despoliation of the beach. But what a loss to the aesthetic pleasure of the painting had this been ‘cleared’ away!  And how dull would be the beach! And then the yellow ochre sail is masterly: it has a certain domination within the composition that is just right; it has a grandeur that seems to cock a snoop at all the fine promenade hotels and residential quarters – rough material though it may be; and its colour – while echoing that of the beach and promenade – is just that much brighter and fuller. (It is very likely that yellow ochre was the only yellow used by Constable in this painting, because there were at this time no other yellows available that were light–fast and permanent. Constable was more careful in this respect than Turner, who often used the unreliable Prussian blue which in many of his paintings has turned into a reddish–brown. Permanent colours are now available as iron ores, replacing the earth colours; and cadmiums for bright reds and yellows. “Sediments of metals”, as might be said.)

I should say, that had Hastings pier been open at the time of the fire, and people killed in the conflagration, I would have felt that the word ‘tragedy’ would have been entirely appropriate; and, out of respect for those killed I would not have photographed what effectively would have been a funeral pyre or cremation site.   

Portrait of a post–war art school

Vincent Lines. A J Pavey. Oil on board

My first experience of the art world was at Hastings School of Art (in the county of Sussex), which I attended at age 15 in 1959. I went there because no one – myself included – had any idea what I might ‘do’ in the absence of any academic or vocational leanings. I had the idea that I might do something in printing, on the basis that I was ‘good with my hands’ — as the phrase then went. I took my folder of work along to the art school; was interviewed by the principal, Vincent Lines RA – a man with a great shock of red hair; and was accepted because of work I had done at home. ‘Printing’ was never mentioned again. I started a two–year course leading to the Intermediate Examination in Arts & Crafts – a much more thorough equivalent of the current one–year foundation course. My course covered the following:

1/ Life drawing                                         

2/ Drawing from the life, i.e. drawing objects in the studio, or drawing in the immediate environment of the town and seaside

3/ Composition—which always meant figure composition—carried out in gouache, which we regarded (wrongfully, of course) as a cheaper and cleaner form of oil paint (see Postlude on this)

4/ Lithography

5/ Etching

6/ Clay modelling

Figure studies. Pen and ink

I've given the listing in more or less the hierarchy it took, yet there was no sense that in working on 3/ through to 6/ you could forget about 1/ and 2/ – so that it held together very well. Out of a staff of about five, two teachers worked nearly full time, and were the mainstay of the teaching staff. Both of these teachers had attended art schools similar to Hastings, and both were very good draughtsmen. They were our principal life drawing teachers, and would customarily make corrective drawings on the margins of our sheets. (These ‘illustrational’ drawings were done with full confidence.) With regard to the practice of life drawing, in some senses a Renaissance model of excellence hovered before us (and to some extent weighed on us). And yet what we were encouraged to emulate was a model rather along Impressionist lines (as perhaps of Pissarro). So we were generally taught to suggest form, rather than to produce highly finished drawings indicating every muscle. (High finish and facsimile were capital sins in our book.) And this perhaps explains the oddity – conservatism aside – of an art school carrying on in 1959 as if the revolutionary art of Picasso, Brancusi, Matisse, and the rest, had never been produced. We were simply being taught – or guided towards – what it was possible for us to comprehend and actually begin to do.

Box of screws in my father's workshop. Pen and ink

On the question of the extent to which we were effectively taught, I can only go on my own experience, because at the time the topic was never raised… And my experience was that only one of the teachers at Hastings at that time really had the gift of teaching: Donald Scott, or ‘Scotty’ as we called him. If I could at this distance put into words the nature of this man’s relationship to the materials of his craft and at the same time convey the intonation of his voice and the characteristics of his bodily movements – then we would have a new teaching! I’ll try a little: I remember how he would somehow push or rub the pencil or Conté crayon over the surface of the paper, accenting or outlining where necessary. (Quite different to the other life teacher’s deliberation and close attention to form – which even so was a marvel in its way.) It is not too much to say – I am sure that it’s true – that this man taught me all that I needed to know and all that I could be taught. It was one of those lucky accidents that I came across him at the right time – and perhaps at the right age – because I have a sense that it would not have worked had I been older. However, I really do not know about that.

