Drawing of the Day: Old Cottages at East Bergholt, 1940

Old Cottages at East Bergholt
Algernon Newton, 1940
The Victoria & Albert Musuem

This 1930 charcoal drawing is part of the “Recording Britain” initiative of World War II which served to capture the changing face of the British landscape.

The scene depicts East Bergholt, John Constable's home—an almost hallowed spot for landscape painter Algernon Newton (1880-1968). Newton had a particular affinity for “Constable Country.” While others in the Recording Britain program attempted to mask the encroaching passage of time on the landscape, Newton embraced it and made sure not to conceal modern marks such as the telephone poles and wires which we see to the left of the cottage.

Drawing of the Day: Old Cottages at East Bergholt, 1940

Old Cottages at East Bergholt
Algernon Newton, 1940
The Victoria & Albert Musuem

This 1930 charcoal drawing is part of the “Recording Britain” initiative of World War II which served to capture the changing face of the British landscape.

The scene depicts East Bergholt, John Constable's home—an almost hallowed spot for landscape painter Algernon Newton (1880-1968). Newton had a particular affinity for “Constable Country.” While others in the Recording Britain program attempted to mask the encroaching passage of time on the landscape, Newton embraced it and made sure not to conceal modern marks such as the telephone poles and wires which we see to the left of the cottage.

Drawing of the Day: Old Cottages at East Bergholt, 1940

Old Cottages at East Bergholt
Algernon Newton, 1940
The Victoria & Albert Musuem

This 1930 charcoal drawing is part of the “Recording Britain” initiative of World War II which served to capture the changing face of the British landscape.

The scene depicts East Bergholt, John Constable's home—an almost hallowed spot for landscape painter Algernon Newton (1880-1968). Newton had a particular affinity for “Constable Country.” While others in the Recording Britain program attempted to mask the encroaching passage of time on the landscape, Newton embraced it and made sure not to conceal modern marks such as the telephone poles and wires which we see to the left of the cottage.

Drawing of the Day: House in Amberley Grove, Sydenham, 1942

House in Amberley Grove, Sydenham
Barbara Jones, 1942
The Victoria & Albert Museum

This watercolor from 1942 is the work of Barbara Jones who was one of the many artists employed during the Second World War as part of Queen Mary’s “Recording Britain” incentive which was meant to keep native artists working during the war.

Jones shows us a view of a home in Amberley Grove in Sydenham, England—a gorgeous example of the sort of eccentric, dreamy homes built in England during the Nineteenth Century during a curious and spectacular period wherein a variety of historic architectural styles were revived and all used at once. This delightfully odd home combined medieval and Gothic visual motifs straight out of fairytales with wholly Victorian design ideals. It was built in 1867 by a now unknown astronomer.

The “Recording Britain” program was founded in 1940 by the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime (a division of the Ministry of Labour and National Service). Lasting through 1943, the program kept artists employed and busy, creating lasting artistic impressions of Britain during the war. This not only served to give us a record of those poor buildings a nd landscapes that would inevitably be lost during the war, but also gives us a look into the creative mindset of the period.