The Girl at the Gate, by Sir George Clausen

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The Girl at the Gate

Sir George Clausen

1889

Oil on canvas

Support: 1714 x 1384 mm; frame: 2200 x 1870 x 215 mm

Tate Britain (ref. N01612)

Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, 1890

This was painted in Cookham Dean, Berkshire, where Clausen lived from 1885-91; his children's nanny, a young local woman called Mary Baldwin, was his model. [Commentary continues below].

Image kindly released by the Tate under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence. [Click on image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text below for links.]

The young woman's entirely natural expression and pose, and the effect of light on her pastel blue dress, darkening towards the hem, show the influence of the French artist, Jules Bastien-Lepage, whom Clausen praised for "painting for the sake of giving the true effect of people in the open air, with the light and actual colour of nature" (107). The rural context is also beautifully realised here, with a wooden outhouse or cottage at the side, and two figures in the background caught just as naturally, exchanging a word, it seems, as a man pauses with his hand on his spade. A few hens can be glimpsed on and near the path, and a scattering of mixed wild flowers grows along and up the crooked, rustic wooden fence. — Jacqueline Banerjee.

Related Material

Clausen on "Realism and Impressionism"

Bibliography

Clausen, George. Six Lectures on Painting Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, January, 1904. 3rd ed. London: Methuen, 1904. Internet Archive. Contributed by Reese Library, University of California. Web. 1 September 2019.

McConkey, K. "George Clausen: The Rustic Image" (online exhibition catalogue). The Fine Art Society. Web. 1 September 2019.

"Sir George Clausen The Girl at the Gate, 1889." Web. 1 September 2019.

Created 1 September 2019