Portrait of the artist
First published : June 2011
The Times
The Times newspaper's art critic Rachel Campbell-Johnston talks to Charlotte Luxford about her new book on the 'English Van Gogh', Samuel Palmer. She reveals why Shoreham is such a source of inspiration, that she and Palmer share shepherding experiences and that she would love to hate Tracey Emin's art
Samuel Palmer © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Words Charlotte Luxford
Why did you decide to focus on Samuel Palmer for your first book, Mysterious Wisdom?
It was after the British Museum held an exhibition on Palmer as a bicentenary celebration, but it was in a dingy gallery and while I didn’t know much about his life, I loved his work. Few people are in between, they have either heard of Palmer or they haven’t. There was only one biography on Palmer but it was quite dull, so I decided that something should be done and I wanted to bring him to life. I always found his self-portrait fascinating and I felt quite close to Palmer, carrying poetry in my rucksack and being a shepherd myself; I feel we both shared the same inclination to revel in our own self-conscious romanticism with our flocks of sheep!
Did you become increasingly emotionally attached to Palmer’s life the more you found out about him?
Yes, I did; I disliked him in the middle of my book as it was his devout piety that practically killed his son he was so strict, but by the end I was crying and I just thought, “What a lovely man you are”. He started so well with his glorious Shoreham scenes and then in the middle of his life he painted somewhat tedious topographical studies, sacrificing his Shoreham beliefs for money – wrongly, unfortunately.
Why do you think Shoreham was such a haven for Palmer and his friends the Ancients?
I think the Shoreham landscape with its softly-domed hills, cottages and meadows was the attraction for Palmer; he thought that the church should be the lynchpin to every landscape and it was included in many of his works. He considered the landscape to be very rural and remote and I imagine it would have provided a place where he could imprint his pastoral fantasies. He may well have been inspired by Spenser’s writings on the Darent also.The fact it was walking distance from London, which many of the Ancients relied on for their work, would have been a considerable factor also.
What did you make of the area when you first came to Kent; did you find it as inspiring?
I spent weeks and weeks in that little valley, and I would lay and daydream as Palmer would have done – I took the 30-mile walk from London and got horrifically lost in Catford with my poor dogs, but once I had reached the lip of the Darent Valley, it all became amazingly beautiful.
'The Magic Apple Tree' © FitzwilliamMuseum, Cambridge
Do you think Palmer was a ‘great’ artist?
Palmer was a first-rate painter and the etchings he did with the help of his son Herbert, who became a renowned etcher in his own right, were a thing of beauty. While Palmer was a great artist he was a quiet artist; the etchings he did were kept secret between him and his son in the ‘Curiosity Portfolio’, and while contemporaries like Constable and Turner competed by creating dramatic six-foot landscapes, Palmer was more of a miniaturist. His small and passionate paintings have a sense of focus – by their very smallness they become all the more intense and the harder you gaze, a whole world opens up before your very eyes. While after his death his work remained largely forgotten, he was rediscovered by the English Modernists, who were inspired by his landscapes. In Palmer’s day, many found his works too peculiar, but that’s why the modernists loved it – Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious all took inspiration from his work and art historian Kenneth Clark dubbed Palmer the ‘English Van Gogh’.
You really capture Palmer’s character and as a reader I felt I was present, walking with Palmer through life – to do this with such ease means you must have done painstaking research?
There are two volumes of Palmer’s letters which I trawled through, but his son destroyed a lot of material. While Herbert was a fierce custodian of his work and published works after his death, he burnt much of Palmer’s personal pocketbooks in a back garden fire, embarrassed by his father’s open expressions of emotion and effeminate tendencies. He said once there was “too much dearest” about the relationship between Palmer and his close friend Richmond. When researching, I steeped myself in the period and re-read novelists like George Eliot and Dickens, spent a lot of time daydreaming in Shoreham, visiting locals and also researching in the V&A. Once I knew what to look for I found tiny references in Palmer’s letters – he wrote beautifully – and after a while I began to piece them together to draw the picture of his life. He really was a charming, eccentric, funny, engaging and sympathetic man.
Did you find the transition from art critic to author difficult, especially now it is your book up for critique?
Of course I’m nervous – I just hope that all the mistakes have been proofed! I loved writing the book though and I hope people like it; you’re all so lucky to have such a wonderful landscape in Sevenoaks and Palmer was keen to look after it. He said that one should be in harmony with the landscape and to treasure it, treading on it lightly. In a way, he was one of the first ecologists and, in fact, much of his work and letters had green messages.
If you had to choose one piece of work from a past artist and one piece from a contemporary artist to hang on your wall, which pieces would you pick?
Of course I’d love to have a Palmer; a little memento after writing this book. I’d also have a Rubens just for his sheer ebullience and vitality – his work is like a red bull! It’s not really in my nature to like him actually, but I just do. I adore Francis Bacon’s work; in a way he lived such a pure life and it was uncorrupted in many ways, despite what many say. I have works from my former boyfriend Sebastian Horsley also.
If you could go to any place in the world just to sit for an hour, where would you go?
I would go to Easter Island – it’s this tiny, lost island with such a sense of wonder about it.
Which popular artist would you make a controversial comment about?
I’d love to hate Tracey Emin; her work just grabs your attention and it’s like a car crash – you can’t help but stare.
What book would you curl up with right now?
I love the wisdom and sensibility of George Eliot – her depth and quiet, understated writing is just superb. I would give
Middlemarch rather than the Bible to my daughter if I wanted her to understand the way of life.
If you could jump into the skin of any artist for a day, who would it be?
I’d be Caravaggio on the run – what a swashbuckling adventure that would be.
Mysterious Wisdom: The Life and Work of Samuel Palmer by Rachel Campbell-Johnston is published in hardback by Bloomsbury on June 6, priced £25
Why not take a day trip and visit Samuel Palmer’s paintings in some of the best British cities? Visit The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge (
www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk) and The Ashmolean in Oxford (
www.ashmolean.org)
