Page 52 - Studio International - November 1974

The Romany Movement his father to hide the scar — his appearance
The Art of Augustus John by Malcolm Easton changed dramatically from the spruce, clean-
and Michael Holroyd. 415 pp. 90 illustrations, shaven youth of old; he became hirsute, dirty
b/w and colour. Secker & Warburg, £10.75. and untidy. 'In this way,' writes Michael
Augustus John: A Biography, Vol. 1, The Years Holroyd, 'the Augustus John legend was
of Innocence, by Michael Holroyd. 415 pp. conceived'. The following year he wins the
26 b/w illustrations. Heinemann, f5.75. Summer Composition Prize and leaves the Slade
The production of these two books devoted to in a 'blaze of glory'. John's life from this point
the art and early life of Augustus John is on seems to have been modelled on Dowson's
immaculate, both as to the quality of print and Villanelle of the Poets' Road: `Wine and women
illustration, and to the abundance of detailed and song/Three things garnish our way/Yet is the
information. They naturally complement one day over long'. He has his first one-man show at
another and the biography contains, in addition the Carfax Gallery in 1899 where he makes £30,
to its sources of reference, a number of helpful with which he goes to France with the Williams
half-tone illustrations. With such a wealth of Rothenstein and Orpen, where he meets Oscar
verbal and pictorial material we are inevitably Wilde, who describes him as `the charming
invited to ask as to the nature of the life, mind Celtish poet in colour' and by whom J ohn was
and work of the subject — who lived a splendid acutely embarrassed, an odd reaction to a man
eighty-three years — and in some manner to who had just declared an aversion to 'moral
appraise him as a painter. living'. Two years later he marries Ida
Born in 1878, in'Haverfordwest, the third Nettleship, who was to bear him five sons, and
child and second son of Edwin John, a Welsh die of puerperal fever and peritonitis
solicitor, the family moved to Tenby where immediately after the birth of the fifth, in Paris
Augustus spent his childhood, mostly in the care in 1907. It was with Ida's encouragement after
of aunts and servants. His mother, Augusta, their marriage that John's mistress, and the
died in 1884 after a long illness, which is model for most of his memorable portraits,
perhaps one of the reasons for his life-long Dorelia MacNeill, joined them to make up the
attachment to his elder sister Gwen. Life in famous ménage-à-trois.
Tenby was provincial, narrow and bourgeois, And it is the ménage-à-trois which provides
which background probably does a lot to Mr Holroyd with so much of his source material.
explain John's subsequent addiction to Both Augustus and Ida — and everyone else at
bohemian living after leaving art school. that pre-telephonic time it appears — were
In 1894 John left Tenby for London and he unflagging letter writers and one wonders
entered the Slade in October of that year, where whether Ida could have withstood her almost
on his first day he was led into the Antique continual state of pregnancy without being able
Room presided over by Henry Tonks. The to unburden herself to her friends. Perhaps
Slade School was just twenty-three years old The Years of Parturition would have been a
and the tradition, to which J ohn eagerly better sub-title for the biography, which takes
responded, was based on the study of the old us from John's childhood, through the Slade, to
masters, laying special emphasis on his immediate and early success, his marriage
draughtsmanship. John recorded later, in 'A and up to 1910, when the `Manet and the Post-
Note on Drawing', that it was Fred Brown, the Impressionists' exhibition caused such a stir.
Slade Principal, as much as Tonks who This, says Holroyd, 'was a watershed, and in or
inculcated the `method of rendering the human about December 1910 the character of British
form by a succession of rhythmical lines Art changed: indeed, it disappeared. The
following the surface and explaining the Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition which,
structure'. Since Tonks had come to the Slade two years later, admitted British artists, signalled
as a young Fellow of the Royal College of the last opportunity for them to choose the path
Surgeons after being increasingly attracted to they would follow and the view posterity would
the artist's life, and began drawing by take of them.'
persuading his patients to model for him, and In the years while Ida was alive, apart from a
failing them his corpses, an anatomical approach year of comparable calm while J ohn was
was not surprising. teaching in Liverpool, and for a period in Essex,
Life at the Slade at that time was vigorous where Ida was left much on her own (apart that
and austere; Tonks wanted his students to is, from babies) and while J ohn was involved
study the National Gallery more, and Aubrey with Orpen and Knewstub in the Chelsea Art
Beardsley less. Apart from an odd visit to the School, their life had a semblance of stability.
music hall, Augustus John worked hard, Thereafter, we are off with the raggle-taggle-
remarking of this period later that, 'A student gypsies, oh. It is an exhausting caravanserai and
should devote himself to one master only'. one is not surprised at Ida finally giving up the
Whilst on holiday from the Slade in 1897 he ghost (she had, just before she died, decided on
dived into the sea and banged his head on a separation). Meanwhile John is painting away,
submerged rock; when the wound was stitched, making lists of Romany words and collecting
the doctor remarked that J ohn probably owed Romany songs, picking up commissions and
his life to his 'uncommonly thick skull'. On his patrons, Lady Ottoline Morrell and the neurotic,
return to the Slade, wearing a smoking cap of venereal disease obsessed J ohn Quinn.
black velvet embroidered with gold — lent by Whether Michael Holroyd's claim that