Sark

Though undated, the picture is a particularly beautiful example of the landscapes that Frampton painted late in his career, perhaps partly in response to a dwindling demand for the literary figure subjects with which he had made his name. He travelled widely in search of suitable views, finding them in Sussex, Cumberland, the Channel Islands, Brittany, and the Bernese Oberland. Though based on actual scenery, the landscapes are treated in the formalised style that he had adopted for his figure compositions, a style heavily influenced by Burne-Jones and his own early practice as an artist in stained glass.

Frampton was a keen sailor, and Sark is one of many paintings in which he expressed his love of the sea. This seldom emerges in his landscapes, which are generally landlocked scenes, but it often has a bearing on his figure subjects: St Brandan, Navigation, The Childhood of Perseus, The Passage of the Holy Grail to Sarras, and so on. Also highly characteristic in the present picture is the treatment of the foreground. As Rudolf Dircks observed in 'Mr Reginald Frampton's Landscapes', an article published in the Studio in 1923 (vol. 86, pp. 3-9), 'a favourite introduction by the artist' in these works is 'a patch of wild flowers' along the lower edge of the canvas. Indeed, one of the examples Dircks illustrates is The Island of Brecqhou, off Sark, a painting so similar to ours in theme and composition that it must have been conceived and executed at about the same time.