THE PAPER IS YOUR FRIEND 33 WATERCOLOURS OF
HYDRA & MARLBOROUGH BY
JULIAN LLOYD MOUNT HOUSE GALLERY, MARLBOROUGH TWENTY-TWENTY-ONE
MMXXI
Introduction The great French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres had a passion for playing the violin, and such was his talent he became second violinist in the Orchestre du Capitole of Toulouse. The phrase Violin d’Ingres denotes an activity undertaken regularly in leisure time to a very high standard. Over the years there have been many members of Marlborough’s Common Room who have shown remarkable talents which could have provided their chief focus in life, but the rich and varied world of the College demands that many diverse roles are performed and sometimes considerable gifts have remained hidden from view. Julian Lloyd’s work as an artist will surprise many. His commitment to painting is at least as long as his long career as Head of Classics at Marlborough and the pieces in this exhibition are just a small selection of an extraordinary outpouring. Julian Lloyd painting in the river-bed, Hydra, Greece, 1984 Photograph by Florence Godfroid
Working in watercolour appeals to many who embark upon
The great British tradition of watercolourists provides the answers
the complicated business of making pictures. It seems an easy
to many challenges, and perhaps in Lloyd’s work it is possible to
medium, but it is unforgiving and without real understanding it
see the influence of those who from Turner’s time onwards
can present a creative equivalent of Russian roulette. Work can be
produced marvellous topographical painting underneath these
wrecked in a second and it is easy to make an image fussy or veer
less brilliant skies.
into the world of the chocolate box. Lloyd’s limpid and deceptively simple collections of fluid marks avoid the pitfalls that
Hydra and Marlborough are such different locations, but in
can so easily spoil a work. Such apparent ease in making is the
both places a perceptive economy of means has enabled Lloyd to
result of regular work during his holiday apprenticeships over
paraphrase and interpret the spirit of each place with elegance
three decades on the island of Hydra. The production of three
and, to use an unfashionable word, beauty. This work has been a
paintings a day there taught him about light, visual precis,
private undertaking, and we are fortunate that his daughter
discipline and risk-taking.
Katyuli Lloyd, our Artist-in-Residence, has eventually persuaded him to bring this light out from underneath the bushel.
These works have been executed with an intelligent restraint, and what is left out is as important as what has been put into the image. His commitment to the rendering of light and its changing qualities has resulted in many striking portraits of this island. The abstract shapes of the strong shadows are offset by a sense of heat and unpeopled silence. England can present different challenges for the painter with cloud-cover and layers of subdued tonalities, and yet on a sunny day a New Jerusalem can be revealed.
Dr. Niall Hamilton, 2021
The Paper is Your Friend This exhibition at the Mount House Gallery features a small selection of watercolours painted over 25 years on the Greek island of Hydra and near my home in Marlborough. Some of the paintings are old friends, others have remained hidden in their blocks, forming a visual diary over the decades, so there is both a pleasure in renewed acquaintance and an opportunity for reflection. Although I had no formal training, conversations over the years with artists and those who know Hydra well have convinced me that I am on the right track. Admiring the English Romantic painters as well as Winslow Homer and Sargent, I had from the start a clear sense of what it is possible to achieve in watercolour even if, with limited time available each summer, progress has been slow and intermittent, tortoise pace you might say. Hydra has a unique atmosphere because, instead of cars, it has a large population of working donkeys, and people get around on foot or by boat. Only a tiny part is inhabited, and the main port rises up into the mountainside like a vast theatre. There are fine stone mansions reminiscent of the Dalmatian coast and ruins attesting to an era of prosperity when the islanders played a decisive role in the Greek War of Independence.
