Iffley Mill, by George Vicat Cole (1833-1893). 1884. Oil on canvas. H 88.9 x W 144 cm. Credit: Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museum, via Art UK. Accession no., BURGM:paoil76. Purchased from Burnley Corporation with the assistance of funds from the Edward Stocks Massey Bequest, 1930. Reproduced here by kind permission of the gallery.
The Thames at Iffley, near Oxford was another favourite spot for artists, with Iffley Church and the Mill making views there especially picturesque. The mill burnt down in 1908, but it was already recorded in many paintings and watercolours, making it one of the places that Vicat Cole was bound to depict in his painting series of the Thames. As usual, the artists's biographer and brother-in-law Robert Chignell, gives a full account of this painting, which he characterises as "one of those silvery pictures which have a special charm to the artistic eye" (III: 29).
Study for the painting, in Chignell III: 29.
What appeals here is the movement in the picture, not just the stormy sky and roiling clouds, but the wind against the stately poplars, and "the rush of water through the sluices and the swirl of its current..." (Chignell III: 30). Then, as so often in Vicat Cole's work, there is the contrast, the serenity of the Thames (known as the Isis along this stretch) as it meanders through the meadows. Chignell reports that this work "was received with universal approbation. No word of hostile criticism was directed against it" (III: 31). The reviewer in Academy Notes for 1885 saw it as "an example of this painter at his best" (7). However, despite his own praise, the reviewer in the Art Journal felt that John MacWhirter was "in far greater force" than either Vicat Cole or another academician, Henry William Banks Davis (1833-1914) primarily, it seems, because one of MacWhirter's paintings seemed to show some "fresh departure of his Art" (340). It is interesting that this is what the critics were hoping to find. Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to related material
- George Vicat Cole, RA (1833-1893): A Biographical Introduction
- Iffley, an etching by Wilfrid Ball
- At Iffley, a drawing by Reginald Sharpley
- Iffley Church, an illustration thought to be by F. W. Fairholt
Bibliography
Academy Notes, issues 9-12 (1885). Google Books. Free Ebook.
Chignell, Robert. The Life and Paintings of Vicat Cole RA. Vol. III. 3 vols. London: Cassell, 1896. Internet Archive, digitised from copies in the Getty Research Institute. Web. 29 September 2022.
Iffley Mill. Art UK. Web. 30 September 2022.
"The Royal Academy II: Landscapes and Marine Pictures." Art-Journal 1885. 225-226. Google Books. Free Ebook.
Created 30 September 2022