Campanile at Ponte, Garessio, Piedmont
Oil Painting
1898 (painted)
1898 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The landscape painter Richard Whately West (1848-1905) was born and raised in Dublin, the son of Rev. John West. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and Pembroke College, Cambridge after which he became a school master for a number of years. Although he had no formal art training, during the years 1878-88 he exhibited at he Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists, the New Watercolour Society (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours) and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. The works exhibited in the Royal Academy included A Coal Wharf at Rotherhithe, 1878 and Piazza and Campanile, Bordighera, Italy, 1885. In 1883 West went abroad on a commission for the Art Journal to sketch the Riviera and in 1885 he spent two months in Alassio, Italy. A year later he painted extensively in Ireland and Wales. He finally settled in Alassio in 1890 and although he kept painting he never sent any of his works back to Britain for exhibition, something which, according to his brother H.W. West, he deeply regretted.
West died suddenly on 23 February 1905 and was buried at Florence. The Richard West Memorial Gallery was opened at Alassio in 1907, in which hang 122 of his works. The Victoria & Albert Museum acquired three of West’s paintings in this same year, the gift of the artist's widow Gertrude.
Following her gift, Gertrude West sent a newspaper cutting to the museum. Taken from an unidentified English-language newsletter from the Liguria region of Italy, it paraphrases a description by artist Arthur Severn of West’s style and work. Severn refers to a “peculiar refinement…opposed to the sensational and startling work of the impressionist school,” and remarks that West approached nature humbly: “he endeavoured to show forth the beauties of nature rather than display his own skill”.
This view was painted following West’s permanent move to Liguria. It depicts a street of Garessio, a small town relatively near Alassio. The town’s campanile, bathed in sunlight, dominates the picture, towering over the shaded, bustling street scene below.
West died suddenly on 23 February 1905 and was buried at Florence. The Richard West Memorial Gallery was opened at Alassio in 1907, in which hang 122 of his works. The Victoria & Albert Museum acquired three of West’s paintings in this same year, the gift of the artist's widow Gertrude.
Following her gift, Gertrude West sent a newspaper cutting to the museum. Taken from an unidentified English-language newsletter from the Liguria region of Italy, it paraphrases a description by artist Arthur Severn of West’s style and work. Severn refers to a “peculiar refinement…opposed to the sensational and startling work of the impressionist school,” and remarks that West approached nature humbly: “he endeavoured to show forth the beauties of nature rather than display his own skill”.
This view was painted following West’s permanent move to Liguria. It depicts a street of Garessio, a small town relatively near Alassio. The town’s campanile, bathed in sunlight, dominates the picture, towering over the shaded, bustling street scene below.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Campanile at Ponte, Garessio, Piedmont (generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Oil on millboard |
| Brief description | Oil Painting, 'Campanile at Ponte, Garessio, Piedmont', Richard Whately West, 1898 |
| Physical description | An oil painting of the Ponte Garessio in Piedmont |
| Dimensions |
|
| Styles | |
| Marks and inscriptions | 'R W West 1898' (Signed and dated by the artist on the back) |
| Credit line | Given by Mrs Richard Whately West |
| Object history | Given by Mrs Richard Whately West, 1907 |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Places depicted | |
| Summary | The landscape painter Richard Whately West (1848-1905) was born and raised in Dublin, the son of Rev. John West. He attended Trinity College, Dublin and Pembroke College, Cambridge after which he became a school master for a number of years. Although he had no formal art training, during the years 1878-88 he exhibited at he Royal Academy, the Society of British Artists, the New Watercolour Society (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours) and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. The works exhibited in the Royal Academy included A Coal Wharf at Rotherhithe, 1878 and Piazza and Campanile, Bordighera, Italy, 1885. In 1883 West went abroad on a commission for the Art Journal to sketch the Riviera and in 1885 he spent two months in Alassio, Italy. A year later he painted extensively in Ireland and Wales. He finally settled in Alassio in 1890 and although he kept painting he never sent any of his works back to Britain for exhibition, something which, according to his brother H.W. West, he deeply