Hammond Smith is the author and biographer of Albert Goodwin, Leigh-on-Sea: F Lewis, 1977.

"It is a great relief in an exhibition like this", wrote the art critic of The Spectator in his review of the RWS Winter Exhibition of 1881, "which is mainly one of the disciplined skill exerted in somewhat commonplace directions, to turn to pictures like Mr. Goodwin's, wherein the poetic feeling is so strong as to make us forget the technical skill which the artist possesses".

1
Under the Hedge, No. 156

2
FM Brown to James Leathart, 12 July 1864

3
Spectator, 8 December 1883

4
Spectator, 15 May 1886

5
Spectator, 4 May 1889 Albert Goodwin had shown himself to be an artist with an individual vision from an early age, exhibiting his first picture at the Royal Academy 1, when he was just fifteen years old; and when he was still only nineteen years old, his master, Ford Madox Brown , writing to James Leathart, a patron of the Pre-Raphaelites , praised the work of his young pupil, predicting that "there can be no doubt of his becoming before long one of the greatest landscape painters of the age"2. Although it may be debatable whether Goodwin ever quite attained the pinnacle of distinction predicted by Brown, his , which has an unmistakable character of its own, has rarely ceased to attract admirers and patrons, of whom the most distinguished was undoubtedly John Ruskin . Moreover, contemporary reviews of his work exhibited at the RWS in the 1870s and 1880s, variously refer to him as being "the most imaginative member of the society"3; as "still the most interesting of the landscape painters here, and he is almost the only one in whom landscape receives any touch of ideal quality"4; and "he stands quite alone in his power of imparting a touch of fairy influence to his landscapes."5

6
The best public collection of Goodwin's work is to be found in Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery

7
Notes on Prout and Hunt in E. T. Cook and A Wedderburn (editors), The Works of John Ruskin, London: George Allen, 1903-1912, Volume 14 7
Notes on Prout and Hunt in E. T. Cook and A Wedderburn (editors), The Works of John Ruskin, London: George Allen, 1903-1912, Volume 14 Goodwin was born in Maidstone6 in 1845, just three years before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded, and two years after the publication of Ruskin’s first volume of Modern Painters. These dates are significant because it was in the artistic circles generated by Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites that Goodwin developed as an artist — first in the studio of Arthur Hughes , then under the supervision of F. M. Brown , and finally as a protégé of Ruskin. Although the Pre-Raphaelites were not primarily landscape painters, their views on 'truth to nature', and their practice of working directly from nature for the landscape settings of their pictures, inevitably influenced most contemporary landscape painters in the 1850s and 1860s; and in his Notes on Prout and Hunt, Ruskin quite rightly described Goodwin's work as having been "founded first on strong Pre - Raphaelite veracities"7. Goodwin was, in fact, extremely fortunate in being taught by Brown, who is by far the most original and interesting of the landscape painters associated with the Pre-Raphaelite circle; however, despite Brown's devotion to the concept of truth to nature, and working sur le motif, his landscapes are, in the final analysis, strangely artificial — reminiscent of the magical realism of Palmer's Shoreham period rather than the naturalism of Constable , Cox or De Wint . Similarly, Goodwin's landscapes are invariably infused with a poetic charm that raises them above mere description; indeed, one critic complimented him for having that "peculiar faculty of painting a natural scene with an undercurrent of supernatural feeling"8.

As a young artist, it was natural that Goodwin should have been attracted to what was considered the avant-garde art of his day, and his early work shows a Pre-Raphaelite concern for detail and for bright, clear colour. An important factor in Goodwin's approach to landscape painting, was his belief that it was a kind of religious activity, and that his own talents as a painter were God-given — views not unlike those held by Ruskin and some members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle.

"Let me not,"

he wrote in his Diary,

9
The Diary of Albert Goodwin, privately published 1934. Entries on page 36, 18 July 1900 and page 22, Christmas 1888 underestimate the gift God has given me ... and in its measure this pleasure is passed along to those who know my work ... Beauty — the beauty that is in the landscape — is a sealed book to many, hence in a degree the landscape painter may magnify his calling, for is he not one who is helping to open the eyes of the blind that they may see the hand of our Heavenly Father in the things that he has made for our delight?9

10
His grand-daughter recalls that he had masses of letters from Ruskin that were burnt by his daughters after his death. Letter to author 7 May 1978

11
Arthur Severn MSS, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

12
Spectator, 1886 However, the Pre-Raphaelites were not the only source of inspiration in the artistic development of Goodwin; more important perhaps for the development of his mature style was Turner — and the link between Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites and Goodwin was, of course, Ruskin. Goodwin met Ruskin towards the end of the 1860, probably as a result of his association with Hughes and Brown, and during the next few years, a friendship developed between them10, with Goodwin holidaying with Ruskin at Abingdon and Matlock in 1871, and then in the following year, Goodwin spent three months touring Italy with Ruskin and another one of his protégés, Arthur Severn 11 [see pages 24-32]. The relationship with Ruskin was of considerable importance to Goodwin, as until then he had paid little attention to drawing, but had been noted as an artist with "an originality and courage in...the use of his paint box"12. Now, under the guidance of Ruskin, he began to pay more attention to drawing, noting some years later that,

