Departure

This is a monumental painting; the dark mass of the disappearing ship catches the eye in spite of all the detail taking up most of the picture. So many unanswered questions arise in the mind of the viewer and hardly anything is shown completely…buildings obscure what’s going on or things are simply cut off by the edges of the picture. The more you look the more you see! Personally I think the puzzling behaviour of the characters in the righthand foreground on the flat roof, is probably amateur actors rehearsing. Our family was often involved in activities of this sort in the 50s. I love the way the lady with the parasol is cut adrift from the other two actors and the viewer has to supply the continuation of the flat roof to explain her situation. The large crane is the famous floating crane at Southampton but otherwise the scene is imaginary, but full of crystallised memories.