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Lot Essay
Munnings's visits to Cornwall provided him with a complete change to the landscape of East Anglia and his paintings reveal his fascination with the new environment. He writes, 'Such scenery was entirely new, and even more so, the sight and sound of the band of white, moving surf, six hundred feet below, at the foot of steep-pinnacled granite cliffs, which on some great headland stood like castles above the restless surging of the Atlantic ground-swell.
No words can describe these scenic effects. On an August or September day, to lie on the sweet-smelling turf, watching sea-pinks trembling in light winds, and listening to the unceasing sound of the surf and cry of gulls, gives peace and rest to body and soul. Nothing quite like this coast exists anywhere. There were spots where I could laze and be idle and drowsy enough in Norfolk, but of all places, on the right day, I find myself more often longing to be back on those Cornish cliffs, lying in the sun, listening to the incessant sound of the surf' (see A.J. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay, 1950, p. 271).
No words can describe these scenic effects. On an August or September day, to lie on the sweet-smelling turf, watching sea-pinks trembling in light winds, and listening to the unceasing sound of the surf and cry of gulls, gives peace and rest to body and soul. Nothing quite like this coast exists anywhere. There were spots where I could laze and be idle and drowsy enough in Norfolk, but of all places, on the right day, I find myself more often longing to be back on those Cornish cliffs, lying in the sun, listening to the incessant sound of the surf' (see A.J. Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay, 1950, p. 271).