13
Diary, page 37, 18 July 1900 and page 183, 1 June 1913 I owe much thanks to Ruskin, who ballyragged me into love of form when I was getting too content with colour alone: and colour alone is luxury ... how much I enjoyed the three months I had when I took up with drawing when with Ruskin in Italy; and how good it was for one. The pleasure that is to be found in lines which should string a drawing together is almost an unknown quantity in these days of paint and paint only.13

14
Ruskin, Works, Volume 3, pages 623-24

15
Diary, page 133, 18 February 1911 Although it was Ruskin who made Goodwin show a greater concern for drawing, and who encouraged him in the development of his sensitive use of the pen, it was the example of Turner who above all liberated the genius of Albert Goodwin. Ruskin himself had no difficulty in reconciling his admiration for the Pre-Raphaelites with his passion for Turner, as he saw them representing two stages of artistic development; for having exhorted the young artist to study nature most carefully, "rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing", he goes on to say, "then, when their memories are stored, and their imagination fed...let them take up the scarlet and gold, give reins to their fancy and show us what their heads are made of"14. It is into this second stage that Turner's work falls, and Goodwin himself from the mid 1870s, but most especially from around the turn of the century, more and more in his poetic use of colour and sensitive use of the pen, succumbed to the magical spell of Turner's work; so much so, that he subsequently observed that "I wonder sometimes of the spirit of old Turner makes use of my personality! I often find myself doing the very things that he seemed to do"15. Turner was important for Goodwin in two particular aspects of his work; in the first place, he was greatly influenced by Turner's skill in combining fact and fancy in his landscapes views, thus emulating that feature of Turner's work so aptly described by Ruskin as "imaginative topography"" and secondly, he learned certain technical skills, such as the ability of achieving both breadth and detail in his water-colours, by a skilful and sensitive combination of wash and pen-work — characteristics that are well illustrated in much of his later work, especially from the years circa 1895-1925.

16
Diary, page 175, 17 March 1912 Like Turner, Goodwin was a master of all the techniques used in water-colour painting, employing at various times (and not infrequently all together) watercolour, bodycolour, pen and ink, chalk, pastel and gum, on white or tinted papers, with the whole sometimes neatly enclosed in a beautifully designed, hand-painted border. In order to achieve the subtle lighting effects associated with dawn and sunset — his favourite times of the day — he wiped and scraped and "hammered at them with the blade of a safety-razor, a knife, sandpaper, sponge, rag, and a fitch brush!!! So many are the expedients that the despairing water-colour painter in the last has to resort to"16.

17
Ruskin, Works, Volume 37, pages 212-13 Although Goodwin is now best remembered for his work in watercolours, he also worked from time to time in oils. His large oil painting of Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves was bought by the Tate Gallery under the terms of the Chantery Bequest of 300 guineas in 1901. [A smaller version of this painting is included in this catalogue, no 69.] Indeed, in the early part of his career, he seriously considered the possibility of working more extensively in oils. It may be that he was caught up in the prevailing belief that oil painting was a higher and more serious art form, and the one by which artistic reputations were made. Fortunately he sought the advice of Ruskin, who rightly observed that "I have always felt deep regret at your taking to oil The virtue of oil, as I understand it, is perfect delineation of solid form in deep local colour. It seems to me not only adverse to, but negative to [sic] partially, beautiful landscape effect ..." 17

18
Spectator, 26 June 1880

19
Diary, page 132, 18 February 1911 Like Blake before him, Ruskin too sensed the limitations of the earthbound oil technique for the creation of poetic and imaginative landscape painting — an opinion shared by another critic who attacked some of Goodwin's exhibited oils as "lacking the delicacy of his watercolour work"18. Moreover, Goodwin himself, although he continued to dabble in oils for the rest of his life, generally found the oil medium too intractable and unsuited to his artistic temperament, "Washed, and put away brushes and oil paint, for a finish up of a week of — what is to me — a horrid material, after the purity of clean-smelling water-colour..."19.

20
Imaginative Landscapes in Europe and Asia, London: Fine Art Society, March 1896 In spite of his earlier Pre-Raphaelite training of working directly from nature, Goodwin, as his career progressed, worked more and more from memory. His normal procedure was to do sketches directly from nature and then work these sketches up in the studio, although it should be borne in mind that quite often the sketches were made some years before, as Goodwin noted in the catalogue of an exhibition he held at the Fine Art Society in 1896, when he wrote that "though I date my pictures at the time of their completion. I would by no means have it inferred that the whole of the exhibition has been done within the last year. Some of the subjects were begun as many as twenty years ago"20.

