#john brett

John Brett - "A North West Gale off the Longships Lighthouse" (1873)

This is one of the more ambitious pictures that Brett painted at the peak of his success, from studies made aboard his schooner Viking, which he used as a floating studio. In June of 1883, he set off with his wife, seven children and a crew of twelve on a voyage which took them up the west coast of the British Isles, round the north of Scotland, and down the east coast, ending up at Brightlingsea in mid-October, sketching as he went from a specially constructed deck-house studio. By the end of August they had reached the Isle of Skye. The entry in the ship’s log for 1st September records: ‘Many pencil sketches & sketch [in oil] of Macleod’s Maidens.’ As a coastal painter with an interest in geology, he seems to have preferred low tide (much more interesting), but here his boat was anchored at close to high tide just off Ru Idrigill on Skye, to catch the Maidens at their best, standing in the sea. Close observation from the boat enabled Brett to capture this unique view of the awesome natural phenomena, up to 65m high with their semi-human forms, which few had ever seen, especially from this viewpoint. The Viking was anchored in mud and rock in, at the very least, 15m of water – deep even for a 210 ton vessel in unusually calm weather (at least 45m of chain would have been necessary). It is sure that they did not overnight here. Working up in his studio from sketches, Brett produced this dramatic painting in time for the Royal Academy in 1884. (source)

Fleabag | Anne Carson - glass, irony and god | John Brett - The British Channel Seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs | Josh Pyke - Your heart won't always weigh a tonne | Cowboy Bebop

"Christina Rossetti" 1857

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

John Brett (British, 1831 - 1902), Val d'Aosta, 1858, oil on canvas; private collection.