This is the remarkable story of the colony of artists who were inspired
by the people, landscape and light of West Cornwall. Now internationally
celebrated, they are forever to be associated with the small fishing
ports of Newlyn and St Ives. Arriving from the artists' colonies of
France, the Barbizon and Pont-Aven, and the painting schools of London
and Paris, they set up their studios in the cottages and net lofts
overlooking the sea. Here they painted; their subjects centred on the
working life and conditions of the people they lived amongst, and the
stark beauty of the rugged Cornish landscape. Challenging the accepted
styles of the Victorian masters, their bold work, full of light and
colour, often drew upon the working life of the fishermen and their
families, recording the tragedies and simple pleasures of their lives.In
The Shining Sands, Tom Cross records the life and work of these artists,
from the earliest arrivals in the 1870s through to the decade preceding
the Second World War. In this period the artists' colony grew into one
of the most significant art movements of recent times, the influences of
which directly inspired the post-war 'modern' movements, and which
reverberate even today.The Shining Sands includesalmost 100 colour
pictures, and 200 images in all, produced by such artists as Walter
Langley, Frank Bramley, Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Elizabeth
Forbes, Lamorna Birch, Laura Knight, Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood.
The author describes the events and circumstances behind the making of
many of the paintings, adding a further dimension to our appreciation of
these fine works.
