PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Auckland Lot 87, Australian & European Paintings, Christies, Melbourne 27 April 1998

REFERENCE

Frances Hodgkins database number FH0835 completefranceshodgkins.com

In 1909, as indicated by a letter to her mother from Paris earlier in the year, Frances Hodgkins took a group to Montreuil-sur-Mer for the summer months. Although hampered at first by storms and pouring rain, by August the heat had descended like a fury. When possible, Hodgkins took her students, whose numbers swelled and shrank week by week, according to their needs, to spend their days sketching in the surrounding countryside.

The river Canche near Montreuil-sur-Mer divides and narrows around an island before widening once more, and it may have been the narrowing of the stream that Hodgkins has captured in this watercolour. The composition suggests the influence of French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) whose paintings and prints of landscape, devoid of figures and focusing solely on quiet, timeless compositions of fields and streams were to be so influential on the development of the Impressionist movement.

In Hodgkins watercolour, the trunks of the trees punctuating the water's edge create a vertical rhythm, their foliage while mostly out of sight provides the essential shade needed for artists working out of doors. Sadly, the original title of this lovely watercolour is currently lost, but the scene radiates the warmth of summer. The two young women sit directly on the grass rather than on a blanket, their long pinafores reinforcing the notion that they are two of Hodgkins' pupils.

Masses of rapid brushstrokes of various sizes, in golds, greens and blues, invoke the thick summer grass on the bank leading down to the water. Its flow divides the composition, creating a diagonal which animates the horizontal elements of the background where the water doubles back, before disappearing with its tree-lined bank, painted with a broad sweeping wash, to the right. On the other side of the stream, Hodgkins has placed the small figure of a dark-clad man, who is possibly fishing with a line or net, adding weight and balance to the composition.

The artist is seated very close to her subject matter, one inattentive kick of her boot sufficient to send the straw hat with its brown ribbon flying. A large narrow-necked terracotta jar nestles in the grass, its form adding a pleasing patch of solidity and warmth to the softer hues adjacent, and no doubt containing the necessary water for their painting. The student on the right, her checked skirt and mottled blouse contrasting with the white of her pinafore, has rolled up her sleeves, either because of the heat, or to keep them from smudging her paper. She remains intent on her activity, whereas the young woman on the left has given up all pretence of work to lean on her elbow and gaze idly into the distance, absorbing the sounds and sights of the countryside, her fingers trailing through the lush green grass.

MARY KISLER