Lot 1786
FREDERICK CAYLEY ROBINSON, ARA, RWS (1862-1927)
`A SUMMER EVENING`
Signed, oil on brown paper (laid down)
16 x 20.5cm.
Illustrated: The Studio, 1910, vol. 49
Exhibited: probably London, The Carfax Gallery
Cayley Robinson was influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and also drew inspiration from sources as diverse as Fra Angelico and Puvis de Chavannes. There is often an air of quiet mystery in his subjects and his titles are at once specific (suggesting a time and maybe a place) but also paradoxically imprecise, permitting numerous personal interpretations. Cecil French, writing in The Studio in 1922 noted that Robinson blended the `synthetic with the intimate`, suggesting a union of creativity and sensitivity. A critic observed that `he seems to to brood upon a world seen through the twilight of sub-conscious memories` and noted `a quite infinity [that] holds us`.
Robinson settled in London after periods of study in Newlyn, Florence and Paris. Having absorbed the serenity of Italian Masters' works, he also loved the aestheticism and symbolism of the Nazarenes. Cecil French recalls his first encounter with Robinson's exhibits at the Society of British Artists: 'The potency of spell, the visionary strangeness, the almost desperate sincerity, of the new, mysterious, isolated artist brought to mind the first strenuous beginnings of the English Pre-Raphaelite group'.
Robinson's work on the theme of a winter's evening complemented this subject. Each has a measured concentration upon grouping, yet each person seems isolated and alone. The enclosed, cell-like space and the Annunciation theme on the wall may suggest a benevolent institution such as a school or a convent but a modernity of tone and atmosphere predominates: any intention to becalm the viewer with the languor of a summer evening is disrupted by the sense of something unknowable (but not necessarily malign) that is about to happen.
