A Pastoral - A Memory of the Valley of Sparta, c.1883-86. Oil on canvas, 36 x 60 inches (91.4 x 152.4 cm). Private collection. Click on image to enlarge it.
A Pastoral was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1886, no. 168, and once belonged to George Howard. Its gestation was influenced by Richmond's travels in Greece in the late summer of 1883. According to Anna Stirling, “the following year (he) returned again to Greece, this time journeying over the Morea, visiting Elis, Arcadia and Sparta...Thence he journeyed on to Corinth and Argos, travelling leisurely on horseback, and stopping at little remote villages, where he could study the simple pastoral life of the present and dwell in imagination on the life of the past; for in the heart of Arcadia, far from the modernised towns, time and civilisation seemed to have passed by and left existence untouched since the days of Theocritus” (305).
Simon Reynolds quotes Richmond’s diary from September 10, 1883 which records the experiences that inspired the picture after Richmond had made an excursion from Sparta to the village of Stafia:
After spending some time dozing near the ruins of a church: I turned my horse and rode home through the quiet windless evening, and saw effects of nature as beautiful as it has ever been my lot to enjoy, strength of colour, power of tone, quiet harmonic solitude and great peace seemed to gather as the night approached. The rustle of leaves was rare, even then, when the wind had strength to move them, it was as the gentle song of lullaby, hushing them to sleep who had through the day been disturbed and tormented. The great white stems of the poplar trees shone out like silver in the twilight, the hills were like transparent blue crystal; the meadows were of soft green; the hillocks were crowned with the gold of gathered corn fields; little streams pursued their hidden way under vines and fig trees, and their gentle murmur came to the ear like the song of river maidens, clear to those who listen, and speaking of the secrets of pastoral life, re-echoed by the pipes of the shepherd, the bleat of the sheep and the tinkle of their bells. It was with reluctance that I reached Sparta, but the night mists from the river make it unwise to loiter. [162-63]
The picture features women in classical costume overlooked by two shepherds, one of whom plays a panpipe. It is very Etruscan School in its horizontal format and its landscape as well as being painted at twilight. It is very reminiscent of his friend G. H. Mason’s Idyllist landscapes such as Evening Hymn. There are also echoes of the idylls of one of his father’s colleagues Edward Calvert, one of The Ancients, and whom Richmond himself had known. A finished study for this picture by Richmond is in a private collection.
Bibliography
Reynolds, Simon. William Blake Richmond. An Artist’s Life 1842-1921. Norwich: Michael Russell Publishing Ltd., 1995.
Stirling, Anna Maria Wilhelmina. The Richmond Papers. London: William Heinemann, 1926
Last modified 19 December 2022