regretted. West died suddenly on 23 February 1905 and was buried at Florence. The Richard West Memorial Gallery was opened at Alassio in 1907, in which hang 122 of his works. The Victoria & Albert Museum acquired three of West’s paintings in this same year, the gift of the artist's widow Gertrude. Following her gift, Gertrude West sent a newspaper cutting to the museum. Taken from an unidentified English-language newsletter from the Liguria region of Italy, it paraphrases a description by artist Arthur Severn of West’s style and work. Severn refers to a “peculiar refinement…opposed to the sensational and startling work of the impressionist school,” and remarks that West approached nature humbly: “he endeavoured to show forth the beauties of nature rather than display his own skill”. This view was painted following West’s permanent move to Liguria. It depicts a street of Garessio, a small town relatively near Alassio. The town’s campanile, bathed in sunlight, dominates the picture, towering over the shaded, bustling street scene below. |
| Bibliographic reference | Full text of newspaper article in object file:
News from Alassio
No more fitting memorial of the late R. W. West could have been made than the building in Alassio of a gallery which should contain so large and so representative a collection of his life’s work. The gallery, which is close to the Hanbury Hall, and on ground given by the late Sir Thomas Hanbury, was ceremoniously opened last Saturday by Mr Arthur Severn, R.I. who came out from England for the purpose. The English colony of Alassio responded almost in its entirety to the invitations issued by Mrs R.W. West and Mr H.W. West for the opening ceremony and there were also representatives of the Italian residents, as well as friends from Bordighera. Mr H.W. West opened the proceedings with a short and appropriate speech, pointing out that the family of the late artists, in presenting this gallery and collection of pictures to the colony were fulfilling an expressed wish of his brother who had said that Alassio, the scene of so much of his work, was the most appropriate place to contain a permanent collection, such a collection being, he had always maintained, a better expression of the neighbouring scenery, and of his own work than could be found in the inspection if isolated specimens.
Mr Arthur Severn, R.I. then in a short address most happily embodied what must be the feeling of all who have studied Richard West’s work. It’s peculiar refinement, he said, opposed to the sensational and startling work of the impressionist school, is a quality very much more desirable in a permanent collection than the exaggeration of those pictures which puzzle or astonish by their daring and eccentricity. Richard West approached Nature humbly, and it may be said of his work, as was said of that of another artist that it was “the truth lovingly told”. He endeavoured to show forth the beauties of nature rather than display his own skill, and, Mr Severn added, this might best be expressed by saying that he had a charming way of letting Nature tell her own story through his work. The speaker selected a telling instance to illustrate this point when he related how he himself had realized the subtle beauties of the landscape in the Andorra valley, having failed to the appreciate them fully when visiting the place .
Mr R. Pearce, one of the oldest English Inhabitants of Alassio added a few suitable words.
Considerations of space unfortunately forbid any descriptions of the pictures, of which there are some two hundred, or of the little gallery which is in the English [centre] of Alassio, close to the English church, tennis Club, Hanbury Hall, and Tea Rooms on the possessions of so unique and worthy a memorial of one who spent many years in the place, and much of whose best work was done there.
After the opening and inspection of the gallery Mrs West gave tea to all her guests in the adjacent English Tea Rooms, and on Sunday afternoon the gallery was again opened for the benefit of the Italian citizens of Alassio, Mrs West and Mr H. West being present to receive them. Henceforth the gallery will be open of week-days, a moderate entrance fee of 60 c. being charged for the expenses of maintenance.
Mr Arthur Severn, R.I. by marriage the nephew of John Ruskin and is, in collaboration with his wife at present engaged on some biographical work on the great master, is staying, as usual during his visit to Alassio, at the Norfolk Hotel: at the same hotel another artist Mr Graham Petrie, whose delightful Algerian, Tunisian, and Italian work is very well-known and appreciated in artistic circles, is staying with his sister. Lady Drummond-Hay and her daughter are among the visitors to the same hotel. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | 566-1907 |
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| Record created | September 21, 2006 |
| Record URL |
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