T.C. Gotch: Professional Painter

"My Crown and Sceptre" by T.C. Gotch

"T.C. Gotch's student days were now over. He stood upon the threshold of his career. The idea of a literary life had long been given up. His call was to paint, and he was eager to show of what he was capable. Seeking for a home with congenial surroundings, Mr. and Mrs. Gotch chanced upon Newlyn, which artists were just then beginning to frequent on account of its equable gray light and kindly climate, which permitted them if they desired to work out of doors most of the year. But a compulsory voyage to Australia spoilt this plan, and it was not till 1887 that they finally settled at Newlyn, where they found the company of painters living in the old fishing village - Mr. Stanhope Forbes, Mr. Bramley, Mr. Chavallier Tayler, Mr. Percy Craft, Mr. Norman Garstin, Mr. Fred Hall and others - much to their liking.

It was about this time, or perhaps a little later, that the Newlyn pictures began to be noticed at the Royal Academy. In Gallery XI the visitor suddenly found himself surrounded by Cornish works which had this in common - they suggested the honest and refreshing light of day, as seen in the open air, and not the second-hand illumination of a London studio.

Although he had a strong and consistent admiration for the work of his comrades at Newlyn, and the general aim and tendency of the school, he felt far from confident that his own temperament could ever find adequate expression within those lines. It was the crisis of his career. He did the pleasant thing and the wise thing. He went straight to Italy - to Florence, where he surrendered himself to the calm and radiant pictures of Botticelli and those frescoes of Benozzo Gozzolios in the Palazzo Riccardi at Florence.

There his colour sense reasserted itself, and he produced 'My Crown and Sceptre,' which was hung upon the line in 1892. With this picture Mr. Gotch found his metier - the work that was nearest to him, that he could do best, and, as it happened that best pleased and interested the public."

To be continued

(Excerpt from "T.C. Gotch and His Pictures" by Lewis Hind in "The Windsor Magazine.")