Yeadon’s Englandia

11 years, 2 months ago New work and Exhibitions 0

Yeadon’s ENGLANDIA.

An exhibition of 50 recent paintings on national identity.

JohannStadthalle, Dresden, Germany.

7 September – 6 November 2013

Landscape With Pylon 2

The exhibition, Englandia, is in between fiction and autobiography and is what I have jokingly referred to as auto-plagiarism. The theme of the work is, in part, the contradictions between the natural and the artificial. Tommy, my mother’s ventriloquist dummy*, whom I now look after, signifies artifice and is a kind of mascot to the show, like Alfred E. Newman in the American Mad magazine, of my teens, he gives a commentary. Tommy is an agent of free speech.

The landscape paintings are an enquiry into national identity. If I was to paint a thatched cottage with roses around the door, that would be ironic, is not the cliché ironic? National identity is a myth and Englishness a construct. Here England is the myth, or at best, a metaphor.

There is no such thing as the national character as if it is permanently fixed in the fabric our cultural DNA. National characteristics are invented and can change. In the 18th century the English were known on the continent as the weepy ones of Europe, as slaves to their emotions, passionate like the Russians or Latinos are characterised these days. It was exuberance not reserve that characterised the British, it was about showing feelings, the sentimental was fashionable, this was the Cult of Sensibility. A far cry from the stiff upper lip, which was a middle class construct of the public schools, “little boys do not cry“, heralded the development of the officer class where Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. E M Foster said of the educational system that the Public School produces boys with bottled up emotions. “They go forth with well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds and undeveloped hearts.” The transformation from the display of feelings to emotional restraint is the difference between Trafalgar and Waterloo, between the passionate and Romantic hero of the ‘kiss me Hardy” Nelson to ‘the ice of character‘ of Wellington. Wellington’s national characteristics become a treatise on patriotism, epitomising British understated resilience, stoicism, calmness, restraint and determination. He even burnt his violin, for him feelings were not appropriate for winning battles and he also referred to the rank and file soldier of his army as “scum of the earth“. The Empire was built on this, the stiff upper lip with a little help from the scum of the earth and not the lachrymose Romantic of the 18th century.

British understatement is the stuff of legend, we have, Raleigh finishing off his game of bowls in face of the Spanish Armada or when struck by a cannon ball Lord Uxbridge said, “By God sir, I’ve lost my leg!” Wellington retorted, “By God sir, so you have!” Or the famous Captain Oates quote of self sacrifice on Scott’s fated Polar expedition – “I am just going outside and may be some time“. All jolly good Boys Own fun, the Empire was theatre, a show of ‘derring do’ and British ‘pluck’. The defiant call of the British newsreel during WW11, “Britain can take it” – the ‘Blitz spirit’, was government propaganda, where national identity became the same as patriotism. In fact the Blitz spirit is something of a myth, with rationing, looting, the Black Market and profiteering, where prostitution was rife in London, police numbers were restricted and the black out meant it was difficult to police the streets. By 1942, 20,000 had been killed during bombing but the same number had died because of accidents due to the black out. There was much to be demoralised about – the Blitz, up to 35% had left London by 1940 and in Coventry many went to live rough in the countryside outside the city. The King and Queen were booed when they visited the East End of London which clearly belied the Blitz spirit.

Deliberately not giving way ones emotions can be seen as one side of a British repressed character, the other Victorian characteristic is – not to talk about sex. Again, this is a construct, Foucault points out that the 18th century was a time when bodies made a display of themselves, a bawdiness that we see in Cruikshank that would shock the Victorians and some people today.

The latest national characteristic seems to be that ‘we can laugh at ourselves’, a claim made at last year’s opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. This is what I wrote last year on the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games 2012, Isles of Wonder.

“Fish and chips? Elgar, Parry, Jerusalem and chips? Shakespeare and curry, sand castles, Christmas puddings? Cricket? Football? James Bond and the Monarchy? Or friendly policemen, unemployment queues? Omnishambles? Cold and depressed or a warm beery England? British reserve, Wellington’s stiff upper lip or drunken loutishness of a Friday night city centre monoculture. Or the fact that “we can laugh at ourselves”, (where did that one come from?). A rural idyll or inner city crisis, decay and riots? One nation, multicultural or class war? London on fire! Maybe, ‘Trainspotting’ or ‘Billy Elliot’? Alcohol, drugs and more nostalgia for miners and brass bands? Or perhaps a typically English compromise of it all!” (see Lesson 5, Blog Yeadon’s Art Lessons)

link: http://johnyeadon.com/blog/?p=3087

Danny Boyle’s declaration on national identity was a travesty of history. For instance, the move from a rural economy to an industrial one was tragic and dramatic for many, Boyle’s representation of the industrial revolution and rural life was simplistic, perpetuating sentimental symbolism and mythology.