Hydra Churches, detail, Hydra, 2010
My working practice was initially determined by sleeping under
Over time I have become less enslaved to the scene in front of me –
the stars on the terrace of Lily’s house above the sea. In the
in the sense of making a faithful reproduction - and more attuned
morning the sun hits you full in the face as it rises over the saddle
to the demands of the picture itself. Although the paintings are
of the mountain. You then have an hour or two in a sheltered spot
clearly realist, I am also searching for some abstraction, not in
before the sun finds you out and the light bleaches all colour. In
order to dissolve reality but to create equilibrium within the picture.
these conditions, watercolour has several practical advantages. You need something light and portable for clambering over the mountainside. In the summer heat washes dry quickly, almost
In this respect Cotman’s majestic Greta Bridge (1805) is a touchstone and inspiration. Furthermore, as the title of this show suggests, I try to work with the medium as directly as possible so that technique does not obstruct an emotional engagement with the subject.
too quickly, but you can at least create a finished piece. If you are
River-bed is an early picture where many elements come
sur le motif there is enough time to fix an impression before the
together. I am sitting in a dry river-bed, which was difficult of
shadows move and the light has changed.
access, beneath ruined mansions on the hillside above Kamini. At the time I was much taken with the paintings of Caspar David
The Mediterranean light has a profound impact on all who
Friedrich and the arc of the overhanging tree may owe something
come from northern climes. After sketching a pencil outline, I lay
to his Chalk Cliffs on Rügen. The distribution of space enables the
down two or three washes to establish the light. I have tended to
scene to breathe in the gentle afternoon light and draw the viewer
use just three colours: yellow ochre, burnt sienna and ultramarine,
down towards the sea. Sadly, this view is no longer the same.
with some sparing use of Venetian red or burnt umber. Hydra
Angular stonework has replaced the earth, rocks and detritus at
provides abundant subject matter and I have always been
your feet, while the hillside around Kamini is crowded with gaudy
attracted by the shadow on a wall, a street during siesta, the ruins
houses that owe nothing to the vernacular architecture of the
of an old mansion or the hull of a caique.
island.
When I was asked to put together the work for this show, I began to appreciate more fully the connections between Hydra and Marlborough. You can walk for miles over the Downs without encountering any motor traffic whatsoever. In both places there is a generosity to the horizon: on Hydra the sea and coastline leading to distant mountains, in Marlborough the unfurling waves of chalk downland. On Hydra you look across a narrow stretch of sea to the mountains of the Peloponnese, a region fabled in myth. Here, in the heart of Wessex, you are cradled by a truly ancient landscape and, whatever man has done over the centuries to shape the environment, you feel the enduring rhythms over vast stretches of time. We seem strangely insignificant, the passing custodians of an enchanted land. Towards Temple Farm I & II is one of my favourite spots, a tiny hamlet off the main road mentioned in Domesday book. In close proximity are the hallmarks of a medieval village, a bit like the images in history books, with a church, manor, duck pond, farmhouse and forge. You wouldn’t be surprised to meet a dairymaid in clogs coming clattering down the lane. Just beyond the stables the landscape opens out, dissected by a track that disappears towards the horizon, while to one side a bridleway leads up to the Gallops beneath an avenue of beech trees where leaves smoulder gently in autumn fires.
View over Hydra port, detail, Hydra, 2020
Alongside this attachment to the countryside, I find both in Marlborough and Hydra a novelty in the familiar. Walking thousands of times down the same lane and past the same buildings we tend to take for granted our built environment. Much of the time it remains ordinary, comforting and familiar but there are times when you turn a corner, or follow the curve of a street and see how the light can illuminate and transform a setting; it asks us to pause and look anew at what we have passed so many times without a second thought, something akin to the lines of W.H.Davies A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare. I am grateful to my daughter Katyuli for curating the exhibition with her customary flair and vigour, and to Niall Hamilton and Edward Twohig for their kind words and support. I hope that these paintings, in reaching a wider audience, may in their modest way help to lift the spirits of everyone at the end of an extraordinary twelve months.
