David Cox was amongst the top 5  English water colourists and this view of the River Thames at Battersea painted about 1828   is emblematic of his work. I use it to introduce my series 'Looking at Watercolours' 

I buy and sell Victorian watercolours and in order to make profit I had to learn quickly what was a proffesional artists work rather than that of the gifted amateur.

I learned those skills the hard way in auction houses, mixing with picture runners and listening to them assess a painting. I had watercolour painting in my blood I guess since W.J.Shepherd, a Victorian marine artist was my great great grandfather.

One of the unwritten codes of the art dealers business is

'Never buy a picture too large to put in  the car ' It is likely that it will be uncommercial.

Neither buy pictures of

Ugly women
Stricken animals
or blood sports.

Famous as he was you can still pick up a good watercolour by Cox for less than $4000 dollars.

He was born in Deritend Birmingham to the wife of the local Blacksmith and earned a living as a boy painting the faces of love lockets in the local jewelry quarter. When he was 16 he got a position with the Royal Birminham theatre group painting scenery.  

From there having travelled throughout the country with the theatre group for a few years, he moved to London where he took lessons from John Varley  one of the  leading water colourist of  the time. Varley was a senior fellow of the 'Old Watercolour society' and was influential in Cox becoming more widely known. Later on Cox became president of the Society.

He is known to have had two distinct periods.That represented by this painting, where is style is much more mellow and pastoral and that of his latter period, where he introduces a wilder more expressive if  tortured style of wide sweeping brush strokes, rather like the first impressionists used. Cox  often used watercolour direct from the tube, just as one would oil paints. His later period is so diverse from that of his early period, that often his paintings are suspected as being those of his son David Cox jnr.

The painting I introduce can be seen in the public gallery at Washington DC and is one of two of his paintings held for public viewing.

As you look at the painting, I want you to  concentrate on the figures. The two men in the boat. One of them, who looks as though he is ready to heave away from a stationary position and is clearly manning the oar is so skillfully produced that it looks easy for any one to complete. If you think you can , I invite you to try it and get the figures in proportion to the rest of the painting. Now look at the figure at the stern of the boat isnt he almost languidly and carelessly manning the tiller?

Take a close look at the simple brush stroke touches Cox uses to produce the figures. They actually look realistic, and are perfectly balanced in size and position with the composition of the whole picture.

Such a gift is naturally born. There are not many can out perform Cox in figure drawing. His are impeccable . Many top notch watercolourists just could  not paint figures to look realistic. John Varley, who I mentioned earlier, couldn't paint figures to save his life. Indeed his paintings that depict figures often achieve lower prices than his landscapres where figures are absent. Not so with Cox his figures have life and depict action.

As you look at the painting I want you to tell yourself what part of the painting catches your eye first. I wager that 8 out of 10  will say the bow of the boat and for many it will be, but look again . Close your eyes and open them. Now what? I suggest it will be not the bow and the seated figure, but the straight upright edge of the nets hanging on the stern of the boat.

That vertical line in fact denotes the extreme right edge of a part of the painting known as the 'Golden section'. In this particular painting it is bounded by the vertical line of the nets and the horizontal line of the boat's waterline. Those two lines, horizontal and vertical capture the eye and takes the observer to the left of the painting to take in the windminll on the far bank.

It almost incidentally introduces the viewer to the activity, albeit shrouded in mist, going on along  that far bank and denotes Cox's skill as a compositionist of the highest calibre.

Actually the painting is very cleverly distinguished in that it has two 'golden sections'. The secondry one to the right  of the picture uses the clump of reeds in the forground, setting up the vertical edge of the reeds to take the eye to boats in the far distance  and to the pack horse bridge that stretches across the rear of the painting to denote the horizan. That horizan extends along a  group of trees stretching away to the right. The 'device' not often seen on this scale serves to stretch the painting in the minds eye thereby giving a strong  panoramic impression to the whole.

Cox's skill at using the width of the paper to stretch the horizan was his trade mark and there were none better than he.

Finally I want you to look at the horizan in relation to the depth of the painting. See how low down he sets it thereby giving the painting much more space than had he chosen a perspective with the horizan set further up the paper. That space is achieved by that wide expanse of sky.

You can almost see Cox as a swimmer coming up to the boat from the bottom edge of the canvas. Along With John Snell Cotman and John Cozens, Cox was famous for the use of this 'device'.

I hope you enjoy looking at the picture