Landscape – in detail
Sarah Vivian
The Alverton Gallery
September & October 2016
Connections between my own work and that of miniaturist ancestors
VIVIAN FAMILY PAINTERS
My great Grandfather, Thomas Comley Vivian (1847 – 1908) was a child prodigy, winning medals for drawing at The Bath School of Art at the age of thirteen. At sixteen, he came to the Art Schools of Kensington in London, (now called the Royal College of Art) and had lifelong friendships with several of the Professors. He became a prestigious portrait painter with many clients among the nobility, including the Prince of Wales, and often visited his Patron’s estates, including those of the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Portland, and the Earl and Countess of Somerset.
His wife, my great Grandmother, Elizabeth Baly Farquhar (1846 – 1934) managed to be a professional artist as well as having eight children; she exhibited both miniatures and larger works at the Royal Academy between 1867 and 1914, firstly under her maiden name and then as Lizzie Comley Vivian after their marriage. It was extremely rare for a woman to be able to be an artist at that time, but she had access to a studio as she was growing up because she was the niece of George Cruickshank, who illustrated the works of Charles Dickens.
They lived in a large house in Chiswick, complete with horses and carriages, cooks and servants, and continuous visitors. One of their sons, Harold, was a professional artist, with portraits for income and landscapes for pleasure, and was friends with several of the Impressionists, especially Sisley. His landscapes are impressionistic, but representational, and as our family had several of them, I remember trying to copy them as a teenager. It is believed that some of Sisley’s and Monet’s snow scenes in the National Gallery are in the garden at the Chiswick house.
Two of Thomas and Lizzie’s daughters, Ida and Nina, were both miniaturists, and Nina also exhibited at The Royal Academy. So, the professional artists in the family are great uncles and aunts, and both great grandparents, and of these, three were miniaturists. I have a portrait of Nina by Lizzie, which shows strong similarity in hair and shape of face to both myself and my daughter – as that genetic inheritance is so strong, it is interesting to speculate that the addiction to detail in paint may be a genetic inheritance too.
PAINTING DETAIL
The detail in my work is not as fine as for a genuine tiny miniature painting, as my relatives would have done, but I use miniaturist’s brushes where necessary and the tendency is always towards tiny marks. An art professor once told me that ideally a painting should look as good from across a large room as it does standing in directly in front, and also should look good on close inspection too, and this I try to do as best I can. Sometimes small marks look right from close up, and then look wrong from a distance, so I frequently walk to and fro to see it at different distances. Detail work requires concentration and focus, and also patience, as I can be working on a single area of grass or tree for days. However I believe that the intensity of work and time that goes into each painting gives them an inherent intensity or gravitas, which helps the impact of the work.