Stanley Spencer (1891 -1959) was born and raised in the village of Cookham by The River Thames in the county of Berkshire. That village remained a key reference point for the rest of his life. It figured in much of his art and was his spiritual home. Furthermore, it is where he was buried along with his first wife Hilda.
Stanley Spencer was an odd fish and in following his calling to be an artist, he did not play by anybody else's rules. He developed his own styles and pursued the themes that interested him - from Cookham to warfare to spirituality to shipyards to nudity to surrealism. In his private life, he was often tormented - mostly by his own inadequacies as he reached for a way of being that he hoped would rise above mundanity. Of course, this always eluded him.
In World War I, he volunteered to be a hospital orderly and it was only in the last full year of the conflict that he joined an infantry unit in Macedonia fighting against combined German and Bulgarian forces. Unlike his older brother Sydney, Stanley Spencer survived that war and returned to Cookham to finish a painting he had begun there in 1915 called "Swan Upping".
I thought that first one was a tapestry, it looks like tight rows of stitching. My mother stitched a few tapestries and I still have one tucked away somewhere but don't have a space to hang it. It's largish and quite heavy.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the paintings are all very good. So few painters/artists get the accolades they deserve while still living.
I thought the same as you about the fabric effect but I am not sure if that related to the particular website from which I acquired the image.
DeleteI don't think I have come across him or his works before, at least not consciously. The Sunflower and Dog Worship is truly strange; I wonder on what it was based - a dream? a drug-induced hallucination? A combination of what the artist was observing in his environment?
ReplyDeleteThe sunflower is worshipful as it follows the sun - perhaps like a Christian following Christ and it is a symbol of fecundity for it is packed with seeds. In contrast perhaps, dogs are base creatures, tied to the earth They defecate and fornicate and follow no gods. Humans are attracted to both, caught in between.
DeleteThat IS a strange painting! I don't recall ever hearing about Stanley Spencer before, but I've been to enough museums here that surely I've seen one or two of his paintings and simply forgot.
ReplyDeleteApparently there is a small church in Cookham which is now called The Stanley Spencer Gallery. See https://stanleyspencer.org.uk/
DeleteIs he related to Frank?
ReplyDeleteTo be frank, no!
DeleteYou have spread awareness to those who have not heard of him, good work, well done.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think the unusual texture in the image of The View From Cookham Bridge may come from the web site's reproduction of it, not the way it was painted.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I do not think I've ever seen of Spencer and if I've seen any of his paintings, I'm not aware of it. But my Lord! You could look at some of them for months trying to figure out what was going on in that head of his when he painted them. The one with the sunflowers and dogs- yes, I like your assessment but what are all of those other people hanging over the wall about? Are they in despair due to hunger or need of some kind while others go about their lives worshipping false gods? I have no idea but...wow.
What brought him to mind, Neil?
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Mr. Spencer would think about his painting selling for £5.4 million?!?
I had never heard of him either. I find that first painting to be fascinating. Reading about him I was amused by the story in which he said he was counting his subjects' eyelashes.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the murals in the Rockefeller centre
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