David Davies: Every Kind of Scene

"Moonrise" by David Davies

"David Davies not only painted every kind of scene, but he painted those scenes under many skies and at different times of day. The sea in storm, at sunset, or flushed with the dawn; mid-day, deep-blue, snowy-ruffled seas; swelling, green seas after storms; silver seas and pallid skies with dark boats and their dark reflections silhouetted against them; cornfields in golden noonday light; stooks like miniature copper castles in the horizontal glow of the last shaft of the setting sun; warm farm houses nestling in clustered trees, against the smouldering after-glow clouds; silvery full moons; golden crescent moons; rising or setting at no matter what hour of the day or night, for Davies' clock was set by his artistic wants; old cottages or backyards full of stocks and phlox and wallflowers, by day or night - it was all one to him. Uplands, bare but for patches of heather and mossy outcropping rocks; moorland pools, 'paved with bits of the sky;' hamlets in the dusky valley with their house lamps lit; moonlit gardens, or the part of the landowner; the curve of a beach at twilight; the farmer with his men carrying lanterns on their last rounds of the horses and cows; the poppy fields - a wonderful variety.

He exhibited some of these at local and London picture shows, and had his pictures well hung, and, in a few cases, had examples bought by municipal galleries of provincial cities. His main customers, however, were either artists or private means, or those who had become successful by good work or clever business methods. Many of them swapped canvases with him, and in most such cases the advantage lay with the one who got the Davies canvas. His own country never bothered about him, for he was never press-agented, and neglected to pay for cablegrams announcing the interesting fact that he was exhibiting at the Royal Kilburn Limners Society's annual exhibition, or that he had earned the right to put distinguishing letters after his name."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art & Life of David Davies" by James MacDonald.)