Key words
Composition; viewpoint
Questions to ask
Study the composition of this painting, paying attention to the proportion of sky to land. Where do you think this view is painted from?
Spencer was really familiar with this scene, and loved this area. Why do you think he painted views he knew well?
Look at the brushwork in the painting. How would you describe it? What effect does it have on the viewer?
How this might inspire your work
Paint a landscape from an unusual viewpoint.
Find a familiar landscape and look at it from different viewpoints. Try lying on the ground and seeing the landscape as an insect might, or climb a hill and get an aerial perspective. Look at the landscape from upside down, or see what it looks like when you’re running through it. Make a quick sketch of this landscape while you’re outside.
Afterwards, paint your familiar landscape from a viewpoint that you hadn’t associated with it before.
Cookham 1914, oil on canvas by Stanley Spencer (1891–1959).
Late summer; a view from an elevated perspective of the landscape surrounding Cookham in Berkshire. This is one of Spencer’s first pure landscape paintings and was painted direct from nature. It shows the countryside around Cookham. The view is from Terry’s Lane to Winter Hill and Rowborough from an elevated viewpoint. The red dash below the horizon is a railway signal.
The railway, which cuts across the picture, transformed this part of the Thames into a busy summer resort. Stanley’s brother, Gilbert, recalled that Terry’s Lane and the railway bridge were a popular childhood walk for the two brothers. Stanley Spencer was nicknamed ‘Cookham’ by his fellow students at the Slade School of Art in London because his art was firmly rooted in his home there.
Receiving only modest success during his lifetime, now in the twenty-first century Stanley Spencer is considered to be one of Britain's finest twentieth century artists, his fresh, unique vision throwing new light on to the eternal preoccupations of love, war, destruction and redemption.
This exhibit is currently on display. Ref CALMG : 1954.102.2
Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery collection, bequest of Sir Edward Marsh 1954
Image © Estate of Stanley Spencer. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2010.
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