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| "Twilight" by Kate Bedell - Homage to John Singer Sargent |
“Twilight” Homage to John Singer Sargent’s “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” 1885-86
In a letter dated 10th September 1885 to his colleague, Edwin Russell, Sargent wrote,
“I am trying to paint a charming thing I saw the other evening. Two little girls in a garden at dark, lighting paper lanterns hung among the flowers from rose-tree to rose-tree. I shall be a long time about it if I don’t give up in despair, and at any rate two months longer in England”.
Indeed, it took Sargent nearly two years before “Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose” was finished due to the limited window of twilight time that was available to him in the garden of a friend’s house in Broadway, Worcestershire, England. The finished piece measures 7 x 5 feet, painted entirely en plein air. Here Sargent captures the soft light and faery-like atmosphere of his two young models, Dolly and ‘Polly’ Barnard in the Impressionist style.
I’ve always loved this painting because of the magical quality it evokes, especially in the muted colour scheme of soft mauves and oranges. In painting “Twilight”, my homage to Sargent, I was concerned with trying to capture the nostalgia of the past; of my own childhood memories of playing out in the twilight of the long summer evenings; of the memories of my daughters, Jennie and Annie when they were that age; and of old photos I have of my grandmother wearing a similar white pinafore to the girls in Sargent’s painting.
As I couldn’t reconstruct my scene to paint it en plein air as Sargent had done, I resolved to set the scene as a still life, including the predominant flowers of lilies and roses, my grandmother’s old china tea cup and a ‘reproduction’ of the painting propped up in the arrangement, depicting images of my own children.
The cameo of Sargent’s masterpiece is painted in a loose watercolour style, to suggest a sketch, hastily done, of a fleeting moment in time. The romantic and luxuriant depictions of flowers in the still life are interspersed with torn pieces from Sargent’s many letters and painting notes. I wanted to create an ‘old fashioned’ atmosphere, cluttered with sentimental ornaments, imagining the heady scent of the profusion of flowers in Sargent’s painting. To counter balance the old, I set some collaged photos of roses into the scene, (printed on mulberry tissue paper) which gives a translucent layered effect to the watercolour. The modern touch this adds to the painting, hints at the present day while the main atmosphere reflects the past and the passing of time.
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| "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose" 1885-86" John Singer Sargent |
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| Working sketch for the painting. |
Kate Bedell
Kate
Bedell, a third generation artist, studied at Dun Laoghaire School of Art and
Design and graduated in 1984 with a distinction in Fine Art. That
same summer, she discovered watercolours
on a painting holiday in Cornwall, and
since then has developed the techniques to incorporate mixed media and collage. Her subject matter is varied and comprises
flowers, still life, landscape and life drawing.
She
has exhibited in the R.H.A. Annual Show, the Mall Galleries, London, and at The
Waterfront in Belfast. In 1999 she
appeared twice on the Channel 4 T.V. programme, “Watercolour Challenge”.
In
2000 she moved to India with her family, and worked on a series of Sunflower
paintings entitled “Eternal Cycles”. While
living in Bangalore for 7 years she did a series of exhibitions of paintings of
Indian Women.
Kate
Bedell is a member of the Watercolour Society of Ireland, The Dublin Painting
and Sketching Club, The Ulster Watercolour Society, and the Ulster Society of
Women Artists. Through these national
societies, Kate has won four prestigious awards for her work. In 2013 she exhibited her work with the USWA in
Stormont to celebrate International Women’s Day.
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