James Dickson Innes

James Dickens Innis      

23/9/24

Had a very interesting walk and talk with Andrew many new revelations were discovered after chatting with a farmer that led us to the lodge that Innis and John supposedly lived in during their stay at Arenig Valley. In the BBC film “The Mountain that Had to be Painted”, it states that they lived in a stone house which according to the farmer is incorrect. We need to find out where they lived although the romantic idea of the stone cottage is very alluring. Not sure why it's so important to me to find the exact spot. I suppose to retrace one must be true to the cause.

So many threads and links that we could draw from, collaborating, male-female perspectives working in the landscape with the urgency and daytime limitation. Our emotional response to the mountain, approaching the subject with colour connection being core value and to execute in a contemporary way.

Highlighted Words in yellow important

Key point in pink

Location of information in turquoise

1 -Evidently, Innes’s remarkable artistic ability was appreciated and encouraged at Carmarthen and, after a successful year, he gained admission to the prestigious Slade School, London, in 1905, where, in effect, he was now among some of the elite art students of his generation. One of his contemporaries at the Slade was Derwent Lees, who was himself to become a significant figure in British Art, and there can be no doubt that they were the two most outstanding students of that year’s intake. In fact, they were to become close friends, and went on painting journeys together. They even collaborated on one painting, with the finished product signed D Leesinnes.

This would be interesting to undertake a collaboration painting

2-In 1908, Innes went on a painting journey with John Fothergill, which took them through Bozouls and on to Collioure, a beautiful and picturesque Catalan town situated at the foothills of the Pyrenees, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and close to the Spanish border. Collioure, with its castle, church, and brightly painted buildings forming an arc around a pretty port with its intensely blue water, had already attracted important French artists in Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. Their new style of painting in the town, developed as an emotional response to its landscape rather than attempting to be a faithful representation, was to lead to them being called ‘Fauvists’, derived from the French word for ‘wild beasts.

Emotional response to the landscape

3- As with Matisse and Derain, the visit to this town also had a profound effect upon Innes, for ‘now he had his fill of heat, light and gaudy local colour, and his all-excelling sense of colour was awakened’.9 In fact, later, the effect of the visit to Collioure was seen in Innes’s Welsh paintings in which, as Fothergill says, ‘he gave to Wales the same vivid greens, purples and changing colours that he had seen in France.’10 This was also observed by Lillian Browse who, after doing some climbing near Arenig, commented to Fothergill about ‘how laughingly ‘Innes’ the scenes were’.

All excelling sense of colour

4- Fothergill in January 1909 shows that Innes wrote poems about her, but it was when they met at a café in Paris, in 1910, that Innes fell in love with her.17 From here, the two of them set out on foot on a romantic journey to the south of France, supporting themselves by Euphemia dancing in the cafes, and Innes, probably, able to offer drawings of localities to the inhabitants of villages on the way.

5- By this time Innes had become enthusiastic about the mountains of North Wales, and he spoke to John of an inn that he had discovered in the Arenig valley, near Bala, suggesting that they go there. John went to Llanelli to meet Innes at his house in Old Road, as agreed, but found that the younger man had already left. Nevertheless, Innes’s parents made John welcome to stay and, next morning, he left for Bala, and joined Innes at Arenig. The meeting between the two artists was cordial, though John writes that ‘I seemed to detect a certain reserve on his part: he was experiencing, I fancy, the scruples of a lover on introducing a friend to his best girl – in this case, the mountain before us, which he regarded, with good reason, as his spiritual property.’19 This mountain, Arenig, was in fact, was to become the dominating artistic motif of Innes’s life. The inn at Rhyd-y-Fen that Innes had found was very suited to John’s taste, with its publican, Washington Davies – the ‘playboy of the district’, as John called him –

 

Spiritual place

6- Innes, John felt, was never happier than when painting in this district of North Wales, and he also recognised and appreciated the vision of the younger man ‘as he set down in a single sitting, view after jeweled view of the delectable mountain he loved, before darkness came to hide everything except a dim but inextinguishable glow, perceived by him as the reflection of some miraculous promised land’.22 Here on the moorlands and mountains they were both free from any academic theorizing about what should be painted, or how.

