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Inspiration from Artist Wk 109 Bonus Artis A R Quinton
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Posted
Welcome to this week’s thread of Inspiration from Artists . This weekend I’m featuring a Victorian artist who’s skill is in no doubt despite having like a lot of is contemporary’s being dubbed a Chocolate Box Artist, due to the style of there work. Like a lot of artist at the time he painted what sold as many artists still do these days.
AR Quinton 1853-1934.
Was an English watercolour artist know for his paintings of British Villages and landscapes many of which were published as postcards.
A R Quinton was born in Peckham the youngest of seven children his father was John Allan Quinton painter, author and journalist.
On leaving school ARQ studied at the Heathersley School of Fine Art following which he worked as a steel engraver . Deciding on a career in art in about 1874 he began working in oils and later watercolour , working from a studio in Fleet Street. His artwork became more in demand and he was able to buy a house complete with studio in Finchley. His work routine would be to travel around England and Wales for three months of the year mostly in the summer months often on bicycle. He would draw, sketch and take photographs of locations and then work them up in his studio in the winter months.
I hope you enjoy my selection of his work .
Posted
Not what I would put on my wall but one can't help but admire the level of detail. The third one down, The Harbour, Yarmouth, Isle of Wight is my favourite (Is that Robert as a young boy by the boat on the left?). I think you have chosen well, in avoiding the many 'chocolate box' scenes to be found on-line. I offer this one, again not something I would have on my wall, but I was struck by the way he has handled the foliage on the trees.
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by Tony Auffret
Posted
I do agree with you Tony not for my wall either , but I certainly do admire his skill , like a lot of the Victorian era artists their work get ignored as it’s seen to be a but too twee and old fashioned. The majority of them certainly had a lot of skill probably from a good grounding in the the basics , drawing, mixing colours and the ability to adapt a scene to make it sellable most used a great deal of artistic license as well.
Posted
No, young Tony, that is NOT me as a clamorous infant in the Yarmouth painting.... but leaving that aside, he said, huffily, that scene is still recognizable today; and here's Quinton's value as a painter, he provides not exactly an historical record of l'actualité (that's yer actual French...) but a very good representation of the atmosphere, of harbours, bays, small villages, urban roads on which mechanical vehicles and horses still mixed, though the latter were gradually giving way to the former.
He did rather lumber himself with the "chocolate box" painter image, by producing so many highly replicable postcards and "views"; and maybe he's left figurative painters with a bit of a reputational problem - it's very easy to label a landscape "chocolate box", if you don't include rusted barbed wire and discarded potato crisp packets as a sign of your commitment to the real, the urgent, the vibrant, the NOW .... a gallery owner once described one of my offerings as "a bit chocolate boxy", but as she was a Tory councillor of a stupidity whose depth was beyond the power of plumbing, I put it down to her ignorance (I was in a council meeting as an observer from the NHS: this councillor ended a comment with "if you see where I'm coming from..."; one of her colleagues muttered, in a stage-whisper, "it's where you're going to that bothers us": but I digress ... cross me, and I do not forget).
So I value his work, but - would I put it on my wall.... maybe the Yarmouth painting, which is excellent and for its local associations, but that's very subjective. On the whole, no, I wouldn't - he was of his time, and time passes. Make me a present of one of his pictures, though, and I shall not spurn you: he had a superb technique, colour-sense, and a gift for composition in most of his work that I've ever seen, and in the paintings shown here. Compare and contrast wtth Sylvester Stannard and his several relatives - t'would be interesting.
Posted
If you look at the work of a lot artwork from this period and exclude the more chocolate box looking cottages there is some fine landscape work . I just had a look at Stannards work Robert a painter I am aware of interesting comparison, some nice landscapes but more chocolate box cottages I thing . Like Jenny I much prefer the landscape painting , I will add Stannard to the list and feature his work at some point in the future if not mainstream then as a bonus artist .
Posted
He was certainly a very accomplished artist, and in this dire world we now inhabit, what’s wrong with a bit of chocolate box! I like the ones with the boats, and also fascinated to see Cheltenham promenade which I am familiar with, and obviously looks rather different now!
Mr Quinton seems to have had a satisfying and successful career. If I were offered one of the above works for my wall, the painting I would choose would be the one of Beer.