Countryman and his Cottage

Countryman and his Cottage is painted in the characteristic mixed media which Vaughan was using during the 1940s. There is a rich interplay between the opaque gouache paint and the mottled wax resist that lends the surface a highly tactile and varied quality. He discussed the technique in an interview:
‘Those early pictures were not of course pure gouache. They were mixtures of wax crayon, Indian ink and gouache. And the chemical properties of these different materials to a large extent determined their own control. They react on each in certain ways which can be exploited but cannot be prevented. You might call it a volatile medium’ (Keith Vaughan in an interview with Dr Tony Carter, 1963).

The subject of a figure in an orchard picking fruit, or in a landscape reaching up to branches, occurs frequently in Vaughan’s painting at this time, (see Figures Climbing Trees, 1946, Figure Beneath a Tree Branch, 1947, Man Gathering Fruit, 1948 and Water Trees and Figures, 1948). On a formal level the pose opened up the human form and the dynamic gesture increased the emotional potential of the male figure. In terms of the composition and construction of the figure, Vaughan seems to want it to fuse with its environment. The bent arms echo the branches which he holds onto and even the colour and textural treatment of the anatomy link him with the rest of the landscape. At the right a semi-abstracted cottage can be seen, complete with sloping roof, chimney pot, windows and an open doorway.

We are very grateful to Gerard Hastings for preparing this catalogue entry, whose new book on Keith Vaughan’s graphic art is to be published later in the year by Pagham Press in Association with the Keith Vaughan Society.