So far, I have said nothing about the social and inspirational aspect of the art school. It was, for all its provinciality, a lively place. Some students came from other parts of the country—Wales and Norfolk, for example – and I made some good friendships – even while experiencing all the usual turmoil and doubts inseparable from teenage. And if our heroes were principally the Impressionists (with whom we tended to lump Degas and Toulouse Lautrec), yet it was exciting and genuinely inspiring – and it saved us from the fate of immediate (and mostly very dull) local employment. The atmosphere was wonderful too, of course, with all the paraphernalia of the studios, the lithography and etching presses, the viscid printing inks, and so forth. What I have said in the last paragraph is of course a kind of part answer to why I think Hastings School of Art was valuable – at that time at least. However, on the question of mediocrity, and the point of training or teaching so many students whose work lacked – and would undoubtedly continue to lack – originality, well, I tend to have my doubts (and wondered about it at the back of my mind at the time). Yet, if art schools are considered alongside schools, colleges, and universities generally, is it not the case that a considerable number of students are average? However, I have caught myself out there, because I would not equate average with mediocre. And I suppose is the problem: we expect art students to either be very good or to show more than a little promise – otherwise why sign up? The truth is hard – and I have to quote from memory, because I cannot trace the source (although I do know that it was written by one of the broadsheet critics in 2003): “Most artists have about five years good work in them; the rest is consolidation, a career.” 

Lithography press. Pen and wash. 1960

The story of my art school days post–Hastings was not a particularly happy one. For those students who passed the Intermediate, the next step was usually to move to one of the larger art schools, in London or one of the bigger cities. Students then had to choose a specialisation, which at that time meant either painting or graphic design or illustration – the only other option being silkscreen, as far as I remember. As with the original decision to go to art school, I concurred with my teachers that I had better do graphic design and illustration, because the prospects of earning a living as a painter were bleak – as always! And certainly I was far too green for the latter option, and would have floundered hopelessly. So I enrolled at Camberwell (1961) on the graphics/illustration course. However, I hated it! Moreover, I frittered much of my time away miserably. (Why I never voiced my feelings, or the teachers never took me to task, I cannot answer. I blame myself rather than my teachers, who were certainly approachable and I am sure would have helped me. Nevertheless, things were badly in need of being brought into the open, and it simply did not happen.)

As far as the course was concerned, I do remember questioning what we were doing – much more than I had at Hastings. With illustration in particular, I remember wondering how you could possibly teach it (and I might also have questioned why we were proposing to practice the dying art of illustration – children’s book illustration apart – and who anyway, could have taught an Ernest Shepherd or a Quentin Blake?). Looking back, I think that a lot of us would have been much happier if we had been able to continue with some of the media that we had already been using in our foundation years. For example, had I been able to continue with lithography – without any compulsion to think about illustration or graphic design – I think I would have felt quite differently about things. Others might have chosen etching and woodcutting, poster art, gouache (learning the unique features of that medium), collage and photography, construction in wood and metal. (Why, also, couldn’t we have done some oil painting without having to be ‘painters’?) And really I think it would have been much better for us if we had hardly cared at all what we were going to do when we left. I don’t think it would have made too much difference to most of us. Those who wanted to tailor their work to the demands of the commercial studios could do so – everything was at hand at the art school. Many took that course, though how many of those survived for long in the highly pressured world of the 1960s graphic design studios I wouldn’t like to say. Not too many I guess. This is not to say that none of us were suited for such a life – a few seemed to thrive on it. But it was a world away from our foundation course – and pretty well the diametric opposite of all those ‘visions that hovered before us’ in the early days. So it was confused and confusing, and I’m not sure that any of us quite knew where to put our energies. I am not sure the teachers knew either, but it was hardly anyone’s fault – we were all involved in a course for which there were no textbooks…

I had nothing to do with the painters at Camberwell, but as far as I remember, the concentration was on painting the nude. Moreover, students were taught in the William Coldstream manner – with a great deal of attention paid to measurement, and with many weeks spent on a single pose. Usually all the plumb lines and position–marking red Xs would be left visible on the paintings. I make no comment on any of this.

Postlude                                                                                                   

The Brassey Institute

Hastings School of Art was, until the late 1970s, situated above the public library in the Brassey Institute. Thomas Brassey was a railway entrepreneur and philanthropist who retired to Hastings and it seems that the institute he founded was first called The Brassey Institute of Arts and Sciences – which I would guess was established somewhere around 1900. I cannot find much about it, but a website on Alfred Crocker Leighton, artist and educator, gives the information that he was educated at the Brassey Institute and the Royal College of Art. His dates are 1901–1965, so certainly the institute was up and running by about 1917. I have a feeling that its history would be very interesting, but fear there would be precious little to go on.

Gouache

Gouache is little used now – though it was much used for its reproductive qualities in the 1960s and 1970s by graphic designers. It is a water–based opaque body colour, requiring (strictly) the admixture of white to lighten colours. It dries very quickly, and to a lighter tone than when wet, so that the final effect is difficult to prejudge. Its special quality lies in the ‘flat’ sheen obtainable. However – as with watercolour – you must get it right first time or you are ‘done for’! Any over–painting will tend to result in a patch that will catch the eye like a damp–stain on a wall.

Lamb bones, 1985. Gouache