The Sun's my Fire

Joan Carlile, The Carlile Family with Sir Justinian Isham 

in Richmond Park, detail, 1650s

Today we made our way through the Pride crowds in London to Lyon & Turnbull for “Bright Souls”: The Forgotten Story of Britain’s First Female Artists, an exhibition curated by Bendor Grosvenor devoted to Mary Beale, Joan Carlile and Anne Killigrew.  The landscape above and below is by Joan Carlile (1600-79), the first female professional artist in Britain, who lived in Richmond.  I like the fact that it is recognisable as Richmond - a park I have been visiting since I was a child - whilst in its distant vista framed by trees it reveals a rural landscape that has now largely disappeared.  Up close the sky's craquelure is rather beautiful, conveying the distance separating us from the time and place of this group portrait.  The portrait below also contains a  landscape, possibly inspired by a painting seen in the collection of King Charles I (her husband was a courtier).  Beneath the arch of rock, rosy light touches the tips of trees and tops of mountains.  This soft light, contrasting with the bright sheen of the lady's dress, draws you into a world of mist and shadows.  The name of the artist is wrong on the painting - ironically the attribution was to another female artist, Mary Beale.  It was Carlile who, according to Grosvenor, was the first artist of any gender in Britain to master complex landscape backgrounds.

Joan Carlile, Portrait of a Lady, possibly Elizabeth Massingberd, 1650s

Mary Beale mainly painted portraits, as did the third of the artists in Bright Souls, Anne Killigrew, although in her painting below you can see to the left of the lady a dark, melancholy landscape. There is a lake bordered by trees, a ridge of green hills and the last traces of a sunset in the sky.  The sad subject of the picture may be the artist herself, depicted as Venus grieving over Adonis, possibly marking some personal loss.  Sadly, Anne Killigrew was only 25 when she died, already a renowned poet as well as a painter - Dryden compared her to Sappho in his ode 'To The Pious Memory of the Accomplish'd Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew'.  Here is one of her poems, which includes some landscape imagery and takes as its subject one of her own paintings: 'St. John Baptist Painted by her self in the Wilderness, with Angels appearing to him, and with a Lamb by him.'

The Sun's my Fire, when it does shine,
The hollow Spring's my Cave of Wine,
The Rocks and Woods afford me Meat;
This Lamb and I on one Dish eat:  
The neighbouring Herds my Garments send,
My Pallet the kind Earth doth lend:
Excess and Grandure I decline,  
M'Associates onely are Divine.

Anne Killigrew, Portrait of a Lady, probably the Artist, detail, c. 1685

The image above is a screen grab from the exhibition video trailer, which I have embedded below.  I'm afraid today was the last day of Brights Souls, but I suspect over time we will see more exhibitions devoted to these artists.