Comic Antics in Peter Brannan’s Paintings

As far as I am aware, nobody has ever suggested that Peter Brannan (pictured, left, at Chapel St Leonards in the 1980s) was a comic artist. Probably because he wasn’t - most of the time he was an intensely sober and serious artist with an insistent awareness of the seriousness of his vocation as a painter. Occasionally, however, just occasionally, he seems to have relaxed into levity, indulging his ironic wit, familiar to both friends and family alike, in his paintings. The comedy, like the man, is gentle, sometimes self-mocking, sometimes mildly satiric, but never malicious or unpleasant.

Some of the comic elements in his paintings are discovered in unobtrusive details. In Newark Town Hall and Market Place, for example, completed in 1975, sold  at the Golding, Young and Mawer Fine Art Sale in September 2015 (Lot 6), there are a number of figures on the street. Some are shoppers, some are market traders and some appear to be just loafing around doing nothing in particular. Distinct from these three groups, although probably out shopping with her mother, is a little girl, dressed in white, centrally placed, towards whom the perspective of the picture takes the viewer’s eye. What is amusing about the little girl is that she appears to be waving to the artist, acknowledging his presence and, at the same time, making her own felt: rather like the unscripted cheeky wave at the camera during a live television street broadcast.

It might be argued that such a detail is merely inserted to provide greater variety to a street scene. However, the comic concept of the subject in a painting seemingly

acknowledging the presence of the artist whilst being painted is clearly evident in another picture, where the idea is developed further. The charming Cleethorpes Beach Scene, completed in 1983, depicts a range of holidaymakers on the sand, relaxed and enjoying the day. The positioning of some of the figures on the beach, especially the man in sunglasses cradling a baby, seen to the right of the painting, suggests a self-conscious posing, as if being photographed for the family album. However, it is not the posturing of the man which provides a comic dimension to the scene, but rather the youth to his right whose little sister clings apprehensively to his jeans. The youth, aged around eleven or twelve, stands facing the line of vision of the artist and stares back at him through a pair of binoculars: the observer has been turned into the observed. The Harbour, dated 1972, is one of several paintings by Brannan probably inspired by memories of Grimsby and Immingham. It is a small picture, dominated by a harbour wall and the apparatus of industrial machinery. The tide is out, allowing a small number of figures to clamber on the rocks beneath a very prominent DANGER sign. The message is reinforced below it by a plaque with the words DANGER HIGH TIDES. Three of the figures are standing and three other less conspicuous figures appear to be seated on the rocks, staring at the low tide. There is also a foregrounded seventh figure which draws attention to itself in several respects. First,

he is more formally dressed than the other figures in the painting, wearing a white shirt and tie with smart trousers. Secondly, his seated position on the rocks, especially the awkwardly splayed legs, suggest that he not so much sat down as slipped over. The image functions on the level of the pantomime skid on a banana skin, but acquires an additional comic dimension on account of the figure resembling Peter Brannan himself, who fastidiously maintained a formal dress code in sometimes incongruous situations. The self-mocking humour of the artist being the victim of unheeded danger, albeit of a different kind to that highlighted in the signs above him, is obvious.    The beach, we know, offers many opportunities for human self-display and vain imposture, the very stuff of comedy. The figures depicted in Peter Brannan’s beach scenes, on the whole, are family groups with small children, enjoying the moment. There is little sense of the self-conscious, little sense of contrivance in order to create an impression: all seems spontaneous and natural, as figures play games on the sand, jump in the sea or just simply walk their dog. In some beach paintings, however, there is a suggestion of public theatricality, in particular by men. An amused and amusing image of masculinity is constructed by the artist at which we can only smile.

In the 1970 painting, Bathers on the Sand, the focus is upon a young man, possibly in his late teens, wearing sunglasses and swimming trunks, who occupies the central space of the picture. He is with his

family, it appears, although in many respects he remains apart from them. In contrast to this standing young man, the family group to the right of the picture is seated on the sand, surrounded by the beach paraphernalia of bucket, spade and transistor radio. The image of the two men seated on the sand contrasts with that of the young man in several respects. One of the seated men is much older and is sun-bathing, fully clad in shirt, trousers and braces. The other seated man wears a T-shirt and swimming trunks, but his skinny legs are in marked contrast with the muscular legs of the young man standing proudly in the centre of the painting. The woman in the picture, next to her two young children happily playing in the sand, sits impassively in her white blouse, brown skirt and sun-glasses: like most women painted by Brannan in his beach scenes, she has an air of down-trodden dowdiness, singularly lacking in any sense of being attractive or taking the opportunity to look attractive. The sideways view of the young man is deliberately constructed to highlight the sense of adolescent self-conscious posing, of wanting to be seen and eye-catching to whoever might be passing: in particular, the hands behind his back to emphasise his chest, and the legs, in their nonchalant theatricality, to create a sense of comfortable cool on the beach. Ultimately, the macho posing of the youth, juxtaposed against the sleepy indifference of those around him, is comic in its transparency, its pretensions and its familiarity.

Malcolm Moyes