A Girl by a Beech Tree in a Landscape by George Price Boyce (1826-1897). 1857. Oil on board. H 29.8 x W 47.9 cm. Collection: Tate. Accession no. T01587. Acquisition method: purchased, 1972. Image credit: Tate, kindly released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The Tate caption admits that the "exact location" of the scene is not known, but points out that "Boyce is known to have visited Haywards Heath and Petworth in 1857, the year he painted the picture." He also painted scenes in Surrey, which he exhibited in 1858, but which do not seem relevant to this one."
What is certain here is that the old beech tree is the primary focus of the scene, its sturdy mature trunk painted in loving, Pre-Raphaelite detail. But it is by no means, in itself, the sole object of the artist's interest. It is rooted (literally) in common land bordering a residential area, and much used by local people. They traverse the path beside the tree, like the girl Boyce has painted here, or enjoy their leisure-time in the open space around it, like the people on the left-hand side of the painting. A sheep seems to be grazing in the background too. As so often, Boyce shows the natural and human landscape in close communion with, and each enriching, the other. The sense of connection is tangible, and deeply pleasing. The emphasis when talking about Pre-Raphaelitism is generally upon "truth to nature," that is meticulously detailed rendering of the natural object. But (of course!) this involves the human eye, the human presence, and indeed, the human heart.
It is worth noting Richard Humphreys's commentary on this work:
Like Constable, Ruskin was critical of the city’s culture and looked to the natural world for moral standards by which men and women might gauge their physical and spiritual condition and conduct. In writing about a landscape painting by George Boyce in Academy Notes in 1858 he judged it to be: "Full of truth and sweet feeling. How pleasant it is, after looking long at Frith’s picture [Derby Day], to see how happy a little girl may be who hasn’t gone to the Derby!" [46]
Here, Ruskin was making the same complaint against Derby Day that the anonymous reviewer for the Art-Journal made ("it will give much delight but no 'teaching' — at least, none of that teaching which is the highest aim and holiest duty of Art," 165).
To Humphreys it seems "possible" that the painting Ruskin was comparing Derby Day unfavourably with was this one by Boyce (46). In fact, the painting that Boyce showed at the Royal Academy that year was entitled At a Farmhouse in Surrey, and Ruskin's comment is seen by the editors of the Cambridge edition of his Academy Notes to apply to that one instead (162). Still, Humphrey's main point can be accepted: "The Tate oil painting by him," says Humphreys, "is a classic example of the intense naturalism advocated in the 1850s by his mentor Ruskin, for whom the figure of the girl in the sunlit landscape was the very image of innocence, truth and natural beauty" (46).
Interestingly, Humphreys notes that this was the only oil painting Boyce actually signed, which in itself points to its special significance for the artist.
Bibliography
A Girl by a Beech Tree in a Landscape. Tate. Web. 18 August 2024.
Humphreys, Richard. The British Landscape: Through the Eyes of the Great Artists. London: Hamlyn, in association with the Tate Gallery, 1989.
“The Royal Academy.” The Art-Journal Vol. 4, No. XLII (1 June 1858): 161-72. [Comments on Frith's painting are online here]
Ruskin, John. The Complete Works of John Ruskin: Academy Notes. Library Ed. Vol. XIV. Edited by Edward Tyas Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. 1904. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Created 18 August 2024