Art

Ruysch was one of the most celebrated artists of the Dutch Golden Age and appointed court painter. Her scientific knowledge of flowers was learnt from her father, a professor of botany. This painting is typical of Ruysch’s meticulous detail set against a dark background.  However, she only completed about 100 paintings herself and her work was often copied.

This remarkable artist also had 10 children with her husband, portrait painter Juriaen Pool.

John Atkinson Grimshaw was born in Leeds in 1836. He had no formal art education, but most likely learned to paint through visiting galleries. He had his first exhibition in Leeds in 1862.

Grimshaw began by painting nature scenes but his repertoire soon expanded to cover fashionable women, scenes from ancient Greece and Rome and townscapes.  However, he is most famous for his moonlight scenes.

Olsson is one of only a few artists who specialised in pure sea painting, in particular twilight and moonlight scenes. He was born in London but moved to St Ives, Cornwall in 1888. Olsson described sea painting as one of the most difficult subjects for a painter.

‘For one whose heart draws him to the sea, in the first place must have an exceptionally retentive memory, and be able to grasp in a few moments the effect of the ever-changing movements of the sea and sky; he must have a delicate and subtle sense of colour, and have the ability to place the main features of his impression on the subject of the subject on the canvas with a few strokes of the brush, and beside this, he must be prepared to face a brave fight with the elements, which will frequently be against him.’

Julius Olsson, 1934

Miles Standish (1584-1686) was the Captain of the settlement of Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts, USA.  The story depicted here appears in a long poem of 1858 written by the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

According to Longfellow, Standish asks his friend, John Alden, to woo Priscilla on his behalf.  Alden, although in love with the girl, agrees out of duty to his friend.  Priscilla, unimpressed that he will not pay court for himself, rejects Standish.  Furious at this and believing himself to have been betrayed by Alden, he leaves for war against the ‘Indians’.  In his absence, Alden and Priscilla fall in love and, hearing of Standish’s death, they decide to marry.  This news proves to be false, however, and the Captain returns to attend the wedding and beg forgiveness for his anger.  The three are then reunited as friends.  The villagers crowd round Standish, overjoyed at his safe return and eager to hear of his adventures.  Meanwhile, Alden leads his bride from the ceremony through the Massachusetts woods, riding upon his ‘snow–white bull’.

Frans Snyders was a Flemish artist, born in the city of Antwerp, now in modern Belgium.  He specialised in still-life paintings of fruit and game, occasionally working in collaboration with other artists.

Around 1615 Sydners was commissioned to paint a group of paintings known as The Four Markets – which now hand in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.  Snyders’ Fruit Stall resembles the Harris’s closely and, for many years, our picture was thought to be a copy.  However, the differences are significant enough for it now to be considered an independent work by an artist influenced by Snyders, possibly even trained within his workshop.  It certainly dates from well after 1615, the clothing of the two women suggesting the 1640s.

The prominence of the building on the right (which is most likelt a guild hall for butchers) suggests that this painting may have been commissioned for that building.

This is a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Dorothy McNeill, known as Dorelia, or Dodo.  The couple met in 1903 and began a passionate affair in which Dorelia lived with both John and his first wife, Ida Nettleship, whom he had married in 1901.  This ménage à trois continued until Ida’s death in 1907.  Dorelia and John later married, living together, despite his numerous affairs, until the painter’s death in 1961.

A brilliant draughtsman, John worked mainly as a portraitist, including the Queen and Winston Churchill amongst his sitters.  Despite his connections with society, he and his family lived a bohemian lifestyle, rather like early hippies or New-Agers, wearing gypsy style clothing, even living for a time in a gypsy caravan.  His interest in gypsies was serious and he sought them out wherever he went.  He campaigned for gypsy and traveller rites and was elected president of the Gypsy Lore Society in 1936.

Edwin Austen Abbey was an illustrator and painter.  He was born in Philadelphia, on 1 April 1852.  At the age of fourteen he took up drawing lessons. From around 1871, he prepared drawings for Harper’s Weekly and Harper’s Monthly, as well as for books such as Charles Dickens’ Christmas Stories of 1876.

His work was inspired largely by that of the English illustrators of the 1860s.  He developed a pen and ink style characterised by compositions that were created to resemble architecture; glittering light effects; attention to detail; and an insight into human emotions.

In December 1878, Harper’s magazine arranged for Abbey to travel to England in order to absorb its ambience directly.  He planned to stay for a year, but remained in England for most of the rest of his life.

This oil on canvas is titled After A Gale, it was painted by William Trost Richards (1833-1905) in 1903 and purchased by the museum in the same year. Trost was an American artist from Philadelphia who was influenced by John Ruskin, and the Pre-Raphaelites. In the 1870s he began to devote his attention to marine painting and travelled to Europe in search of dramatic coastal scenery – including the UK, France and Norway.

The painting was selected by the Harris LGBTQ group to feature in the LGBT+ History Month Trail in 2019 and 2020. Phil, a member of the group, wrote the following interpretation inspired by their response to the painting:

“I have chosen this painting because it is one of the finest in the Harris collection. For me it is also an unwitting symbol of the unwritten history of gay culture and the sea. Churchill famously referred to the Navy as ‘nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash’ – even though homosexuality was illegal in the military until 2000.

Pirate ships were another male dominated, maritime world. Before the Reformation, people attracted to others of their own gender might have joined a monastery or nunnery. From the 1550s men who didn’t fit in might have been attracted by piracy. It was a masculine world in which same sex relationships were tolerated and celebrated.”

This bronze sculpture by Sir Alfred Gilbert is from the 1890s. The Latin subtitle to this work ‘Sic Vita’ means ‘Thus is life’. Gilbert said the figure in the sculpture represents a prop-boy from Greek theatre carrying the mask of Comedy: ‘He is stung by a bee – a symbol of love. He turns and his face becomes tragic.” It was purchased by the museum in 1905.

The sculpture was selected by the Harris LGBTQ group to feature in the LGBT+ History Month Trail in 2019 and 2020. Cobie, a member of the group, wrote the following interpretation inspired by their response to the sculpture:

“For me this sculpture represents the duality of the queer experience. The naked body seems closed off – head and legs pulling together displaying a shy nature. Despite being so exposed the body also appears recoiling from the mask. At the same time the mask is held up like a shield – an almost crazed visage suggesting a more outgoing nature masking the vulnerability underneath.

Many LGBTQ people will be familiar with the notion of hiding their true selves out of fear, shame and society’s pressures. How many of us live up to a stereotype to fit in with what the world expects of us, whilst no one sees the real person underneath?”