Diary extracts for January 1925
[unknown date]:
Mr. Wilkie gave me some good advice. I must try to draw larger whatever the old professors say. Must also get a stronger style.
13th Jan 1925:
Work all day in the life class. Must try to make my drawing more convincing and searching.
14th Jan 1925:
Morning in the life class:
Tonks quite encouraging. Overheard him saying that the modern French painters did not give volume to their work! This sounds very extraordinary from a man who is supposed to be up in such things.
Afternoon in Bick’s studio and had another tussle with my head of Bach in stone. Wonderful drawings by Archipenko.
15th Jan 1925:
Life class all day. Seems to be a slight improvement. In the evening began a 24x20 of a young man, slightly laid in in monochrome.
18th Jan 1925:
Wrote letter home including a humorous one to Hugh in the manner of Pepys.
19th Jan 1925:
In the evening went on with painting of medieval man. Hope to experiment with colour scheme. Perhaps try red hair!”
[unknown date]:
. . . when I got to the Slade school and mentioned Turner they all looked down their noses. Turner, I discovered, was a dirty word. It was rather strange.
I didn’t study his later work which of course now is considered to be his great work, because I thought that really his early work of the ‘Shipwreck’ and ‘Calais Pier’ and things like that were really the clue to how he started and how one should start and go right through a person’s career.
21st Jan 1925:
Life class:
Got some grey paper as the white hurts my eyes. Then Bick’s studio and worked a bit at the stone head (of Bach) which is the Dickens of a mess. Then worked till 10.30 on the ‘young man’ canvas. Laid in all the grounds in flat colour, so as to get a start straight off on smooth tone and surface.
23rd Jan 1925:
Last night began my picture of the Deluge for the Sketch Club on a 30x24 canvas.
24th Jan 1925:
Went on with the painting of the Deluge and after supper I began an organ, orchestra and choir picture. It may be a failure but anyhow it is an adventure.
25th Jan 1925:
Set to work on the Deluge. The trouble is that the figures are so small.
26th Jan 1925:
Sent two of my landscapes in for the criticism of the Sketch Club.
28th Jan 1925:
At 1.30 Tonks criticized what he called one of the worst shows ever given. He said my two landscapes were Gallery pictures, that the larger had a sky one only saw in Galleries and not in nature. (This sky was painted from Nature). He thought they were simply a collection of stuff on the canvas. I am afraid he does not see very far. He also lapsed into sentiment about the sacred walls where pictures by great artists had hung etc.!
29th Jan 1925:
Began some pen and pencil studies for The Deluge. Composition to be in on March 16th.