Early Morning, Lytham Sands

Two opposed approaches to the British landscape were on display in 1961. Henry Lamb’s Wiltshire Village, exhibited per convention following the artist’s recent death, represented one faction (Fig. 1). A wistful pastoralism is resurrected in Lamb’s painting as farm labourers relax on a verge bathed in golden light. The open, inviting road allows the painting to be read lyrically as the viewer is absorbed into an elegiac memory of pre-war British identity. In the same vein, Richard Eurich’s Early Morning, Lytham Sands takes a commanding view over a serene daybreak. Light shattering through diffuse mists over a sweeping prospect offers a soothing meditation on the traditional continuity of British landscape painting. Hanging together in a prominent position in Gallery III, Lamb and Eurich’s work assured the Summer Exhibition attendees that the sun would rise, the seasons would turn, and a conservative vision of our island would consistently mediate artistic and emotional responses to the British landscape.

RA Chronicle