National identity is inevitably diverse, like the dichotomy between the forces of the English Civil War that are still amongst us. The dichotomy between the Roundhead and the Cavalier. The democratic, egalitarian Roundhead, hardworking, professional and high-minded, whilst the Cavalier would represent the elitist, dictatorial, pleasure seeking character, flamboyant, drunk, immodest, the frivolous, fun side of the English personality. We are all a bit of some of the above. Today in this multicultural society it seems that national identity is up for grabs, it is whatever you might wish it to be.

The derogatory terms – Frog, Kraut and Roast Beef, see food as a kind of mimesis, as a signifier of national identity and we have even regionally identity – Scouse. Food, its customs and its origins also reveals many contradictions, as I pointed out in my text for my exhibition on food, Pabulum, in 2006.

“National identity is propped up by a false yet reassuring sense of the continuity of tradition. Our traditions are rarely as old or as ethnically harmonious as ‘tradition’ might imply. Traditions are inventions and everything has a history. Fish and chips, our national dish, for instance, was introduced to the East End of London by Jewish immigrants in the 19th century, chips being French, of course. Curry has been a part of the English diet for longer than fish and chips and even the macho eating of hot vindaloo features in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. (Vindaloo being of Portuguese origin from Goa). Morris dancing – the seminal English folk dance – was originally introduced into England from Moorish Spain and Islamic North Africa by British sailors. The Morris also retains some of the sailors dance movements. Interestingly, Islamic Spain is also the origin of the Spanish ‘national dance’, the Flamenco. Whilst batter puddings were also known in the south of England as well as in Yorkshire, ketchup is derived from the Chinese sauce ke-tsp. Even the whole of Scotland was reinvented in the 19th century by Sir Walter Scott and Queen Victoria. After years of cruel repression by the English following the Jacobite rebellion, Scotland became a Romantic tourist destination. The highland Games are not ancient but Victorian, becoming popular through Royal patronage. Haggis was eaten in ancient Greece and Rome. The first reference to haggis in Britain was in Lancashire and probably brought over by the Vikings. Whiskey was invented in Italy. The kilt is Irish (the word kilt being Danish), the word Tartan is derived from the French ‘tiretain’ in reference to woven cloth. The traditional British Christmas is also a Victorian invention. The Christmas tree has its pagan origins in Germany and was made popular in Britain by Prince Albert and the turkey is an American!

Our assumptions about what is quintessentially British or even European are usually erroneous. British culture stems from a distant and diverse past and is the product of a multiplicity of cultures and traditions brought about by invasion, trade, theft, colonialism, Empire and immigration”.

Recently I have been looking at painters that are regarded as typically English – Nash, Sutherland, Piper, Eric Ravilous, Arthur Claude Stracham, Myles Birket Foster, Helen Allingham and the idealised landscape of the British railway posters. Of great interest is also the Recording Britain project from the years of WW11, where amateur artists were invited to paint their local scenes to preserve them, all redolent of Englishness. Not wishing to emulate these works, rather, I would wish to subvert them and parody them.

How would we describe English landscape painting? English landscape painting begins in the 18th century and much landscape painting is about ownership, wealth and labour. With Birket Foster and the other Victorians we see the sentimentalisation of rural life, poverty and labour. Other painting seems to be about meteorology, the favourite English topic and national obsession – the weather. Constable and Turner studied clouds (a sensible thing to do when half your painting might be sky!). They knew the young Quaker Luke Howard’s essay on Modifications of Clouds, of 1802, where Howard categorised clouds like species of plants and animals. An interest in extreme weather was as a product of Romanticism, the sublime, powerful forces of nature, the storm, terrifying and intimidating. The picturesque was also an invention of the British who where the first ‘tourists’. The Picturesque 18th century landscape would contain craggy rocks, ruins, follies and a crumbling classical or historic building, looking at ruins in the 18th century was an aesthetic and Romantic pastime.

