The foreshadowing of the watercolourists

Huon Mallalieu finds both the familiar and some unexpected, exquisite discoveries among the forerunners of the English School

- Huon Mallalieu

IT has often been said that the English have been preeminent in two branches of the Arts: poetry and watercolour painting. As do all simplifications, that contains a grain of truth, even if poets have been held in suspicion by some English people and watercolour assumed to be a medium for amateurs. The great years of the English School ran from about 1750 to 1850 and the best practitioners gave their work an impact fully equal to oil paintings. I use ‘English’ deliberately here, as, until the 19th century, Scottish and Irish artists were adjuncts to the English School.

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars that preoccupied the central years of that period meant the painters’ innovations were achieved in isolation and came as a revelation to their Continental brethren after 1814. Even if one restricts the discussion to Europe, this does not mean that watercolour was a purely English invention; as with many inventions, it had diverse progenitors and was foreshadowed in different times and places. This is what makes the paused display ‘Renaissance Watercolours’ at the V&A Museum so interesting. I was lucky enough to see it before London went into Tier 4, when I was able to enjoy it almost by myself.

Purists of the English School insisted only translucent colours be used, so highlights came through the washes from the paper, rather than an admixture of opaque pigment, sometimes with a white filler such as chalk, known as gouache or body colour. Such rigid discrimination is now long past and, as with so much else, medium is a matter of individual choice. Gouache is itself water-based and represents one of the essential bloodlines of what became watercolour painting.