Art helped ‘Old World’ nostalgia

Sydney Thompson (1877-1973) was a prolific and popular artist who travelled extensively between New Zealand and Europe.

Though he was born and spent his childhood in the former – as one of nine children on a farm near Oxford, Canterbury – he inherited a sensibility and value system from the latter. These connections dovetailed in his artwork.

New Zealand, for Pakeha in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was an adolescent colony, yet to establish a cultural identity unique from that of the motherland.

Nostalgia for ‘‘the Old World’’ was widely-shared and the arts were its principal vehicle. The landscape, which was still felt to be new and alien by many settlers, was subjected to the traditions of European representational painting in an effort to make it familiar.

This was the dominant style and philosophy at the Canterbury College School of Art where Thompson enrolled in 1895. He was an accomplished student, and after completing his studies in Christchurch, Thompson travelled to the United Kingdom to further his education at the celebrated arts institutes of the Old World.

However, arriving in Europe,

Thompson found that his imagination was captured, not by the reputed schools, but by the artist colonies of Staithes in Cornwall and Concarneau in Brittany, France. These settlements brought Thompson into contact with young artists like himself, who were enthusiastic about modern painting styles which prioritised atmosphere and expression over mere likeness.

Entrance to O’er t’beck, Staithes was painted during one of these encounters. It shows a small fleet of fishing boats docked in the canal with a view of the cliffs in the near distance.

Thompson has been careful to depict the golden light as it falls upon the seaside buildings, evoking the first or final moments of the day, and in them the calm and comfort they offer the fishermen from either side of a long day at sea.