The Last Load, by George John Pinwell (1842-1875), 1869. Watercolour and gouache on paper; 16 x 23½ inches (40.6 x 59.7 cm). Collection of the Ulster Museum, Belfast. [Click on all the images to enlarge them.]
This watercolour, with its romanticised portrayal of rural farm labourers, epitomizes the Idyllic School. It shows a group of workers at dusk, both male and female with children included, meeting at the end of the work day as the "last load" of hay is piled onto a horse-drawn wagon. It was painted for Edward Dalziel of the Dalziel Brothers and was exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Winter Exhibition in 1869-70, no. 356. It paints a rather romanticised version of the harvest being taken in by rural labourers, although perhaps is not so idealized as seen in G. H. Mason's masterpiece The Harvest Moon.
Closer view of the laden haywain and the figures nearest to it.
When The Last Load was shown at the O.W.S. the critic of The Art Journal objected to its colouration: "In execution and general style Mr. Lamont bears resemblance to Mr. Walker and Mr. Pinwell, than whom there are no more remarkable contributors to the gallery, whether for merit or eccentricity. The Last Load, by Mr. Pinwell is too hot in color: the artist views nature through a pair of yellow spectacles; but his forms are decisive, and his figures strong in naturalism and depth of expression. The peasants in this composition have almost the character of Jules Breton" (25). F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum praised the composition despite feeling it was somewhat lacking in solidity: "Mr. Pinwell is another painter whose progress may compare with that of Mr. Bradley. Since last year he has, doubtless by means of added carefulness, gained greatly in painting in a solid matter; yet The Last Load (356) might be improved in respect to solidity: we write this, knowing that twilight renders landscape nearly shadowless, and often gives to figures an almost ghostlike aspect. A wain halts for the last time at evening, in a field, where its attendants draw together the scattered remnants of a harvest. The standing figures in front are in a style that is simple, grave and refined, yet as natural as they should be" (742).
A critic for The Builder failed to be impressed by Pinwell's representation of happy farm labourers: "Mr. G. J. Pinwell evidently has great admiration for the qualities that distinguish Mr. Walker's interpretations of natural appearances, but he will lose himself with his outlines if he follows him blindfold; similar amenity of colour belongs to the description of The Last Load (356), but making every allowance for the diffused and confusing twilight of a warm summer evening, the many figures melting into flatness with the background are more suggestive of a fading tinted photograph than of probable reality; and these many figures are rather vapid representatives of a happy peasantry, and seem to share depression by common consent" (960).
The figures on the right of the watercolour.
The Illustrated London News did not feel that Pinwell had idealized his figures):
"Mr. Pinwell proves himself to be a valuable acquisition to the society. A disciple of Mr. Walker in technicalities, he is quite original in character and feeling. His largest work, The Last Load, represents reapers and gleaners preparing to quit the scene of their labours, the sun having sunk beneath a low range of hills, but while his glory still burns like molten gold in the cloudless western sky. In accordance with this effect, twilight is creeping over the harvest-field, though as yet all aglow with autumnal colour and reflected light; and under the generalizing influence of this approach of twilight the figures would appear half absorbed, were they not relieved by sharp outlines – too equally sharp, we think. The character of the figures is, however, intensely individualized, and that with a prosaic literalism which, especially in the figure of a sturdy, hard- faced squalidly-clad woman and a slatternly, starveling girl, strongly contrasts the abject ugliness to be found in the true 'children of the soil' with the beauty of nature. These are no fictitiously "happy peasants," but real rustics of the breed described by Canon Girdlestone. Here is no romance of "harvest home," but the funereal joyousness of exhaustive hopeless toil. That it is the painter's province to select - for it must, we presume, be done consciously and not from mere lack of taste - such painfully representative types of humanity, whatever the importance of the moral to be pointed, we will not affirm; but the truth and force of his characterization are as undeniable as the original and artistic quality of his colouring. [571]
A critic for The Saturday Review, however, disliked Pinwell's colouration: "The Old Water-Colour Society has of late given countenance to a school peculiar to itself, represented by Messrs. Walker, Pinwell, and Lamont…This mannerism of Mr. Walker is pushed to an extreme by Mr. Pinwell in The Last Load. The artist seems to have mistaken a mustard-pot for a colour-box; the figures are afflicted with jaundice or yellow fever. And yet this pastoral has a solemnity of expression not unworthy of M. Breton. But the whole thing is overdone; thus a labourer puts on a coat with a tragic action suspicious of murder or suicide, and the girl who bids 'gee' to a horse wields a whip with the air of a conductor's baton. And all this fuss is over a load of hay. Surely the painter makes much ado about nothing" (826).
When this work was shown at the memorial exhibition of Pinwell's work at Mr. Deschamps' Gallery in 1876, a critic for Judy commented: "'The Last Load' (28) looks very fresh; The country-woman in the foreground is quite grand in feeling, and the pretty girl in blue holding the cider-cask would delight the sourest old ascetic" (193). The Spectator commented about this same exhibition: "Another very fine example of the painter's less imaginative manner is No. 28, 'The Last Load.' A quiet English meadow, with the haymakers resting from their toil in the foreground, while the last load is being carried home. This is one of the most tender, graceful pictures in the exhibition, the figures in the foreground being especially fine, and finished with the greatest care" (274).
Bibliography
"Art. The Pinwell Gallery." The Spectator XLIX (26 February 1876): 274-75.
"Fine Arts. Winter Exhibition of The Society of Painters in Water Colours." The Illustrated London News LV (4 December 1869): 571.
"Pinwell's Pictures." Judy. XVIII (23 February 1876): 193.
"Sketches and studies in Water-Colours." The Saturday Review. XXVIII (25 December 1869): 826-27.
"Society of Painters in Water-Colours." The Art Journal New Series IX (1 January 1870): 25-26.
"The Society of Painters in Water Colours: Winter Exhibition." The Builder. XXVII (4 December 1869): 960-61.
"The Society of Painters in Watercolour." The Era (5 December 1869): 5.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Winter Exhibition of The Society of Painters in Water-Colours." The Athenaeum. No. 2197 (4 December 1869): 742-43
Williamson, George C. George J. Pinwell and His Works. London: George Bell & Sons, 1900. 77.
Created 14 May 2023