Luccombe Chine, Isle of Wight. Watercolour on paper. 13 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches (35.4 x 25 cm). Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, accession no. FA.562. Image courtesy the Victoria and Albert Museum under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC).
Bowler exhibited this watercolour at the Royal Academy in 1856, no.1009, where W. M. Rossetti in The Spectator described it as "praiseworthy or notable" without going into any details (292). Early in his career Bowler was quite obviously influenced by the first phase of Pre-Raphaelitism with its emphasis on "truth to nature" and guided by the teachings of John Ruskin. While Bowler apparently did not know any of the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood personally, Pre-Raphaelitism continued to influence him for a time, and certainly into the 1860s. Bowler was a friend of William Bell Scott for many years, likely dating from the 1860s when Scott was appointed as an examiner at the South Kensington School of Art. Bowler is even known to have visited him at Penkill during his last years when Scott was in poor health. Bowler knew Arthur Hughes as well, who was also an examiner for the National Art Training School at South Kensington.
Luccombe Chine, Isle of Wight, recalls the brilliant colour and meticulous handling of landscape and botanical details that was characteristic of early Pre-Raphaelite landscape painting. This watercolour focuses on details of rocks, foliage, and trees at Luccombe Chine on the south coast of the Isle of Wight. Colin Cruise has discussed how this watercolour follows in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition of landscape painting:
A view of Luccombe Chine on the Isle of Wight by Henry Bowler … anticipates Brett's [John Brett] February on the Isle of Wight (1866) in attempting to communicate the total experience of being in a landscape. Bowler could scarcely have attempted a more complex view of undergrowth; indeed, this is a landscape composed almost entirely of undergrowth details. In looking downwards Bowler avoids the more traditional landscape viewpoint of looking outward towards a panoramic or picturesque view. In Luccombe Chine Bowler featured several elements already tackled by Millais in paintings such as Ophelia and Portrait of John Ruskin: a cascading stream, mossy rocks, ferns, and a fallen tree" (81).
It is also reminiscent of the young Albert Moore's Study of an Ash Tree of 1857 or Waterfall in the Lake District of c.1857-58 when he was still under the spell of Pre-Raphaelitism.
Bibliography
Cruise, Colin. Pre-Raphaelite Drawing. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. 79 & 81.
Rossetti, William Michael: "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Spectator XXIX (31 May 1856): 291-92.
Created 24 July 2024