Mark Hearld's Work Book: A Delightful World of Nature By A Modern British Artist

 

This lavish, full-colour book packed with the work of Yorkshire artist Mark Hearld is a feast for the eyes and full of images to inspire one to get busy with the paints.  I first heard of Mark Hearld about three years ago or so and instantly was attracted to his work, and this book was a much desired Christmas present last year, and the first book I read this year.  At the time I found out about his art I quickly discovered some other contemporary artists and for me it was a change to actually admire artists who were alive, as I'd always only been interested in centuries old paintings and artists long gone and had a dislike for most modern art, but this is modern art of a very different type, for this is art inspired by nature and a certain kind of folk art cosiness, not (for me) the scary and incomprehensible modern art of an abstract and cold, hard style with obscure meaning that I was forced to learn a bit about in college.  In more recent years I discovered how limited my art education had been concerning certain times and movements and have tried to make up for it somewhat.  So much of what I had to study I had a strong distaste for, which is a shame for, as unlike the views of some, I believe art should be beautiful, or at least attractive.  I want nothing to do with ugliness in artistic creations, there is enough ugliness in modern society without adding to it, we need good things. 

Mark Hearld's book (which I suspect will be the first of many as he is so amazingly prolific) is full of good things, an abundance of paintings, pottery, linocuts, woodcuts and collages of brightness and charm, many having a look of freedom and looseness in the execution (like the forces of nature such as wind and rain), although other pieces are of a much more controlled and arranged form.  His pictures sometimes look deceptively simplistic, yet when you look further more and more impressive details come into view.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes animal and nature-inspired art or mid-century British art, which is the main inspiration of Mark Hearld.  I do hope a workbook volume two will be published in the near future.

 

 

 

Here are two wonderful videos about Mark Hearld's work:

Forest's Robe: Autumn Verses

 

Forest's Robe- Penhaligon's Scented Treasury Of Autumn Verse And Prose, edited by Sheila Pickles, is a lovely little book that I've had in my collection for quite a few years.  It is one of those pretty little hardcover books full of old poems, prose and beautiful paintings, this one being all related to Autumn.  Evocative titles of pieces include:  A Mellow Afternoon, Autumnal, The Hayloft, Apple-Picking, The Plough, Autumn Fires, Harvest Time, Wild Plum Jam, Through the Woods, October, Michaelmas Daisies, Gathering Leaves, Apple Harvest...

The book is indeed scented, after all those years that beautiful soft scent is still there.  Having a very sensitive nose and exceptionally keen sense of smell, I usually cannot abide perfume, but this scent is so lovely that it does not irritate, it is a comforting scent.  Here is the description in the back of the book:

"Penhaligon's autumn pot-pourri is called Forest's Robe, composed of the bark, oakmoss, pine cones and other treasures of the forest floor.
Oakmoss is gathered from the old oak forests of Eastern Europe and buckthorn bark comes from the great trees of North America.  These are mixed with cypress cones, bay and uva ursi leaves, bakuli nuts from Malaysia, alder seed pods and cassurina cones from the Mediterranean.
With its natural blend of wood and moss, Forest's Robe has a beguiling green scent which perfumes the endpapers of this book and perfectly captures the spirit of autumn."

Autumn is my favourite season of the year; its special, subtle, quieter charms can delight more than other seasons, although there is boldness in the bright turning of leaves and vibrant flowers that demand to be noticed.

Who could resist a fresh, sweet and fragrant apple? 
Here is an excerpt, from 'A Year in a Lancashire Garden' by Henry A. Bright, 1891:

APPLE HARVEST

"Our Apple harvest has been over for nearly a fortnight; but how pleasant the orchard was while it lasted, and how pleasant the seat in the corner by the Limes, whence we see the distant spire on the green wooded slopes.  The grey, gnarled old apple-trees have, for the most part, done well.  The Ribston Pippins are especially fine, and so is an apple, which we believe to be the King of the Pippins.....Indeed all eating apples, with but few exceptions, are best when freshly gathered, or, better still, when, on some clear soft day. they have just fallen on the grass, and lie there, warmed by the rays of the autumn sun."

A Rambling Miscellany Of Summery Verses and Pictures

 As we are in the midst of summer, it seems a miscellany of summery verses gathered from various books and songs would be a lovely seasonal touch.  Imagine being under a shady tree with a particularly fine picnic laid out, and of course, the temperature not too hot with a gentle breeze.  Lose yourself in all this romantic imagery of nature in Summer.

 

 

 

"The word 'summer' comes from the Sanskrit asma, meaning 'half-year'.  Like the year itself, summer is divided into seasons, low summer, midsummer, high summer.  Low summer is scarcely more advanced than high spring because several species of migrant birds have only lately arrived, and the woods shine as they did in May.  Midsummer is more spacious.  From dawn till dusk the sun spans our waking hours and overlaps them with a long arc which George Meredith drew with a short line: 'This was a day that knew not age.'   High summer bestows almost a surfeit of colour and scent, for the corn is yellowing, the chrysanthemums are flowering and the honeysuckle yields a second crop..."  J.H.B. Peel, from Calvacade of Summer Riches

