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JAMES HENRY CHARLES
Recognition
Since the first year he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1875, he was annually represented by one to five paintings in each summer exhibition, and though he had won many awards in Paris, and a bronze medal and diploma at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, he had never been duly recognized at the Academy.
His two close friends, George Clausen and La Thangue considered it a gross oversight that he had been overlooked on the list of those nominated for an Associateship. Paying him tribute after his death they suggested that he should be included in the coming Winter Exhibition to atone for the oversight. They recognised him as a 'dear leader and master' of the younger school; as an honest, thorough worker, free from conventional sentiment but possessed of sympathetic and profound insight.
Mr. La Thangue maintained that twenty or thirty of his works could not be equalled in any period or any country, and must remain one of the glories of the English school.
Their suggestion was taken up, and in the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition of 1907, five of his paintings were hung along with the Old Masters exhibition, accompanied by such names as Bellini, Botticelli, Canaletto, Durer, Gainsborough, Frans Hals, Hogarth, Fillippo Lippi, Reynolds, Ruysdael, Velasques and Rembrandt.
An impressive position for a painter who, despite undoubted quality, never rose higher than to praise by fellow artists.
However, the question remains why an artist such as this does get left behind. The obvious answer is that he was too honest and uncommercial, and when up against painters such as Frith, and even more so whistler, a quieter man would get trampled underfoot.
However, even Frith and Whistler are no great milestones in the History of Art when compared with their French contemporaries so the question arises, 'Why French Art?' Why, in the nineteenth century, did France not show the same interest in English art as England did in French art?
The answer can only be that each country, at different periods, has its own particular genius in artistic production and at this time, French painting had more strength than any other. Clive Bell said 'English poetry is the greatest in the World and the painters must pay for it.'
English poetry, in fact, exercised a great influence on many French masterpieces, for instance Delacroix' 'Hamlet and Horatio' and 'Ophelia's Death' from Shakespeare, Carot's 'Macbeth and the Three Witches', and it is also said that 'Alice in Wonderland' was in part responsible for the growth of Surrealism, which left English painting very much in the back seat.
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French looked to the English masters, Constable, Turner, Reynolds and Gainsborough as inspiration for their new school of landscape painting, but then turned to the Dutch painters, on whose work the English tradition itself was founded, and so still English landscape was overshadowed towards the end of the century.
It is little wonder then that James Charles should have been lost among the large number of Victorian painters, none of whom could raise their reputation to the level of their French contemporaries. The last words, however, should come from Mr. Martin Wood, who wrote Charles such a sparkling though somewhat ambitious appraisal.
"The name of James Charles has had ascendancy with artists and for some while this has been so: they were quick to recognize how easily he could do the difficult things. It is unhappy that death should have removed this remarkable painter before the public were quite ready with their homage.
The value of Mr. Charles' work lies in subtle perception of values and the accompanying mastery of craft. Such art educates the vision. It is in advance of its time. Tomorrow, with eyes that know more, we shall prize this painting more than ever".
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Cutting bracken, 1880s, Ambersham Common
Courtesy of Peter Woods, IOM - Dec.2015
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Patricia Anderson
In the book - The Complete Writings on Art - Walter Sirkert wrote "If I were asked what man of my generation had attained the highest achievement as a painter, I should be compelled to name Mr James Charles".
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