Gwen John: Strange Beauties

Time for another jaunt, this time by train to Cardiff's National Gallery with my friend Cathy, to see the exhibition of art by one of my favourite painters, Gwen John.

First thing we saw upon entering the Gallery was Bristol-based artist, Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon', which we both found a bit underwhelming, though interestingly, it looks far more impressive in photos than in real life. 

It's decades since I first encountered Gwen John. At that time, her brother, Augustus, was the more famous sibling, and I particularly liked his famous portrait of a very young Dylan Thomas, but I was soon drawn more to Gwen's portraits of women who gazed directly out of the canvas - or sat with their backs to it - and her repeated paintings of a sunlit attic room, furnished with a chair and a book. I dreamed of having a space to myself like that.

Self-Portrait, c1902

Self-Portrait, 1905

Self-Portait, Nude, Sketching (1908 - 1909)

La Chambre sur la Cour, 1904 - 1907

A Corner of the Artist's Room in Paris, 1907

A Lady Reading, 1910

To his credit, Augustus was also aware of her genius, declaring 'Fifty years after my death, I shall be remembered as Gwen John's brother'.

                            

Portrait Group, 1897

In the above watercolour, Winifred John, Gwen's sister, is seated at the table in white; Augustus John is the figure wearing the hat; the artist is the woman visible through the window.

'Gwen, the Artist's sister' by Augustus John

Gwen was born in Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire in 1876, moving at the age of 8 to Tenby, following her mother's death.

Landscape of Tenby with figures, 1896-97

In 1895, she left Wales to study at the Slade School of Art in London, never to return, and by 1904 she was settled in Paris, working as an artist and an artist's model. Before long she was modelling for Auguste Rodin, and in a relationship with him.

Head of Gwen John, by Auguste Rodin

This is the famous association everyone remembers, but John had intense, intimate relationships with men and women throughout her life. She acquired her first cat in 1904 and named her Edgar Quinet, after the street she was living in. Around 1913, she entered the Catholic Church. She lived her life on her own terms.

Study after 'Spirit of Eternal Repose', 1905

I have to say, I had hoped the exhibition might have been rather more extensive than it is, though the artworks the museum assembled to exhibit were thoughtfully displayed. For instance, I loved seeing five of the ten versions of 'The Convalescent' John is known to have painted between 1918 and 1924 side-by-side ... 

... and also certain paintings displayed above their studies:

  

Girl with Bare Shoulders and Nude Girl, both 1910 

It's been many years since I read Sue Roe's biography, Gwen John A Life. Time I think, to read Alice Foster's Gwen John: Art and Life in London and Paris (2023).

When we went to Gwent (and Cardiff)

Once again, it was the time of year when the Severn tunnel is closed for maintenance - very important - and whoever it is who runs the railways these days fails to put on an even half-decent replacement coach service between Cardiff and Bristol. Not wanting the Northerner to have to return home via Gloucester and, per chance, Swindon, I drove him to and from work on the days it was possible for me to do it - four in all.

Although eight hours is a long day out, I wanted to stay in Wales if I could, to reduce costs and my carbon footprint, but one day was forecast to be full of heavy rain and thunderstorms, and another over 30°C, so on those days I made the two round trips, regretting my decision the second day when it took me two and a half hours to cover the 36 miles from home to his workplace on Newport Road in extreme heat. 

The other two days were hot but not oppressively so, so Cwtch and I pored over walk books and websites and found two places in nearby Gwent for us to visit.

First stop, the Sirhowy valley, in the next valley from where Son the Younger used to live, so full of familiar skylines. The outward leg of our circular walk started just south-west of Crosskeys and took us along a disused railtrack, the former signal box now seeing service as a toilet. 

high above the River Sirhowy

sycamore and whitethorn

foxglove

It's an easy walk through the woods, though given the number of little streams crossing the path, I imagine it must be muddy in places when it's not summer.

There were some quite steep steps to climb at the point where our route turned back on itself, which caused my knees to grumble a bit, but we made it. 

Cwmfelinfach

Returning along a higher path, there were some lovely views along the valley to where the Sirhowy meets the River Ebbw. I was thrilled to hear both a cuckoo and a curlew.

non-native fiddleneck

enough hemlock water dropwort to poison the entire population of the British Isles

one of many self-seeded alders lining the path

broad-leaved marsh orchid

marsh valerian

The worst bit of the walk was right at the end when our route took us down an extremely steep, stony path to our starting point, but again I managed to negotiate it without doing myself any damage. I think I might try the longer walk through Sirhowy Country Park next time, as it's definitely worth a revisit.

Our second destination in Gwent was Wentwood , formerly ancient woodland that was part of Chepstow Castle's hunting grounds and is now mostly conifer plantation (though the long and laborious job of replanting native species has started). I was following a walk I'd found online that would take me to the Curley Oak, reputed to be between five hundred and a thousand years old.

                                                   

distant view of England adrift across the Severn

Our route took us past not one but two Bronze Age round barrows in a truly lovely spot.

Fallow deer slots

The track through the woods was still quite muddy in places, despite the warm and (mainly) dry summer weather we've been having.

heath-spotted orchid

honeysuckle

yellow pimpernel

Our route to the oak relied heavily on waymark posts, rather than giving estimated distances between instructions, which was a shame as many of them were no longer in place. Much of the time I had to guess whether a path was the right one, and we did get a bit lost, but not in that trackless-middle-of-the-wildwood way; it was more 'well, I'm pretty sure the car park is back in that direction so I'll take this path for now and head left when I get a chance'. I made a few of my own waymarks for the return leg. 

Eventually - having been distracted by its fence and missed it altogether - we looped back around and reached the Curley Oak. I have to say, it looks rather older than five hundred years to me.

As is the custom with ancient trees, people had left little gifts for it, the most striking of which were limpet shells. I'd picked up a bit of blue pottery earlier on our route, so I left that.

I felt a bit of a pang standing there, as Curly was my father's old nickname and the name his grandchildren called him. I'd have liked to have learnt about this tree thirty years ago, when he was still strong and I could have walked to see it with him. But in any event, it was a stunning high point for a walk.

Since I was in the area with time to spare, I did stop off in Cardiff to visit another memorable tree, this one a London Plane near Roath Park that's in the process of eating a Victorian pillar box. 

And I also got to while away a couple of hours in a favourite spot in Llandaff, namely the wild bit of the graveyard in the Cathedral precinct. Even under the trees it was hot, though, so Cwtch and I headed down to the River Taff where there was a bit of a breeze.

Cwtch is still too scared of water to chase the ducks, thankfully.

It must have been during the 1980s that I last stood in this spot. Much water over the weir since then.