Free

7- Undoubtedly, John influenced Innes in creating quick oil sketches on wooden panels, but it is also true that Innes greatly inspired John. It is not so much that John copied Innes in any way – he was far too great an artist to do that – but simply that Innes’s passion for the landscape of North Wales, and his lucidity and immediacy of touch in painting it, were inspirational. For John, painting on the mountains next to Innes was a liberating experience, and this is seen in his landscapes of 1911 to 1912 which display this new freedom. Nine years older than Innes, and greatly admired for his ability, John was impressed with Innes’s output which was he described as ‘prodigious’, and wrote of the younger artist that ‘he rarely returned of an evening without a couple of panels completed’

Immediacy of touch

8- However, although Innes painted rapidly, it was not that he was simply trying to put a lot of paintings together with little effort, as artists often did. Rather, to Innes, these were serious paintings executed quickly only to capture the intensity of certain moments. 1912, Innes and John were joined in North Wales by Derwent Lees, and that these three men created something that was unique and important in British art

Quickly executed

9- 7 From John’s account we also learn that Innes, romantically, had buried a silver casket containing love letters from Euphemia under the cairn on the summit of Arenig, and, he adds, ‘I think he always associated Euphemia with that mountain and would have liked at the last to lie beneath the cairn. Innes’s greatness as an artist lay in this vision of the landscape that he had, which he was able to express uniquely in form and colour. In conclusion, therefore, it can be said that he was a true original.

Unique true original

https://www.llanellich.org.uk/images/stories/pdfs/Llanelli%20Artist%20James%20Dickson%20Innes.pdf

by Brian Davies

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25.09.24 

 

Thanks Fran, some thoughts to add to your thinking and research :

 

Yes! We had a revelatory walk to Nant Du near Arenig on Monday. There is plenty to develop as a motivating and inspiring project to create new work reflecting on Innes, Lees and Johns.

 

The meeting with the farmers was just brilliant and informed of a question over the location of the groups stay and introduced the Lodge whereon calling we saw drawings on the walls, preserved by current owners. What a treat !

 

Yes, I agree with all key points for our output.

 

·       Time limitation on working method, to keep spontaneity in reference to way Innes and others worked. 

·       Using the landscape as studio. Yes collaborative painting and also collaborative thinking and discussion throughout. 

·       Documentation of making, project work, progression, thinking and dialogue.  

 

We highlighted and agreed Innes was highly innovative in use of colour, particularly with spatial qualities; placing of one colour against another to create space: innovative. Innes possibly the foremost visual thinker* 

 

(I recall seeing his work in Cardiff, it made a lasting impression and look forward to further focused looking here).

 

Just researching some further books/catalogues that may be available: 

 

There was a Mostyn exhibition Some miraculous promised land: J. D. Innes, Augustus John and Derwent Lees in North Wales 1910 to 13 with catalogue by Eric Rowan 1982 (unavailable, maybe library). 

 

One other book I can access is James Dickson Innes 1887 to 1914 catalogue Southampton Art Gallery ed John Hoole 1977

 

(Main John Hoole and Margaret Simons of 2010 (around the same time as the BBC film was made) seems unavailable).

 

So at this point, I am also thinking Derwent Lees was a major player in the development of their (Innes Johns and Lees ) painting at this time; he seems to have joined them or been at Nant Du a lot over the two years.

How long was Lees there for? Was he an intrinsic part of the group and what was influence on all?

Like Innes, Lees dies very young. What is particularly interesting is that Innes and Lees both went to Southern France together, Pyrenees (?) and on a first glance seem to have developed their innovative colour painting language in response to the landscape there; is this possible ? needs to be further explored and researched.

 

Project

For our project we discussed what we might do. We will consider others to join but also felt just the two of us could work well together and it may be enough for the main practical output.

Further collaboration must be sort: writers, historians, local contexts (now 110 years ago) ; possible participants for further pop up events, presentations: flexible approach. 

We want to work in a modern way, contemporary painters: the last formal exploration seems to have been in 2010 with BBC film (The Mountain That Had To Be Painted) and the main publication. Nothing since. From our separate working positions, we can forge a new approach to this subject and in turn, critically question our own stand points. 

So, we can make a modern and contemporary re-evaluation of the work of Innes plus Les, Johns in reference to Arenig, the place and meaning in relation to the development of a progressive colour painting language over a century ago and now again today. 

(I like the fact that we both paint fast, in a spontaneous way ) 

(In terms of project possible part of Colour Connections but also needs special title, I think to include Arenig; Arenig was Innes’ Mont Saint Victoire.. )

Such an exciting prospect!

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