In our last post we discovered how an engraving of the 1813 East Street painting by Joseph Gilbert first captured the imagination of Nigel as a small boy. Years later he used this as the basis for inspiration, following its composition and placement of characters, to create a modern (1975) version completed in 1978.
As an artist three styles emerged for Nigel: a naïve style straight from his imagination depicting tractors in brightly coloured fields and memories of circus performers. Secondly, watercolours and acrylic paintings of the local Chichester landscapes which he created on location. Thirdly, detailed realistic paintings, often portraits or commissions using photography as source material to enable accurate likeness. From this realistic style came his ability to start the painstaking work required to complete the Chichester Street Scenes, to capture the street and the people in miniature portraiture even down to the Chichester pigeons!
If you look at the painting of East Street you may wonder how the wide-angle view of the street has been achieved, or in artistic terms how has the perspective been achieved? The perspective both gives a sense of realism but uses some tricks and techniques Nigel learnt from the Joseph Gilbert’s painting. In order to see all of the figures clearly Joseph Gilbert had taken a high eye level about 12 feet off the ground. Instead of one vanishing point, as in a photograph of buildings running parallel to each other, he used two points, one either side of the cross. This artistic licence opened up the street and gave the appearance of a stage set, with a superior view of the buildings each side. Nigel used the same perspective trick placing the Market Cross as the first part of the painting and following its perspective on either side of the street.
Nigel described the first steps “I asked Alan Shapiro, (a tutor at Chichester College), to take the initial photograph of the street from which I worked. I stretched a fine canvas onto a 30 by 40 inch stretcher, these proportions being almost four times the size of the Joseph Gilbert engraving. It was then a simple matter to measure the placing of the old market cross by working from the top and sides and by multiplying by four… I started to draw in the houses and while painting this ‘set’ I began to look around for the principal ‘actors’ to match up with the original characters.” (from an interview in The Artist, 1982)
In this photo we see Nigel at his home in Bognor. Beside him is Mervyn Cutten who gave him the inspiration for East Street. In this picture we see the perspective of the buildings complete and the set of characters yet to be added.