Why painters came
From the nineteenth century onward, painters began to gather in Cornwall in significant numbers. The reasons were partly artistic and partly practical. The coast offered strong subjects: fishing boats, harbors, cliffs and shifting weather. Light was often cited as an attraction, although that idea has its own complications, which are discussed in the article on Cornish light. Living costs in small fishing communities were lower than in cities, and studios or cottages could be rented cheaply. The arrival of the railway made the journey from London far easier, which is covered in the article on railway tourism.
Together these factors created several clusters of artists, usually described as artist colonies. The term suggests something more organized than the reality. These were loose communities of people who shared streets, studios, exhibitions and arguments.
Newlyn and open-air realism
Newlyn, a working fishing port near Penzance, became the center of a group of painters in the 1880s, often called the Newlyn School. Many had trained in Britain and in France, where open-air painting and everyday subjects were fashionable. They aimed to paint real life as they saw it, often working outdoors and using local people as models. Fishermen, their families, boats on the shore and scenes of village life became popular themes.
Their pictures were shown in London and found a wide audience, helping to shape the image of Cornish fishing communities for the public. Like all portrayals, these were selective. Painters were outsiders who sometimes idealized hardship, and some residents may have had mixed feelings about being looked at. Modern historians tend to discuss both the quality of the work and the question of whose view it presents.
St Ives and the next wave
St Ives, on the north coast, attracted artists in the later nineteenth century, including visitors who painted its harbor and beaches. Over time it became a town with a significant number of studios, societies and exhibition spaces. It also drew writers and potters, so the community was never restricted to painters. The comparison between north and south coasts offers one explanation for the different character of the two main centers, since each has its own light and harbors; the article on the north and south coast compared gives the geography.
By the early twentieth century, many artists were interested in color and in simplifying forms. Some looked to developments in France and elsewhere. The result was a local scene in which traditional landscape painters worked beside experimental ones, not always comfortably.
Modern art arrives
In the late 1930s, several artists with international connections settled in or near St Ives, partly in response to the political situation in Europe. They included painters and sculptors who were interested in abstraction. After the Second World War, a group of artists working in the town developed a distinctive modern art scene, in which the landscape and the sea were often starting points even when the pictures did not show recognizable scenery. The work could be abstract in form while still being inspired by the coast.
Museums and galleries in the county now display and research this period, and visitors often include them in a trip. Opening times and exhibitions change, so check before traveling. The article on sculpture and public art touches on three-dimensional work from the same period.
A shared subject, many styles
It is worth stressing that “Cornish painting” is not a single style. Over a century and a half, artists in the county have worked in many modes:
- Detailed realism, with careful depiction of people and boats.
- Impressionist-influenced work focused on color and atmosphere.
- Naive and self-taught painting, often by people from local working backgrounds.
- Abstraction, in which shapes and colors evoke a place rather than depict it.
- Contemporary work, which can include photography, installation and digital art.
What unites them is not technique but proximity: all these artists responded, in different ways, to the same stretches of land and sea.
Mining, moors and the inland scene
Most accounts focus on coastal towns, but artists have also painted the inland landscape. Engine houses, quarries, china clay tips, granite tors and moorland scenes appear in the work of painters who were interested in the industrial and prehistoric landscape as well as the sea. Bodmin Moor and the tors of West Penwith have inspired their own bodies of work. This inland strand is sometimes overlooked, partly because the harbors were easier subjects to sell.
Artists and the local community
The arrival of artists had economic and social effects. They brought business to lodging houses, shops and framers, and they increased the visibility of the places they painted. They also contributed to the growth of tourism and sometimes to rising property values, which remain sensitive issues in coastal towns. Opinions about these effects differ, and it would be wrong to claim that everyone sees them in the same way.
Seeing the landscape as a painter might
You do not need training to enjoy the connection between painting and place. A few simple suggestions:
- Visit a gallery first and then walk the coast. Notice what the pictures leave out, and what you see now that the artist emphasized.
- Look at the same view at different times of day. Differences in light and tide often explain why painters returned to one place.
- Remember that sketching near cliffs or tidal areas carries the same risks as any coastal activity. Keep well back from edges and follow the advice in the guide to coastal safety.
The artist colonies were never a tidy school or movement. They were groups of individuals who found the same corner of Britain useful and inspiring, and their work has become part of how the county is seen both by outsiders and, increasingly, by people who live there.