Modern art takes to the waves
In 1933 Cunard commissioned paintings from Edward Wadsworth and other leading British artists for its new flagship liner, the "Queen Mary". But, as Abbie N. Sprague explains, artistic expression had to bend to commercial taste.
Abbie N. Sprague, Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Arrival, the smaller of the two paintings, depicts a single column encircled by a pink ribbon and crowned by a spider conch shell (Fig. 4).28 Wadsworth was enthusiastic about this painting. In a letter to Maxwell Armfield, a fellow tempera artist, he wrote, ‘As regards to my qm panels, I should be delighted to show them to you – especially the one I am working on now…which is almost finished. It is rather like what I was doing seven years ago, shells, marine objects, etc. but with a rather more severe composition.’29
Since it was part of his original concept, Wadsworth was naturally happiest with this painting, although he understood that not all members of the public would understand his work. The Glasgow Daily Mail ran the headline, ‘Problem Picture in the Queen Mary’. When asked by the reporter why he had painted the picture, Wadsworth offhandedly said, ‘Just to please myself.’ His glib response, which was most likely devised for less-than-serious journalism, was taken as the artist’s explanation of the painting. He told the Mail: ‘Those shells are symbols of organic life and are therefore the biggest objects in the pictures, just as the Queen Mary, the largest object in life, becomes the smallest.…The cork float is a symbol of buoyancy, whilst the sextant and masthead light are symbols of orientation. The chain stands for security, and the anchor for faith.’30
Wadsworth’s comments found their way into media coverage and promotional brochures. It is unlikely, however, that he actually viewed the painting in this way. As he stated in Herbert Read’s book Unit 1 (1934), ‘A picture is primarily the animation of an inert plane surface by spatial rhythm of forms and colours.’31 The objects’ role was to play a part in the composition, not to exist for symbolic meaning. Form is what intrigued Wadsworth and challenged him as an artist. Any symbolism, he claimed, was accidental.
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