 Roses
and Castles has become the popular generic name for the
naturalistic and pictorial elements of the traditional paintwork
of the narrow canal boats.
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| There certainly are roses of a sort in
profusion, but there are also daisy-cum-marigold shaped flowers,
dahlia/ chrysanthemums, pansy/primroses and other strange floral
hybrids invented by the brush of the painter working at speed.
Castles or big country houses predominate in the picture panels,
but there are also churches, cottages, lighthouses and portraits
of dogs, horses and the sailor's head from Players cigarette
advertisements. When we speculate about the origins of this
unusual - in Britain - decorative art, we must not just think of
rose patterns and castle pictures. They certainly form the bulk
of the tradition that we have inherited and revere in the late
twentieth century, but they were part of a broader scheme.
The earliest written reference to narrow boat
painting in 1858 describes it as in ... "the style of the
great teaboard school of art", the sort of common commercial
work that decorated cheap tin trays and trinkets, what we might
today disparagingly term 'chocolate box art' catering for
undiscerning popular taste. In 1873 another journalist says the
landscapes are usually river scenes, very naively painted but
... "whilst the tree might stagger a botanist ... the whole
serves its first purpose as a decoration, which our more
pretentious art so frequently misses".
And it certainly did decorate, nearly
everything. The drinking water can on the cabin roof was painted
and decorated, as was the wash basin, cabin stool, headlamp,
bucket and the horse's feed tin. Pictures and posies adorned the
walls inside the cabin, the built-in furniture and the little
doors that led into it. On the most elaborately decorated craft
the painted decorations spread all over the outside of the boat
and its equipment as well, entwined with the lettering on the
cabin side, on the rudder and on the gang plank supports. Roses
even appeared on the horse harness. |
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Commercial
pressure has played a large part in shaping the present
tradition, a balance between what was desired and
what could be afforded, between the money available and
what could be produced for that money.
What the boat people desired was
intricacy, an illusion of riches, an obvious
extravagance of pattern and texture to counteract the
actual paucity of their possessions. What the painters
provided was a fast technique for painting floral sprays
and romantic landscapes to order, in profusion, on any
object or in any space available. Flower painting was
reduced to a formal system of decorating things with a
floral effect, simple roundels of background colour
worked up with a few brushstroke petals to suggest roses
or daisies, nestling in an enclosing pattern of leaves.
Castle pictures were built with a few simple ochery-cream
towers painted against a background of clouds, sky and
distant misty mountains created with a few brushstrokes
of blended blue and white. Greens and browns were
brushed into a foreground garden, finished with a mass
of feathery trees and bushes. There might be a bridge,
fences, swans or sailing boats, just as the artist
fancied (or his skill allowed) but the confidence gained
by regular practice usually ensured a brash charm to the
handling of the paint. In many cases the attractiveness of
the art is largely due to the polished slickness of the
commercial technique. |
One
of the perverse pleasure of the roses and castles
tradition is its mysterious origin, for nobody really
knows where it came from. There have been plenty
of suggestions and speculation, but no hard evidence.
It may be a leftover Victorian
commercial art nurtured by the anachronistic culture of
the canals to survive as an exotic species in the modern
world, but it could equally possibly be a foreign
implant. There are vaguely similar styles of folk art in
Scandinavia and Germany, and surprisingly similar styles
in Turkey and Bangladesh. In the eighteenth century the
apparently related Hinderloopen paintwork of the Dutch
was only a sailing barge journey away from the Thames,
whilst many people recognise a connection with the
Gypsies' culture and their elaborate caravans. It is
still a mystery.
Whatever the origins this most
delightful of British folk arts is surviving quite well,
and still giving pleasure. Old examples are now
treasured and displayed in several museums devoted to
canal life and history, and a new breed of painters
carries the tradition forward on the cabins and water
cans of the new breed of canal users, who now preserve
the waterways as a leisure industry. |
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