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Lot Essay
The present work is an early realisation of Ivon Hitchens’ vision for his mural at Cecil Sharp House. Large scale and – unlike the mural’s other drafts (such as the Tate’s charcoal and wax pastel studies) – painted in oils, it provides a glimpse into the artistic process behind one of Hitchens’ most loved works, and is in its own right an astonishing achievement.
When, in 1940, a bomb partly destroyed the main hall of Cecil Sharp House (the headquarters of the English Folk dance and Song Society near Regent’s Park, London), the decision was made not to replace the Musicians’ Gallery. Instead, Ivon Hitchens was invited to create a mural for the space – an extensive 6 x 21 metres of wall – which would represent and reflect the spirit of the dance hall. Under instruction not to paint anything that would distract the dancers (in an effort to avoid injury), abstraction was key. Likewise, as Hitchens specifies in his note accompanying the commission, the subject ‘should embrace the chief features of certain famous dance forms’, which were to be placed within ‘some sort of woodland setting to act as foil to the urban surroundings of Cecil Sharp House.’ (I. Hitchens in P. Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, Hampshire, 2007, p. 183).
The present work provides a wonderful opportunity to trace the lines of thought down which Hitchens travelled. The colour progression across the work, for instance, is designed with the light patterns of Cecil Sharp House in mind – ‘woodland blues and greens on the sunny West side … warmer shades on the North-East’ (ibid., p. 184) – likewise, while the work is divided into wood-and-glade compositional groupings, its central section was left quieter with an eye to complementing the crowding of the room.
These features are visibly at play in the present work: while, likely for scale reasons, there is less figuration than in the final piece, the motif of dance infects the work. Within the pastoral richness of arcadian symbolism, Hitchens uses fluid abstractions to embody the physicality of folk: elliptical forms of circling dancers, secret glades, and curved bodies sit seamlessly beside swooping triangular shapes as if the paint strokes were following the time signatures of the Morris, Jig, and Aire. The rhythmic energy is such that one could almost imagine Hitchens beating time with his brush: confident down-beats cleave the canvas and flick up in light feathery patterns, and the rippling triplets of 6/8 are ineffably present in the work’s kaleidoscopic textural landscape.
Hitchens’ own musings on painting in general often take musical form: ‘This white canvas is the spring-board from which the ‘music’ and movement of the colour tones can be judged. … It creates nodal points that cause the eye to move across the surface from side to side, thus setting up a sense of time.’ (ibid., p. 86). The sideways progression of the work’s long landscape structure is at once narrative and cyclically panoramic: like an orchestral score, its horizontality is temporal and, as he goes on to explain in Notes on Painting, utterly musical. ‘… in landscape I find a square-shaped painting usually unsatisfactory because the natural flow of the horizontals is checked. … The visual ‘sound’ is of the first and greatest importance. Without it the picture is useless. My pictures are painted to be ‘listened’ to. … I should like things to fall into place with so clear a notation that the spectator’s eye and ‘aesthetic ear’ shall receive a clear message, a clear tune. Every part should be an inevitable part of the whole. I seek to recreate the truth of nature by making my own song about it (in paint).’ (ibid., pp. 80-81). The present work is not only a wonderful example of Hitchens in his prime, but a particularly significant piece with regard to his artistic progression.
When, in 1940, a bomb partly destroyed the main hall of Cecil Sharp House (the headquarters of the English Folk dance and Song Society near Regent’s Park, London), the decision was made not to replace the Musicians’ Gallery. Instead, Ivon Hitchens was invited to create a mural for the space – an extensive 6 x 21 metres of wall – which would represent and reflect the spirit of the dance hall. Under instruction not to paint anything that would distract the dancers (in an effort to avoid injury), abstraction was key. Likewise, as Hitchens specifies in his note accompanying the commission, the subject ‘should embrace the chief features of certain famous dance forms’, which were to be placed within ‘some sort of woodland setting to act as foil to the urban surroundings of Cecil Sharp House.’ (I. Hitchens in P. Khoroche, Ivon Hitchens, Hampshire, 2007, p. 183).
The present work provides a wonderful opportunity to trace the lines of thought down which Hitchens travelled. The colour progression across the work, for instance, is designed with the light patterns of Cecil Sharp House in mind – ‘woodland blues and greens on the sunny West side … warmer shades on the North-East’ (ibid., p. 184) – likewise, while the work is divided into wood-and-glade compositional groupings, its central section was left quieter with an eye to complementing the crowding of the room.
These features are visibly at play in the present work: while, likely for scale reasons, there is less figuration than in the final piece, the motif of dance infects the work. Within the pastoral richness of arcadian symbolism, Hitchens uses fluid abstractions to embody the physicality of folk: elliptical forms of circling dancers, secret glades, and curved bodies sit seamlessly beside swooping triangular shapes as if the paint strokes were following the time signatures of the Morris, Jig, and Aire. The rhythmic energy is such that one could almost imagine Hitchens beating time with his brush: confident down-beats cleave the canvas and flick up in light feathery patterns, and the rippling triplets of 6/8 are ineffably present in the work’s kaleidoscopic textural landscape.
Hitchens’ own musings on painting in general often take musical form: ‘This white canvas is the spring-board from which the ‘music’ and movement of the colour tones can be judged. … It creates nodal points that cause the eye to move across the surface from side to side, thus setting up a sense of time.’ (ibid., p. 86). The sideways progression of the work’s long landscape structure is at once narrative and cyclically panoramic: like an orchestral score, its horizontality is temporal and, as he goes on to explain in Notes on Painting, utterly musical. ‘… in landscape I find a square-shaped painting usually unsatisfactory because the natural flow of the horizontals is checked. … The visual ‘sound’ is of the first and greatest importance. Without it the picture is useless. My pictures are painted to be ‘listened’ to. … I should like things to fall into place with so clear a notation that the spectator’s eye and ‘aesthetic ear’ shall receive a clear message, a clear tune. Every part should be an inevitable part of the whole. I seek to recreate the truth of nature by making my own song about it (in paint).’ (ibid., pp. 80-81). The present work is not only a wonderful example of Hitchens in his prime, but a particularly significant piece with regard to his artistic progression.