I am interested in those who complain about wind turbines ruining the ‘natural beauty’ of the countryside, for me, wind farms, pylons and the National Grid wires define and articulate space. They are dramatic, like the industrial buildings that feature in the work of the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. As with Quixote’s windmills they have the heroism of giants. The wind mills of Holland or the Fens in Norfolk are regarded as picturesque, yet they are just old technology, old machines. The windmill was a symbol of power, along with the Church and the Manor House, the windmill would have been a large and prominent building in the town or village and the windmill tied the peasant to the Lord who owned the mill. Nostalgia seems to play a role here. The past is good, we can lie about the past and pretend it was an easier life and a more beautiful place. Constable’s Hay Wain was a painting of a bygone age, already nostalgic when the paint was wet. The landscape was not always a thing to be looked at or regarded as beautiful or painted. For the townsperson it had to be borne, to be feared, to travel through with difficulty and danger. Bad roads meant that accidents were common and traveling by stage coach portended that you could be robbed and had to contend with highwaymen and then there were the bogs and marshes! This was a time of superstition and folk lore, so the countryside was also haunted by evil spirits. However, for the farmer and his labourer it was the site of work. The countryside has been the location of labour since Neolithic times, it has been transformed by the removal of the great forests, by agriculture and animal husbandry, divided into a patchwork by dry stone walls, fences and hedges, roads, canals and railways. In this sense the countryside is also the scene of toil, hardship, poverty, cruelty, exploitation, human drama and politics as much as and as artificial as the urban setting.

Every tree you see has been planted, somebody decided where it should go, its placement has been designed. We do not have any or much real wilderness left, the natural state of Britain and indeed, Europe, would be unbroken forest. In the 18th century Cumbria was feared as it was hostile, bleak, forbidding and dangerous. Three hundred years ago the Lake district was a place to be avoided. Daniel Defoe wrote in 1724 that the Lakes District was “the wildest, most barren and frightful of any that I have passed over in England…” This view of the English landscape prevailed until some early 19th century poets ‘discovered’ this wild landscape or rather constructed it. This was a revolution in how the English think and feel about landscape, these poets and artists wished to show nature at its most terrifying and intimidating, fragile humans in awe of nature. This was Romanticism – the sublime. The isolation and dangers of the Lakes District suited this movement. Mountain wilderness gave an escape from the industrial revolution. Lead by artists and poets, later botanists, geologists, mountain climbers and tourists followed. Cumbria was the closest we had to the Alps and it was Romanticism that conceptually transformed a remote wilderness into a site of ‘outstanding natural beauty’ and it is this view of the landscape that still predominates. W. H. Auden understood the social construction of the Lake District when he asked:

Am I to see in the Lake District, then,

Another bourgeois invention like a piano?

Today, ‘wilderness’ is seen as a precious national resource for tourism, wild life reserves and heritage, the Lake District is a National Park protected by the National Trust. No wind farms in the Lake District!

Gardens and Parks are an important part of the English psyche, bringing the countryside into the town, but the artificiality of the golf course is one step too far. Agreeing that golf spoils a pleasant walk in the countryside, I despised the manicured landscape of the golf course, this sanitised landscape is too fake, like a gated village, too middle class and guarded. My final notion of the English landscape is the garden. Capability Brown constructed his gardens like a classical landscape as if from a Claude. Yet, Brown designed gardens that were informal, ‘natural’, from which you could look out into the ‘real’ countryside. With the use of a Ha-Ha, based on a French military trench, the Ha-Ha, (the name coming from ladies who venture too near the edge), stopped the livestock in fields getting onto your ‘natural’ garden. Brown made a seamless transition between garden to the countryside beyond, thus making the landscape part of the garden. In this sense all of England becomes a garden, all of England is part of this design.

Englandia is a series of follies, some architectural, others like the Duck House which is also a human folly of political corruption. Some paintings are ironic, cynical portrayals or parodies of archetypes or stereotypes on Englishness, whilst others might seem to create a new Englishness. Some of these landscapes are autobiographical, the pollarded trees, for instance, are from drawings I did in my sketchbook in 1967, others are unidealized, pylons and all, others, humours or just banal. The use of portrait format for landscapes is not conventional and in some cases it is designed to give the impression of a view, briefly glimpsed, perhaps from a train. This new series of paintings is intended to subvert and challenge the myths, preconceptions and contradictions surrounding Englishness and national identity, however, looking finishes the work and it will be the viewer who will decide what the paintings are really about, despite my intentions.

John Yeadon July 2013

*Note – My grandmother Annie Howarth, was a professional ventriloquist, stage name Josephine Langley (Madame Langley Lady Ventriloquist). She toured the music hall stage for 12 years, playing at the London Coliseum and the Moss Empire theatre circuit as second on the bill from 1911. Johnny Green was her male doll who also features in the exhibition along with Tommy. (see Family of Ventriloquists, BLOG – New Work and Exhibitions)

link: http://johnyeadon.com/blog/?p=194

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