Thus, although his work was firmly rooted in his own direct experiences, he increasingly recreated these experiences through the veil of his memory, as this allowed his imagination to raise a subject from being a "mere portrait tied down to hard facts", into a poetic interpretation of his experience.

21
Diary, page 371, 1 December 1917 22
Imaginative Landscapes in Europe and Asia, London: Fine Art Society, March 1896 The importance of the role played by his memory and imagination, is seen more clearly when one notes from the titles of his numerous exhibited works, that Goodwin was an inveterate traveller, visiting not only all parts of Britain, but also Jersey, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Egypt, Crete, Belgium, India, North America, the West Indies, New Zealand and Sicily. It could be argued that many of his best pictures were inspired by India and the "gorgeous east", by Switzerland and the Alps — the experience of which prompted him, in his old age, to ask, 'Will there be anything more wonderful than the higher Alps in the Kingdom of Heaven?'21. And finally, of course, "my own native land England always seems more than ever an epitome of all countries — the best of them 'done in little'"22. Although the bulk of Goodwin's work could be correctly described as poeticized topography, he also had a penchant for imaginative works inspired by readings of the Arabian Nights (his grand-daughter recalls that Sinbad was one of his favourite stories), the Bible, Dante etc.

In addition to Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites, another source of inspiration for Goodwin's art was Oriental art, with which he well have come into contact as early as 1876 on his first visit to Egypt — although Oriental art was then becoming quite fashionable in European art circles. Certainly many of his compositions, framed as they often are by branches of trees or sprays of blossom, and sometimes with an emphasis on an asymmetrical design, suggest a knowledge of Oriental art. In fact, it is interesting to note in 1890 he shared an exhibition at the Fine Art Society with a show of Japanese art, and in the catalogue he observed that:

23
Collection of Watercolour Drawings of many-sided Nature by Albert Goodwin, RWS, London: Fine Art Society, 1890 Painted as some of them have been with the knowledge that Japanese art would be in the next room, there may have crept in unawares the hope that in landscape are the West should not play second fiddle to the East, though between Japanese and British painting there can be no question of rivalry, the points of view of each being so utterly dissimilar. It seems quite questionable that the West takes knowledge, and is able to assimilate with advantage some of the colour and decorative design of the Eastern schools, but is a one sided business. The advantages are to us, and not to them, who seem to make shipwreck of their powers when they endeavor to engraft anything of ours into their own art ... I am conscious of my own indebtedness both to Japanese and Moorish art ...23

24
Letter to author, 7 May 1978 Goodwin's delicate colour schemes, his finely felt sense of atmosphere, and his poetic treatment of landscape, have rightly made him one of the most distinctive and unique artists of his time; indeed, Goodwin's artistic vision is so highly personalized, that it would be difficult to confuse his work with any of his contemporaries. Nor should one forget that his career spans a remarkably long period, for although we tend to think of him as a Victorian, he was active as an artist until as late as 1932. Nevertheless, Goodwin's art was totally unaffected by the radical changes that took place in the art world in the first quarter of the twentieth century, and Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Dada and Surrealism, all left his own artistic vision quite intact. Of his contemporaries his own particular favorites were " Arthur Rackham ... Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway ... and in his home, "" recalls his grand-daughter, "there were absolutely no 'old masters' ... and we were brought up knowing nothing at all about other great and famous artists. I think Turner was the only one I ever heard of till I went to school."24

Although Goodwin stood aside from the mainstream of the twentieth century art, it is, somewhat ironically, precisely in the period after 1900 that much of his best work was produced, for it is encouraging to note that there is little evidence of any reduction in his artistic ability with advancing years. Indeed, much of his later work takes on an increasingly ethereal quality as his mastery of pen and wash, and of breadth and detail, so frequently achieve a quite magical unison.

His passion for painting was uncontrollable right to the end, and his grand-daughter recalls how in the 1920s, when he moved, with his daughters, into a new house with plain plastered walls, he

25
loc cit was made to promise to paint the walls — but one day the aunts went out on a shopping spree, and when they came back Grandpa had been unable to resist painting the walls of his little bedroom floor to ceiling in wavy red and yellow and black stripes with conventional sunflowers at the top of them. It was really very nice. He just couldn’t help painting. He would get at lovely old bits of black oak furniture when people were out and paint them all over. Our house was full of furniture painted by Grandpa. Also he used to haunt the town rubbish tip, and collect bits of broken china which he made into the most lovely mosaics set in cement in iron blacksmith-made trays. These were set in the outside walls of the house and made into frames for mirrors and mantle-pieces etc. He used to employ a carpenter who made boxes and shelves etc. of plain deal which Grandpa then painted. I still have a "play–box" with a wild cat in a lovely jungle painted by him ... he seemed never to stop painting except to eat or bicycle or walk ...25

(This essay is reprinted with editions from the article in the Old Water-Colour Society's Club, Volume 54, 1979.)