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Lot Essay
'I went down to Southsea last night, it was quite wonderful – really like the south of France … I go round the docks with the Commander man again today. We went round in a boat yesterday and it was very fine indeed to paint.' J.D. Fergusson, ‘Letter to Margaret Morris’ from Portsmouth Docks, 30th July 1918
Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship is one of a rare and spectacular group of paintings of Royal Navy vessels that J. D. Fergusson painted at Portsmouth Docks in the summer of 1918. Fergusson had been allowed privileged access to the Naval harbour at this time because he was working under a military commission from the Ministry of Information’s Propaganda and Record Department. Ostensibly, the celebrated group of paintings that Fergusson produced of the Portsmouth Docks at this time were originally intended to be simple documentations of wartime Britain. In reality however, and as a painting such as Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship clearly illustrates, Fergusson became so enthralled by the spectacle of all that he saw in Portsmouth during the summer of 1918 that he began increasingly to develop the pictures he made of all the ships and submarines there in accordance with his own, more avant-garde tendencies.
Fergusson, who, until the outbreak of war in 1914, had lived and worked in Paris in close conjunction with many of the leading exponents of the Parisian avant-garde, was one of the foremost avant-garde practitioners then living in Britain. A leading member of the Rhythmist group and an artist who had worked closely with the Ballet Russes in Paris, Fergusson was one of the first British painters to have fully absorbed the lessons of both Fauvist colouring and the Cubo-Futurist break-up of form and to have begun to apply these lessons into his own ‘Rhythmist’ way of painting.
Fergusson’s Rhythmist style was one that sought to discern an essential energy and rhythm in the world through compositions that emphasised a fusing of heightened colour and flat, angular planes of form into a formalised and rhythmic unity sometimes at odds with its subject matter. Here, in Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship, Fergusson’s habitual emphasis on playful rhythms of rich colour, angular brushstrokes and planes of flattened form has found a unique echo in its subject matter. The submarines and ships that Fergusson found in Portsmouth Docks had all been kitted out in the striking, broken-form colours and shapes of dazzle camouflage. This was a unique camouflage style, devised by the English Vorticist painter Edward Wadsworth that made practical use of a Cubo-Futurist technique to distort a ship’s outline and confuse the visual rangefinders of enemy vessels.
Such was the visual splendour of this dazzle camouflage that many painters were drawn to it. Picasso famously claimed that in developing Cubism, he had ‘invented it’ and Wadsworth would later paint several pictures of these so-called ‘dazzle ships’ after the war. Here, in Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship, the densely packed collation of painted cruisers, battleships and submarines that Fergusson encountered in Portsmouth during the summer of 1918 is also portrayed as an essentially joyous spectacle of colourful Cubism now applied to Britain’s wartime mission. In this regard, as Kirsten Simister has pointed out, ‘it is likely that this treatment reflected Fergusson's awareness of Cubist works but also those of the Vorticists, many of whom attended [his wife, Margaret] Morris's club in Chelsea and who had also exhibited in London in June 1915’ (K. Simister, Living Paint J.D. Fergusson 1874-1961, Edinburgh, 2001, pp. 75-76).
Fergusson worked excitedly throughout the first two weeks of August 1918 in the Portsmouth Docks, working predominantly on a series of conté and pastel drawings made directly before his subject. Many of these then served as the basis for oils such as Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship which Fergusson worked up and refined into sophisticated compositions back at his London studio. There, as Simister has also observed: ‘the solid, static shapes created by the moored warships in the docks, alongside cranes and other naval machinery were transformed into images of calm monumentality and dignity, far removed from the carnage and destruction of the war. The clarity of Fergusson's palette also enhanced a mood of characteristic optimism, juxtaposing cool blues and lilacs with fiery oranges and pinky-terracottas’ (ibid).
Tending to concentrate more upon the successful resolution of an accurate depiction of the rhythmic play of colour and form and a dynamic and harmonious overall composition than on representational accuracy, Fergusson’s lively colour schemes often also strayed from their source material despite assurances that he had given to the Ministry prior to embarking on his commission. Fergusson also took a degree of artistic license with regards to the accuracy of the vessels he portrayed. This, as Simister has also pointed out, was, however, very much ‘in keeping with Fergusson's persistent focus on the formal values of painting, once again placing his artistic freedom above all contrary demands’ (ibid).
Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship is one of a rare and spectacular group of paintings of Royal Navy vessels that J. D. Fergusson painted at Portsmouth Docks in the summer of 1918. Fergusson had been allowed privileged access to the Naval harbour at this time because he was working under a military commission from the Ministry of Information’s Propaganda and Record Department. Ostensibly, the celebrated group of paintings that Fergusson produced of the Portsmouth Docks at this time were originally intended to be simple documentations of wartime Britain. In reality however, and as a painting such as Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship clearly illustrates, Fergusson became so enthralled by the spectacle of all that he saw in Portsmouth during the summer of 1918 that he began increasingly to develop the pictures he made of all the ships and submarines there in accordance with his own, more avant-garde tendencies.
Fergusson, who, until the outbreak of war in 1914, had lived and worked in Paris in close conjunction with many of the leading exponents of the Parisian avant-garde, was one of the foremost avant-garde practitioners then living in Britain. A leading member of the Rhythmist group and an artist who had worked closely with the Ballet Russes in Paris, Fergusson was one of the first British painters to have fully absorbed the lessons of both Fauvist colouring and the Cubo-Futurist break-up of form and to have begun to apply these lessons into his own ‘Rhythmist’ way of painting.
Fergusson’s Rhythmist style was one that sought to discern an essential energy and rhythm in the world through compositions that emphasised a fusing of heightened colour and flat, angular planes of form into a formalised and rhythmic unity sometimes at odds with its subject matter. Here, in Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship, Fergusson’s habitual emphasis on playful rhythms of rich colour, angular brushstrokes and planes of flattened form has found a unique echo in its subject matter. The submarines and ships that Fergusson found in Portsmouth Docks had all been kitted out in the striking, broken-form colours and shapes of dazzle camouflage. This was a unique camouflage style, devised by the English Vorticist painter Edward Wadsworth that made practical use of a Cubo-Futurist technique to distort a ship’s outline and confuse the visual rangefinders of enemy vessels.
Such was the visual splendour of this dazzle camouflage that many painters were drawn to it. Picasso famously claimed that in developing Cubism, he had ‘invented it’ and Wadsworth would later paint several pictures of these so-called ‘dazzle ships’ after the war. Here, in Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship, the densely packed collation of painted cruisers, battleships and submarines that Fergusson encountered in Portsmouth during the summer of 1918 is also portrayed as an essentially joyous spectacle of colourful Cubism now applied to Britain’s wartime mission. In this regard, as Kirsten Simister has pointed out, ‘it is likely that this treatment reflected Fergusson's awareness of Cubist works but also those of the Vorticists, many of whom attended [his wife, Margaret] Morris's club in Chelsea and who had also exhibited in London in June 1915’ (K. Simister, Living Paint J.D. Fergusson 1874-1961, Edinburgh, 2001, pp. 75-76).
Fergusson worked excitedly throughout the first two weeks of August 1918 in the Portsmouth Docks, working predominantly on a series of conté and pastel drawings made directly before his subject. Many of these then served as the basis for oils such as Submarines and Camouflaged Battleship which Fergusson worked up and refined into sophisticated compositions back at his London studio. There, as Simister has also observed: ‘the solid, static shapes created by the moored warships in the docks, alongside cranes and other naval machinery were transformed into images of calm monumentality and dignity, far removed from the carnage and destruction of the war. The clarity of Fergusson's palette also enhanced a mood of characteristic optimism, juxtaposing cool blues and lilacs with fiery oranges and pinky-terracottas’ (ibid).
Tending to concentrate more upon the successful resolution of an accurate depiction of the rhythmic play of colour and form and a dynamic and harmonious overall composition than on representational accuracy, Fergusson’s lively colour schemes often also strayed from their source material despite assurances that he had given to the Ministry prior to embarking on his commission. Fergusson also took a degree of artistic license with regards to the accuracy of the vessels he portrayed. This, as Simister has also pointed out, was, however, very much ‘in keeping with Fergusson's persistent focus on the formal values of painting, once again placing his artistic freedom above all contrary demands’ (ibid).