Cecil Gordon Lawson
English, 1851-1882

A Hymn to Spring, 1871-1872
oil on canvas
60 x 40 in.

SBMA, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ridley-Tree
1995.25.1



Lawson self-portrait

RESEARCH PAPER

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is fortunate to have Cecil Gordon Lawson's oil painting entitled "A Hymn to Spring", for it is as close as one can get to having a piece of England. Furthermore, many critics agree “he remains one of the greatest landscape painters of his century," despite living only to the age of 31. His short life and therefore the lack of opportunity to grow and develop a larger body of work help explain why his name is not familiar to us today. The subject matter, the individualistic style, and the character of Lawson himself all lead one into a meaningful understanding of English art in the second half of the 19th century.

Our first glance shows us the painting of 1871-72 is well-named. The lush moist feel, early spring blossoms and occasional sun patches in the dark gloomy weather are all associated with spring in England. But we sense the artist went beyond mere representation to include a sort of mystical and expressive quality that might be rendered in a hymn. There is a sense of wonder, delight and celebration in this picture. It reflects the confidence of a lively minded man who was only 21 years of age when it was completed. Lawson had already had his first showing at the Royal Academy two years before at the age of 19. Over the years he had several more accepted for the summer exhibition which allowed entry on the basis of judgment by a panel of Academy artists.

Lawson spent most of his life in London. Though not formally trained in any institution, he grew up surrounded by art. His first instruction was from his portrait-painter father who died when Lawson was just 13. Next, a greatly admired older brother, one of the leading draftsmen on wood (the main way of providing magazine illustration at the time) encouraged and further developed Lawson's artistic talents in a studio they built and shared in their home. Between the ages of 14 and 17 Lawson spent much time doing careful studies of fruit, flowers, and bits of landscape, clouds and grasses. They were done in the manner of William Hunt. The use of these skills is very evident in the foreground of "Hymn to Spring" which is like a tribute to his interest in botany.

Lawson was known to have spent much time at the National Gallery of Art, especially studying the work of Rubens (particularly "An Autumn Landscape with a View of Het Steen") and various Dutch and English landscape painters. Looking at this painting alongside works by Bruegel or Ruisdael, the Dutch influence is very obvious. Some of the similar qualities are:

-the somber, rich and intense colors of very close dark value.

-the realistic representation coming from an observed scene.

-the creation of deep perspective by a combination of carefully depicted foreground with a far distant view at a raked angle accented by a bird in flight.

-only the top third of the painting devoted to sky.

Among English painters Gainsborough's landscapes were said to be much admired. Perhaps the sense of art and appreciation of nature in general rather than in a limited locale as practiced by Constable were qualities he admired. Even with these influences, Lawson was considered to have much originality in his style. An example in this work is the way the branch of the apple tree overhangs the sky area. Although not so unusual in our eyes, it would have been seen as daring and unconventional in his time. As the painting is five feet high, it makes the viewer feel in scale to the tree and as if he might actually be standing under the rest of its branches. If one donned boots he would walk out into a mid ground of "wild, uncultivated nature doing its thing." There is a rather romantic tone of a personal and emotional response to reality. The foreground is full of rhythm and movement -- especially the gnarled groping roots of the apple tree and the plowed furrows filled with water. It has been suggested one might even sense there is "something going on underground" -- recalling English tales of fairy life in the countryside!

In regard to iconography, there is probably a great deal of loose symbolism related to spring. These include the flowers, wet plowed fields, the dove, and especially the main subject -- the centrally placed blooming Medlar tree. This was given so much attention that one source describes how Lawson unhesitatingly took out and repainted the whole tree to reduce its scale after already having spent eight weeks on it. Although the painting was composed in Berkshire near Hungerford, its size suggests it must have been completed in a studio.

The subjects of other paintings done by Lawson are suggested by their titles. These refer to sunrise, sunset, moonlight, mist, rain, clouds, moors, valleys and the cuckoo. Places mentioned are England, Surrey, Kent and Cheyne Walk in London. Although he toured Ireland, Holland, Belgium and Paris in his early twenties, he was apparently devoted to portraying observed scenes in England.

While Lawson studied earlier art and was known for his wonderful memory, he was also aware of and had access to contemporary art. Certainly, he knew the painters of the Royal Academy as he had a number of paintings accepted in exhibitions there himself. Furthermore, he painted primarily in the 1870's - a time when Europe was in turmoil due to the Franco-Prussian war. Many foreign artists came to England to find peace and successfully continued their work.. This led to a great increase in galleries devoted to specific countries, and we can assume Lawson may have found his way to those of the French, Danish, German and Flemish.

