Harold Harvey - Bathers [1913]

Harold Harvey - Bathers [1913], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

As the only member of the Newlyn School who was actually a native of Cornwall, Harold Harvey painted scenes of the activities he saw taking place around him every day and was less interested in illustrating any sort of social commentary on the locals’ way of life.

In its depiction of the simple pleasures of boyhood, this sunlit scene of boys bathing amongst the rocks was almost certainly inspired by Harvey’s own childhood experiences, but it is nonetheless an unusual subject for the artist and may have been inspired by similar works by Henry Scott Tuke, who worked at the time in nearby Falmouth. However, Tuke’s pictures generally focus on male physiognomy, and how it is transformed by the various effects of sunlight and shade, while Harvey’s more purely atmospheric study appears to be more concerned with capturing the warm and contrast of sunlight and the simple joie de vivre it inevitably engenders in the English soul. In this respect, the work is somewhat similar to Laura Knight’s early work in Newlyn.

[Oil on canvas, 48 x 54 cm]