Julian Lloyd, 2021
1. River-bed, Hydra, 1996
2. Dimotiko and Koundourioti Mansion, Hydra, 1998
3. Roloi Approach, Hydra, 1999
4. Boudouri Mansion, Hydra, 2000
5. Red House, Hydra, 2001
6. High Road, Hydra, 2001
7. The Master’s Lodge Evening, Marlborough, 2003
8. Vlychos, Hydra, 2007
9. Inside Road to Port, Hydra, 2007
10. Kamini Harbour Boats I, Hydra, 2009
11. Kamini Harbour Boats II, Hydra, 2009
12. The Golden Mansion, High Kamini, Hydra, 2009
14. Avlaki I, Hydra, 2013
13. Port Cemetery, Hydra, 2013
15. Entrance to Boudouri Mansion, Hydra, 2013
16. Vlychos, view towards Plakes, Hydra, 2014
17. Church on High Road, Hydra, 2017
18. The Little White House, Kamini, Hydra, 2019
19. Kamini Street, Hydra, 2020
21. Font, Church of the Assumption, Hydra, 2020
20. Avlaki II, Hydra, 2020
22. View over Hydra port, Hydra, 2020
24. C1 view towards St Peter’s, Marlborough College, 2020
23. C1 Interior, Marlborough College, 2020
25. C1, Marlborough College, 2020
26. Chapel, Marlborough College, 2020
27. Memorial Library, Marlborough College, 2020
28. Duelling Lawn, Marlborough College, 2020
9. Hyde Lane, Marlborough, 2020
30. The Master’s Lodge, Marlborough College, 2020
31. Towards Temple Farm I, Marlborough, 2020
33. Trees, Marlborough, 2020
32. Towards Temple Farm II, Marlborough, 2020
End Note There are several things that strike me as I look through my father’s watercolours. First, how much he has produced and how assiduously he worked. Second, how vividly they bring back my childhood. And third, how much his work and discipline fed into my own creative practice. For almost as long as I can remember, my father would leave the cool of our little cottage (The Little White House) on the Greek island of Hydra, and go out three times a day to paint watercolours. In the cold days of this January lockdown, turning over page after page of Bockingford watercolour paper, I feel overwhelmed as I try to select a mere 30 from over 650 watercolours for this online exhibition. The speed with which I read these pages of colour, shape, heat, light, learning and place, does not do justice to the time, love, effort and hours of self-discipline and dedication that it took to produce it. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. It takes a Spartan discipline to produce this much, especially when there is the temptation of turquoise waters only a few yards away... With every watercolour, my childhood summers come flooding back to me. I have seen almost every painting before, as I arrived back salty from the beach and would pass the day’s offerings propped up on the terrace table. My grandmother was often there, sitting cross-legged on her bed. If my father took the block away or skipped past an image, she was quick to call him out, ask him to keep it there a little longer so that she could take it in. My mother and her brother would also take part in this daily ritual.
The Little White House, Kamini, detail, Hydra, 2019
When I was about 10, I was allowed to join him on a painting trip. I followed him to the mountainside opposite our house. He set up his fold-out footstool, and so did I, a little behind, and we both drew the view down the street. A couple of people stopped to talk and watch. There was the striking family resemblance between us then, as now, and we would have been a funny sight: my father, and me, his tiny doppelgänger, sitting a few feet away, copying his every move… I realise now how much my father’s creative choices and work ethic have permeated my own creative practice. The views he favoured, so many of which I have gone on to draw, I was probably subconsciously drawn to. I know that intense heat and deep shade on white walls, that I have tried to capture in my own light and colour combinations. I know the rustle of the eucalyptus leaves above, capturing that rush of tranquility in an otherwise barren mountainside. I think I inherited his self-discipline. What’s impressive, knowing the island, is to see how many places he drew from. I realise this when I come across Hydra Port Cemetery, high above the harbour. No one goes up there. It’s a long hard climb in the heat of August. I also understand why he always went out for that third drawing session in the late afternoon, when the day begins to cool and so much can be produced with a clearer head. These watercolours are the chronicling of an island, of the years, and of more than one life. Katyuli Lloyd, 2021
Julian Lloyd, Hydra, 1984 Photograph by Florence Godfroid
A one-off limited edition (50), signed and numbered, giclée prints of each watercolour are available to buy, unframed. Dimensions approx. 27 x 36cm, colours may vary slightly. £60 plus postage and packing. Please contact jfl@marlboroughcollege.org for more information.
Photograph by Florence Godfroid