Artistically, England herself was in flux. Industrialization and the resulting glorified appreciation of the countryside, a new wealthy middle class, romanticism in literature and poetry, and the development of photography which encouraged realism were but a few of the influences that had an impact. The Royal Academy became so stagnated in the midst of all this change, that by 1877 it lost its place of respect to the new privately owned Grosvenor Gallery which served a purpose something like the Salon des Refuses in France. In its first year some artists shown were Tissot, Whistler and Bourne-Jones. It was at the Grosvenor in its second year, 1878, that Lawson, who was said to be discovered by the gallery owner himself, really made his mark with a landscape painting called The Minister's Garden. This was a tribute to Oliver Goldsmith for a much loved romantic work set in the English countryside.

The English, perhaps showing the individualism for which they are famous, had continued to pursue a variety of subject matters and styles even while the Academy successfully and arrogantly promoted neoclassic historical painting in the 18th century. By Lawson's time the academy was being openly criticized and ignored. While the Pre-Raphaelites are famous from this decade; many English artists were moving between genre, landscape and animal paintings which were subjects of great appeal. Lawson was unique in doing strictly landscapes and was strong enough in his belief that they could stand alone that he rarely added figures. He never allied himself with any particular artist, school or philosophy. It was the tendency of English artists to form groups or clubs primarily for the purpose of holding exhibitions of their independently developed works, contrary to the French who were more inclined to meet and advance specific styles or methods.

Despite the prompt rejection "A Hymn to Spring" received at the Royal Academy in the year of its completion, it was shown to much acclaim at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1883, the year after his death. Although curatorial files show it was lent anonymously, it apparently belonged to a close and devoted personal friend, Hesseltine Owen as the files list him and then a descendent under provenance. This same Mr. Owen wrote a lengthy, abundantly illustrated memorial article in a leading art magazine ten years after Lawson's death. It remains one of the best sources of information about Lawson's character and works. According to a presentation by SBMA curator Robert Henning the painting had been "completely lost track of" until recently found in the hands of a London dealer. The museum was keenly interested in purchase, but it eventually came to the museum as a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Ridley-Tree who had "fallen in love with it" when it came up for sale.Shortly after being hung in Santa Barbara in 1996 it went on loan to a special exhibit about the Grosvenor Gallery at the Yale Center for British Art.

Prepared for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art Docent Council
Stephanie Bashir
April 1996

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers,_ Vol. III. London: G. Ball and Sons, Ltd., 1915, p.189.

Champlin, John Denison Jr., ed. Cyclopedia of Painters and Painting, Vol. III. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1913, pp. 39-40.

Chesneau, Ernest. The English School of Painting. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1885, pp. 252-259.

Clement, Clara Eskine and Hutton, Lawrence. Artists of the - -- Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, Et. Louis-,North Point, Inc., 1969, p.144.

Curatorial File (Santa Barbara Museum of Art). Material provided by Peter Nahum Gallery, 5 Pyder Street, London SW1Y 6PY.

Henning, Robert. Channel Crossings. (audio tape: update lecture to Santa Barbara tluseum of Art docents) Nov. 1, 1995.

Hubbard, Hesketh. A Hundred Years of British Painting. 18511951. London: Longman s Green and Co., 1951, pp. 100-105.

"The Minister's Garden." (editorial) Magazine of Art, Vol. VII. London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1884., p. 483.

Owen, Heseltine. "In Memorium: Cecil Gordon Lawson. In Two Parts." Magazine of Art, London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1394, pp. 1-6 and 64-70.

SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS

Lawson was part of the Idyllists, who were united by their background in illustration and their idealistic take on subjects that other artists approached in a grittier way. This painting, based on an illustration by Lawson to accompany a poem, displays the Idyllist blend of realism and idealism by including highly detailed foliage and atmospheric effects amid a serene landscape with a perfectly placed white dove. Despite its appealing qualities, the Royal Academy rejected this painting for its 1872 exhibition. Britain’s leading art institution declined many of Lawson’s works, despite his critical acclaim and success in other galleries and exhibitions.

- A Legacy of Giving, 2024


This striking landscape is based on close observation of a specific location, but Lawson, then barely into his twenties, transformed a slice of English countryside into a poetic meditation on the beauty of spring. The startling disjuncture between the meticulously detailed rendering of the daffodils and the flowering medlar tree in the foreground and the more broadly painted meadow and river in the background went against accepted academic practice at the time and probably explains why the Royal Academy rejected the painting when Lawson submitted it to their annual exhibition. It was exhibited after his death at the more progressive Grosvenor Gallery.

- Ridley-Tree Reopening, 2021