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Lot Essay
Since the early 1880s Clausen had been studying gangs of labourers working in unison in the fields (see lot 75), and at the turn of the century, when troops were being dispatched to the Transvaal, and calls for national regeneration were frequent, the subject returned as an important theme. A major canvas, Sons of the Soil (Private Collection), announced this new series at the Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1901. The realisation process for this and other works of that phase involved on-the-spot sketchbook notes, developed and reinforced in the studio, as he moved individual figures into the right relationship with one another. The ‘Sons’ were complemented by work on a group of women gleaners processing across a field at twilight in the wake of the harvesters. A Gleaner emerged from the preliminary sketches in this sequence, and the motif, a child carrying a wheatsheaf, and walking parallel to the picture plane, was drawn separately in pastel and graphite, before being transferred to canvas.
It was not the first time Clausen had tackled the subject. A Londoner who moved to the country in 1881, Gleaners, had been his first major work, and it graphically records a field activity traditionally confined to women and children.
Twenty years earlier, child labour had been a topical issue for debates in the press and parliament, as successive Education Acts restricted its use. However in stylistic terms, Clausen’s progressive treatments of gleaners were an important British Impressionist restatement of Jean-François Millet’s Glaneuses, 1857 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), a picture that had already assumed iconic status. In Bastien-Lepage, and in Clausen’s own early work, Millet’s themes were updated, and with the latter, in the adoption of pastel drawing techniques, they were overlaid with a rich ‘impressionist’ matte (see lot 65).
Throughout 1899 and 1900, Clausen was exhibiting pastels alongside his oils through his dealer, the Goupil Gallery (Boussod, Valadon and Co), and the first reference to A Gleaner in his account book in January 1901, refers to a visit by William Marchant of the gallery to his studio at Great Widdington, when the picture was priced at £100. It was submitted to the Academy on 5 April 1901 and Clausen fielded various offers for it, none of which resulted in a sale. This only occurred when the painting went on display in Bradford the following spring.
At the Academy A Gleaner was accompanied by The Golden Barn (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and The Spreading Tree (Private Collection), as well as Sons of the Soil. While these more imposing pictures tended to dominate contemporary reviews, for the reporter on The Yorkshire Post, A Gleaner was simply ‘a beautiful picture in which oranges and reds for the colour scheme’. The words confirm the more general observation that,
Mr Clausen has now arrived at such mastery of his individual technique that this mastery is less seen than felt: the quality obtained by his refined sense of colour and delicate yet vitalized brushwork is marvellously fine and subtle.
In the years of his maturity – the painter was now in his late forties – he left pyrotechnics to others. His self-effacing gleaners who collected corn sheaves left after the harvest had nevertheless a rich after-life in further studies and two major oil paintings – Gleaners coming home, 1904, and The Gleaners Returning, 1908 (both Tate, London).
KMc.
It was not the first time Clausen had tackled the subject. A Londoner who moved to the country in 1881, Gleaners, had been his first major work, and it graphically records a field activity traditionally confined to women and children.
Twenty years earlier, child labour had been a topical issue for debates in the press and parliament, as successive Education Acts restricted its use. However in stylistic terms, Clausen’s progressive treatments of gleaners were an important British Impressionist restatement of Jean-François Millet’s Glaneuses, 1857 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), a picture that had already assumed iconic status. In Bastien-Lepage, and in Clausen’s own early work, Millet’s themes were updated, and with the latter, in the adoption of pastel drawing techniques, they were overlaid with a rich ‘impressionist’ matte (see lot 65).
Throughout 1899 and 1900, Clausen was exhibiting pastels alongside his oils through his dealer, the Goupil Gallery (Boussod, Valadon and Co), and the first reference to A Gleaner in his account book in January 1901, refers to a visit by William Marchant of the gallery to his studio at Great Widdington, when the picture was priced at £100. It was submitted to the Academy on 5 April 1901 and Clausen fielded various offers for it, none of which resulted in a sale. This only occurred when the painting went on display in Bradford the following spring.
At the Academy A Gleaner was accompanied by The Golden Barn (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool) and The Spreading Tree (Private Collection), as well as Sons of the Soil. While these more imposing pictures tended to dominate contemporary reviews, for the reporter on The Yorkshire Post, A Gleaner was simply ‘a beautiful picture in which oranges and reds for the colour scheme’. The words confirm the more general observation that,
Mr Clausen has now arrived at such mastery of his individual technique that this mastery is less seen than felt: the quality obtained by his refined sense of colour and delicate yet vitalized brushwork is marvellously fine and subtle.
In the years of his maturity – the painter was now in his late forties – he left pyrotechnics to others. His self-effacing gleaners who collected corn sheaves left after the harvest had nevertheless a rich after-life in further studies and two major oil paintings – Gleaners coming home, 1904, and The Gleaners Returning, 1908 (both Tate, London).
KMc.