Research Point: Ben Nicholson

I began my reading about Ben Nicholson with a Wikipedia article. It mentions that he had been married three times. His third wife was German photographer Felicitas Vogler. I was curious about her but despite her reputation as a landscape photographer, no photograph of herself was available on the net.

From the Wikipedia article I understood that Ben Nicholson was influenced by cubism and also lived some time in France and the United States. I had to look up where ‘Cornish landscapes’ are – in Cornwall, of course. My first idea in response to the research question, why Nicholson would have superimposed simplified still life forms on these landscapes, was that the choice of forms and simplification mirrors the cubism influence, and integrating the landscape might have reflected his liking for Cornwall.

Tate Gallery shows many of his works on line, this helped to obtain a first impression. There are quite a few silhouette drawings. I especially liked the one of a lying woman. It’s probably not representative for his otherwise more abstract works, but I like the sensitivity of line and the friendlyness and joy in the woman’s face.

Ben Nicholson (1968) Smiling nude

To answer the research point question, it would probably important to know when and for how long Nicholson lived in Cornwall, to see where the stay is placed in his biography and which events may have influenced his works.

But first, I was curious to know more about the Cornish landscape. A Google image search brought up beautiful photographs, for example these two of a cliff and the stony coast.

Cornwall is in the South West of England. It seems to be a very rough landscape, dominated by strong winds from the seaside. The character of this landscape is in marked contrast to my memories of other areas in South England, with a gentler climate, soft green grass and many cows, and very idyllic. I imagine that the very distinct character of this landscape did not fail to capture Nicholson’s admiration.

I then found a highly readable and interesting blog article: Ben Nicholson’s Cornwall. The article discusses the BBC4 documentary ‘The Art of Cornwall’ (2010) and presents artists who lived in Cornwall, together with some of their works. There seemed to have been a very lively and productive artist community from the 1920s on, and Ben Nicholson met Alfred Wallis there, a fisherman who late in his life turned to painting and made beautifully impressive, almost childlike paintings of the sea, fishing boats and the landscape.

According to this article, Nicholson came to Cornwall in order to flee London at the beginning of the Second World War. He first continued with abstract works but landscape more and more returned in his paintings, as for example in this view out of the window.

Ben Nicholson (1943-45) St. Ives

I’d interpret this development in Nicholson’s work as a departure from the strong Cubist influence during the time when he lived and worked in London. Maybe it was a kind of re-connecting to nature, where nature seemed to have been banned by Cubists. At least this is what I conclude from a quote cited in the blog article: Piet Mondrian visited Nicholson in his Hampstead studio, and purportedly said with disapproval, when he saw a tree in the garden through the windows: “Too much nature”. So the Cornish Landscape might have revived Nicholson’s artistic relationship to nature, which had been silenced during a period of strong identification with other influences.

According to an article by the British Museum, Nicholson had been the leading figure in British abstract art in the late 1920s. They present the linocut ‘Three mugs and a bowl’ as an example of Nicholson’s geometric style. And it’s indeed these objects which return in the later Cornish landscape works. The return to nature must have represented a kind of inner landslide for the artist, an attempt to find a solution between abstract idealization and recognizable representation of the outside world.

Ben Nicholson (1928) Three mugs and a bowl