"A Brimstone butterfly drifted with the wind over the waving grasses, and settled on the shallow cup of a tall flower, John-go-to-bed-at-noon.  The bright flowers were closing, for the sun was high.  It paused for an instant only, and then fluttered over the hedge and was gone.  Came a common white butterfly-a weed of the air, hated by the countrymen; yet part of summer's heart as it flickered like a strayed snowflake in the sunshine, passing the whorled spires of red-green sorrel and glazed petals of buttercup, living its brief hour among the scents and colours of summer. 
Vibrating their sun-crisped wings with shrill hum, the hover-flies shot past:  the wild bumble-bees sang to themselves as in a frenzy of labour for their ideal they took the pollen from the roses in the hedge; the cuckoos sent call after call of melody from the distant hazel coppice.  The sound of summer was everywhere, the earth filled with swelling ecstasy-everything so green and alive, the waving grasses and the hawthorns; the green kingdom charged and surcharged with energy, from the wild strawberry to the mighty, sap-surfeited bole of the oak.  Although so still, the vast earth was humming and vibrating, the crescendo of passion reached gradually while the sun  swept nearer, day by day, the zenith of its curve."  Henry Williamson, Meadow Grasses


Gather Meadowsweet For Its Invigorating Scent:

"Meadowsweet originally 'mead-sweet', takes its name from its use in flavouring honey-mead drinks.  It is reported that the flowers boiled in wine and drunk to make the heart merry.  The leaves and flowers far excel all other strewing herbs, for to deck up houses, to strew in chambers, halls and banquetting houses in the Summer time:  for the smell thereof makes the heart merry, delightest the senses." Gerald, Herball 1597

"Also used against fevers and malaria, meadowsweet contains a substance similar to aspirin.  In the Highlands it is called Crios Chuchulainn, 'Cuchullain's belt' because the great Ulster hero revived himself by binding it around his waist."  from, A Celtic Book of Days

"The high grasslands on a summer day have an idyllic quality.  They are remote and quiet.  They are green and kind to the eye.  They are ease to the feet, the flowers have great variety and a new beauty, and the very pebbles among which they grow have a sparkle and show of colour...Take a little tent and remain in the quietness for a few days.  It is magnificent to rise in the morning in such a place."   Sir Frank Fraser Darling, The Highlands and Islands

Summer has spread a cool, green tent
Upon the bare poles of this tree;
Where 'tis joy to sit all day,
And hear the small birds' melody;
To see the sheep stand bolt upright,
Nibbling at grass almost their height.
How much I marvel now how men
Can waste their fleeting days in greed;
That one man should desire more gold
Than twenty men should truly need;
For is not this green tone more sweet
Than any chamber of the great? 
W. H. Davies


"Is there any light quite like the June sun of the North and West?  It takes trouble out of the world." 
 Sir Frank Fraser Darling (1903-1979) Island Days

SUMMERY VERSES in Scots from traditional Scottish folk songs

Oh the Gallowa' hills are covered with broom, Wi' heather bells, in bonnie bloom;
Wi' heather bells an rivers a', An I'll gang oot ower the hills to Gallowa'...

High up amang yon Hieland hills
There lives a bonnie maiden,
And she's gone oot ane fine summer's night
To watch all the soldiers paradin'....

Oh the summer time is come and the trees are sweetly bloomin'
And the wild mountain thyme grows amang the bloomin' heather...

Let us go lassie, go, tae the braes o' Balquhidder,
Whar the blueberries grow 'mang the bonnie Hielan' heather;
Whar the deer and the rae, lichtly bounding thegither,
Sport the lang summer day on the braes o' Balquhidder.

Noo the summer's in prime, wi' the flooers richly bloomin',
Wi' the wild mountain thyme a' the moorlan's perfumin';
Tae oor dear native scenes let us journey thegither,
Whar glad innocence reigns, 'mang the braes o' Balquhidder. 
Robert Tannahill

Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt though go?   

Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on,
Soon will the musk carnations break and swell
Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon,
Sweet William with its homely cottage-smell,
And stocks in fragrant blow;
Roses that down the alleys shine afar,
And open, jasmine-muffled lattices,
And groups under the dreaming garden-trees,
And the full moon, and the white evening star.     (Matthew Arnold)


               SUMMER, by John Clare

The oak's slow-opening leaf, of deepening hue, 
Bespeaks the power of Summer once again;
While many a flower unfolds its charms to view,
To glad the entrance of his sultry reign.
Where peep the gaping speckled cuckoo-flowers,
Sweet is each rural scene she brings to pass;
Prizes to rambling school-boys' vacant hours,
Tracking wild searches through the meadow grass:
The meadow-sweet taunts high its showy wreath,
And sweet the quaking-grasses hide beneath.
Ah, 'barr'd from all that sweetens life below,
Another Summer still my eyes can see
Freed from the scorn and pilgrimage of woe,
To share the Seasons of Eternity.

"It was a bright morning in the early part of summer; the river had resumed its wonted banks, and a hot sun seemed to be pulling everything green and bushy up out of the earth, as if by strings.  The Mole and Water Rat had been up since dawn, busy on matters connected with boats and the boating season; painting and varnishing, mending paddles, repairing cushions, hunting for missing boat-hooks, and so on..." Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious wood-bine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine;
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight....
                           William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

 

 

 

Paintings by: Samuel Palmer, Eric Ravilious,  Tirzah Garwood, Charles Robinson, Inga Moore, Vanessa Bell, unknown, Inga Moore,  Arthur Rackham, Helen Allingham, Stanley Spencer