Enchantment

NORMAN LINDSAY (1879-1969)

Enchantment

watercolour on paper
50.0 x 38.0 cm
signed lower right: Norman Lindsay

Provenance:
Private collection, Sydney

Estimate: $50000 - 60000

 

 

Enchantment is a glorious example of Lindsay’s technical mastery of a most exacting and unforgiving medium. The overriding constraints of watercolour make it necessary to complete the work in only two applications of wash. The preliminary wash is followed by the second and final wash which provides the details of the picture, while areas of white are frequently portions of paper unaltered by the artist. When undertaking a watercolour, ‘major changes are virtually impossible. The dilemma lies in the colour becoming muddied should changes be necessary. You only have one chance… it is complicated by the discipline of immediacy. Each action has to be completed now. The washes once started must be finished.’1 Despite the challenges of watercolour, or perhaps in part because of them, by his own account Lindsay was fascinated with the medium; ‘My days these days are entirely obsessed with watercolour. There is a great charm in being wholly captured by a medium, a medium which one exploits in a spirit of adventure. In watercolour, I find the gambler’s passion is involved. Fortune or penury wait on the cast of a wash.’2

 

In Enchantment, the central female figure is elegantly attired in a flowing gown, her head adorned with a mantilla, which was a light scarf, often made of the finest lace, predominantly worn by Spanish women in an effort to cover their heads and shoulders.3 The intensity of the attention from her male counterpart, suggests that he could be intended by Lindsay, to represent either Casanova, the serial lover of women, or Don Juan, ‘the Spanish hero and famous lover as represented in Byron’s poem Don Juan.’4 The substance of Byron’s epic and satiric poem Don Juan resonated with Lindsay, where there was a fundamental shift away from Don Juan being represented as a womaniser, but instead, as a figure who was easily seduced by women. Of his connection to the poem, Lindsay argued;

 

‘Byron and his period have always been for me a major preoccupation for, apart from a personal love for Byron himself, and admiration for Don Juan as not only the greatest narrative poem… but the most courageous attack on the disgusting prudery which has violated even the best English poets and novelists… with Browning as the only exception not corrupted by it, that period may be said to have lost for England a revitalization in national moral energy...’5

 

Lindsay expert, Lin Bloomfield, contends the artist was ‘fanatical about detail – his careful painting of lace and brocade, tulle and velvet is an eloquent testimony.’6 Despite the challenges of the medium, in Enchantment, Lindsay has successfully portrayed an extraordinary level of precision realised in the patterns, pleats and drape of the garments. Moreover, through his meticulous portrayal of the lovers’ gazes he has realised an exceptional work of heightened emotional intensity.

 

 

 

Footnotes:

1. Chapman, P., ‘Watercolours’ in Bloomfield, L. (ed), The World of Norman Lindsay, Macmillan, Sydney, revised edition, 1995, p.27

2. Norman Lindsay cited in Bloomfield, L., Norman Lindsay Watercolours 1897-1969, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2003, p.38

3. Bloomfield, L., Norman Lindsay Watercolours 1897-1969, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2003, p.104

4. Ibid.

5. Norman Lindsay, cited in Bloomfield, L., Norman Lindsay: Oil paintings 1889-1969, Odana Editions, Bungendore, 2006, p.88

6. Bloomfield, L., ‘Oil Paintings’ in Bloomfield, L., (ed), The World of Norman Lindsay, Macmillan, Sydney, revised edition, 1995, p.65

 

 

Marina Brennan, BA (Hons)