More things you didn't know FLAG had done #5

 

Image Wiki Commons Mike Peel license CC BY-SA 4.0

Watercolour painting by Mary Wadham 

Detail of the painting showing geese. We are unable to show the full painting because of copyright 

This painting takes us just a few miles from Leamington, to one of Warwickshire’s most atmospheric historic houses:

Purchased by FLAG and presented to the Gallery in 1980, the painting is a lovely example of something which has always been important to the Friends: supporting artists with a connection to the local area, while also building the Gallery’s collection of work that reflects the landscape, history and character of Warwickshire.

And what a subject Wadham chose.

Baddesley Clinton is a remarkable moated manor house whose history stretches back more than 500 years. Much of the house we see today dates from the late 16th century, when Henry Ferrers, a lawyer, diarist and antiquarian, carried out extensive work on the building. Its moat, bridge and gatehouse give it an almost storybook appearance, but behind that picturesque exterior lies a rather more dramatic history. During the religious conflicts of the 1590s, Baddesley became a place of refuge for Catholic priests, who were concealed in its secret hiding places.

The house also has a particularly strong artistic history of its own. In the 19th century it was home to Rebecca Dulcibella Orpen, later Rebecca Ferrers, a talented amateur artist who produced a large body of work in both oil and watercolour. She lived there with her husband Marmion Ferrers, her aunt Georgiana, Lady Chatterton, and Edward Heneage Dering. The group became known as “The Quartet”, and immersed themselves in painting, music, poetry, literature and the preservation of the house. At least 78 of Rebecca's paintings are known today, many still hanging at Baddesley Clinton.

So there is something especially appropriate about a later 20th-century artist choosing Baddesley Clinton as her subject.

Looking closely

Wadham’s watercolour is less interested in presenting Baddesley as a grand architectural monument than in capturing its atmosphere and setting.

The house occupies the middle distance, its pale stonework catching the light beneath the dark canopy of trees. The moat is just as important as the building itself. Its relatively still surface gives us a second Baddesley Clinton, a softened, broken reflection beneath the real one.

And then there are the geese! They might seem like a small, incidental detail, but they give the picture life. Against the substantial medieval architecture and the heavy trees, the two birds introduce movement and a little bit of everydayness. This isn't simply an architectural study: it is a place that is inhabited by nature.

There is also a clever compositional device at work. The large tree on the right acts almost like a curtain, framing the view and leading the eye inward towards the house. The darker greens and browns around the edges contrast with the much lighter building, while the patches of white and pale blue in the water and sky keep the centre of the picture luminous.

Watercolour is particularly well suited to this subject. Rather than giving us every architectural detail with hard precision, Wadham allows the paint to dissolve in places. The foliage is suggested through loose marks; reflections break apart; the stone walls appear weathered rather than clinically described.

And perhaps that is why the painting remains so appealing more than forty years after FLAG presented it to the Gallery. It records a very specific place, but it isn't merely a record of a building. It captures the strange combination of history, water, trees, wildlife and quietness that makes Baddesley Clinton so distinctive.

There is even a nice historical coincidence in the date. 1980 was the year in which Baddesley Clinton passed into National Trust ownership, after the Ferrers-Walker family sold the estate to the Government and it was subsequently conveyed to the Trust.

That is exactly the kind of story we want to celebrate as FLAG reaches 60: local places, local artists, and a local community helping to make sure that art inspired by our corner of Warwickshire becomes part of a public collection for everyone to enjoy.