Physical description
The picture is an impressionistic rendering of nature at its wildest. The downpour of rain is suggested by the broad diagonal brush strokes in which the whole picture is painted. The Welsh hills are at a distant position in the landscape and the only figure in this desolate landscape is a solitary bull. British School.
Place of Origin
London, England (probably, painted)
Date
19th century (painted)
Artist/maker
Cox, David (the elder), born 1783 - died 1859 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Watercolour
Dimensions
Height: 45.5 cm, Width: 66.6 cm
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
100 Great Paintings in The Victoria & Albert Museum. London: V&A, 1985, p.154
The following is the full text of the entry:
"David Cox 1783-1859
British School
THE CHALLENGE
Water-colour, 45.5 x 66.6 cm
1427-1869. Townshend Bequest.
The Challenge is not Cox's original title for this work. It is probably the painting exhibited in 1856 at the Society of Painters in Water-colours as On the Moors near Bettws-y-Coed.Cox visited the Welsh village of Bettws-y-Coed annually from 1844, probably because the open spaces of the Welsh hills and moors provided him with the right subject matter for the particular style of painting that he had developed. Throughout his long working career he was a consistent exponent of the principles of water-colour painting that had guided landscape painters in his youth: that landscape water-colours could provoke a strong emotional response in the spectator, especially if the natural associations of the subject were enhanced by the manipulation of the medium to suggest effects of atmosphere and space.
The Challenge is one of his last and most powerful works and represents his technique at its most extreme. He was particularly famous for representing the wind and the rain by means of short dashing brush-strokes laid on to one another on coarse rough-textured paper. By this means the turbulence of the elements was suggested by the roughness of the paint surface. In The Challenge the downpour of rain is clearly suggested by the broad diagonal brush-strokes with which the whole picture is painted. The Welsh hills are relegated to a distant position in the landscape and the only inhabitant in this desolate landscape is a solitary bull, a symbol of animal power at its crudest and most basic. The whole picture is an almost impressionistic rendering of nature at her roughest and wildest, in both atmospheric and animal form.
The bull thus takes the place of any human inhabitant in the scene and faces the force of the elements by himself. In this respect The Challenge is a more evocative title than the original topographical one. The colours are dark and sombre and suggestive of approaching night and an oncoming storm. The atmosphere as a whole is threatening and full of menace and foreboding. We can feel the bull's discomfort in the scene and share with him his apprehension of what the night will bring.
Howard Coutts"
Scott Wilcox Sun, Wind, and Rain. The Art of David Cox Yale University, 2008. ISBN: 978-0-300-11744-8.
Exhibition catalogue
Vikutoria & Arub?to Bijutsukan-z? : eikoku romanshugi kaigaten = The Romantic tradition in British painting, 1800-1950 : masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum / selected by Mark Evans [Japan : Brain Trust], 2002. 185 p. : ill. (chiefly col.) ; 30 cm.
Exhibition History
Sun, Wind, and Rain: The Art of David Cox (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery 31/01/2009-03/05/2009)
Sun, Wind, and Rain: The Art of David Cox (Yale Center for British Art 16/10/2008-04/01/2009)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Prefectural Museum of Art, Hyogo, Kobe, Japan 28/01/2003-06/04/2003)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Koriyama City Museum of Art 22/11/2002-27/12/2002)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Matsuzakaya Museum, Nagoya, Japan 19/10/2002-11/11/2002)
The Romantic Tradition in British Painting 1800-1950: Masterpieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum (Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan 24/08/2002-06/10/2002)
The Age of English Watercolours (Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne 22/01/1999-24/05/1999)
British Watercolours, c. 1750-1860 (National Gallery of Art, Washington 02/05/1993-25/07/1993)
British Watercolours, c. 1750-1860 (Royal Academy of Arts 15/01/1993-11/04/1993)
Production Note
probably exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society, 1856
Subjects depicted
Landscape; Storm; Bull (animal)
Collection code
PDP
