INTRODUCTION TO THE STORY-TELLING COLLECTIVE
Note: This describes a fantasy collective created for a Malvern School of Art assignment
This innovative collective has been formed by some of the most prominent narrative painters active from the sixteenth century through to the twenty-first. The Story-Tellers were brought together by a commitment, within their work, to the delivery of a clear and compelling narrative.
Centuries of friendship have provided a context in which the exchange of ideas about subject matter and composition in the service of narrative has positively impacted the artistic contribution this collective has made to Western Art. Their abundant exchange of information via letters and sketches, and in more recent centuries, through photographs and emails, provides us with a fascinating glimpse into the development of their narrative inspired artistic practice. Their mutual love of storytelling runs through the centuries of the existence of their collective. Through his paintings Bruegel provides us with a vivid record of life as lived by the working poor in the sixteenth century, and incorporates biblical and classical narrative into these compositions. Hogarth’s most popular works utilise painted and engraved narratives to educate us as to the rewards of virtue and the wages of sin. Throughout her working life, Dame Laura Knight’s paintings continued the story-telling tradition established by Bruegel and Hogarth. For example, early in her career, her paintings asked questions about the position of women artists in the early 20th century. During the 1940’s, Knight’s paintings employed narrative devices to support the recruitment of women to the war effort and boost morale. The newest member of the collective, the artist Julie MacLusky, has utilised an earlier career as a writer to enrich the narrative potential of her work. To develop this celebration of the collective’s powerful story-telling abilities, many people were approached who knew them and could contribute references to their lives. All members of the group are passionately creative and cosmopolitan, with an incredible zest for life, yet so different from each other. Laura Knight, a ‘self-confessed extrovert’ (Valentine, H & Wickham, A. 2019. p 8) expressed herself in a measured, thoughtful way, and rose to become the first female full member of the Royal Academy. Pieter Bruegel the elder was well-travelled and thrived as an artist and businessman despite the challenges of Reformation and the turbulence resulting from the 80 Years’ War (or the Dutch War of Independence), which raged from 1568-1648. William Hogarth, a cosmopolitan Londoner, was not taken seriously by the contemporary art establishment, had to wait many years before his talent as a painter was acknowledged. Julie MacLusky, having given up a place at art college, aged 18, only commenced her development as an artist, and earn admission to the Story-teller’s collective, after a successful career as a journalist, author and University Lecturer. The members of the collective are consistent in their determination to contextualise the lives lived around them, no matter where they were based. Hogarth focus was upon London, a city which was visited frequently by MacLusky and Knight, who both travelled and moved home frequently throughout their lives before settling in Great Malvern. Bruegel was also well travelled, venturing as far as Italy, but spent most of his productive life in Antwerp, moving to Brussels shortly before his death. Hogarth’s work, in particular, centres upon city life. William Hazlitt the critic said of Hogarth, that ‘I know no one who had a less pastoral imagination than Hogarth. He delights in the thick of St Giles’s or St James’s. His pictures breath a certain close, greasy, tavern air.’ (Hazlitt, 1841, p. 292). The collective’s artistic output is also distinguished by the way that it demonstrates a great concern with the major political, cultural and social questions that its members encountered. Breughel’s home in Antwerp, Knight’s retreat at the Colwall Hotel in Great Malvern, Hogarth’s London base and MacLusky’s home in Great Malvern became the settings of their lifelong encounters and nurtured the cross-fertilisation of their ideas. Their works amply reflect how much the environment they chose to live in influenced their inspiration and creativity. They bring to their narrative art an awareness of the major social and cultural shifts that were occurring in their countries, whilst embedding a clear affection for the positive features of a life lived outside of Europe’s major metropolises. Most important to the three British members of the collective, are the streets of Soho, where these artists met, drank, ate, and which teemed with the life and challenges that their collective loved to engage with. The collective’s members are also distinguished by their ability to overcome significant obstacles. Bruegel succeeded in carving out a successful career as a painter, despite the instability of his home country, riven by war, and the repercussions of the Reformation, which impacted the kind of art that could be produced. Hogarth grew up in poverty, close to the Fleet prison, where his father was imprisoned for debt. He managed to build upon an apprenticeship as an engraver to eventually being appointed as Court Painter (‘Serjeant Painter) to the King. Following the death of her mother and sister, Knight had to support a surviving sister and succeeded in becoming a full member of the Royal Academy, at a time when the artistic establishment was not overtly encouraging to women. MacLusky would not have given up her career as a Writing Lecturer to practice art, if she had not come close to choking to death on Christmas Day 2016, and making the decision to enrol at Malvern College of Art. |