Painting as Panacea

Painting as Panacea: an essay in celebration of Winston Churchill and his favourite pastime

It has long intrigued me how two rival antagonists in war - Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler - were both painters. I was intrigued enough to delve a little into the pastime of Britain's great leader.

PREFACE

I started collecting books on Winston Churchill years ago as an undergraduate, fascinated with the life, reputation and achievements of man who seemed to loom larger than history itself. My first introduction to him, however, was in defeat – specifically, the defeat of Singapore in February 1942. This was when he made the now famous laconic remark, that the fall of the island colony – Britain’s “Gibraltar of the East” – was the “worst disaster” and “largest capitulation” in British military history. My interest in Churchill was further stimulated when one evening, still an undergraduate, another Churchillophile friend and I made our way somewhat nervously to a little theatre on Granville Island, Vancouver, to attend a public lecture. The lecturer was none other than the foremost Churchill scholar himself, Martin Gilbert, and the occasion was the launch of his newest one-volume mammoth study of the great man. It was a simple but memorable lecture, made so heart-warming by the evident awe which Gilbert held for his heroic-subject. His thick book remains one of my prized possessions. Some years ago, I viewed a captivating performance by the actor Brendan Gleeson who portrayed Churchill in the film Into the Storm. A memorable movie, it was a brave attempt to examine not only Churchill’s gallant and forceful leadership of Britain against Germany, but also his unpleasant traits such as his impatience with staff and servants, and his brusque and obnoxious mannerisms. While Churchill’s reputation is in no clear and present danger of being dismantled, the one-sided view of many admiring biographers is clearly in the process of undergoing some revision. The number of books written to study lesser known aspects of his life has not declined with the years. Most recently, I discovered that Churchill had written two papers on painting for the Strand Magazine: “Hobbies” (December 1921) and “Painting as a Pastime” (January 1922). These have since been issued as one book entitled “Painting as a Pastime.” It had never occurred to me that Churchill the soldier, wartime-prisoner, statesman, politician, diplomat and Prime Minister even had an interest in painting, much less would write about it. Reading the book gave me new insights into Churchill’s life. It is with this fresh glow of discovering new gems in an old mine that this little essay has been penned.

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It is generally accepted for great men to find their reserves in some form of little hobby, recreational or social outlet. Churchill painted with a passion. He did not take it up, as many a child today is wont to, at the urgings and behest of a domineering parent. Neither did he do so for pragmatic reasons – to make a living, for example. Certainly, art did not become for him, some form of means by which protestations might be made against the establishment. He was a full-blooded forty year old man when he took up the brush seriously. And he did not trifle. Once embarked upon, painting became an entertaining hobby, and in times of despondency, a medicinal therapy. When painting, his craft consumed him so that he would concentrate wholly on it. By and by, painting also was one of his several outlets for his sheer creativity; the other was writing. With practice, he became excellent at both. As he matured in years, putting colours on white backgrounds would be a swirling, exciting and elaborate ceremony, like a grand military parade. Churchill loved the pomp of military parades. And he loved his painting.

Winston Churchill’s initial foray into painting was as a fifteen year old schoolboy. In a 1908 letter to his mother, he wrote: “Papa said he thought singing was a waste of time, so I left the singing and commenced drawing.” He made a real effort at this, and soon, was drawing “little landscapes and bridges and those sorts of things.”(Gilbert) There had been no early signs of promise for Churchill. He was no child prodigy, not in his studies and not in art. An 1884 school report card of Churchill, then aged ten, was scathing. Along with remarks such as “conduct has been exceedingly bad” and “he is not to be trusted to do any one thing” was his Head Master’s bland evaluation of his artistic talents – “fair.” (St George’s School report card, 1884)

At the start of the Great War, Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, a Cabinet position. After the disastrous failed attempt to land Allied soldiers on the Dardenelles in the Crimea, Churchill found himself, in early 1915, out of office. It was a very low point in his life as a public servant, and he slumped into deep despondency. Around this time, Sir William Orpen, Britain’s finest painter, did his portrait. Paul Johnson, the historian, judges it to be one of the best Orpen portraits – dark, somber, troubled, defiant and yet despairing. Looking at it upon completion, Churchill sighed, “It is not the picture of a man. It is the picture of a man’s soul.” Orpen spoke of “the misery in his face,” and called Churchill then, “the man of misery.” (Johnson)

Retreating into the haven of a new country home, Hoe Farm, to recover from the shock of the Dardenelles, he soon fell into the clutches of a deep depression – or what he would call, his “black dog.” Bumped out of the government, and smarting with the dual pain of defeat and dejection, Churchill felt like “a sea beast fished up from the depths.” A sense of helplessness set in: “I had vehement convictions and small power to give effect to them.” In those few months, the natural soldier-statesman was, in today’s terminology, simply disempowered. Feverishly nationalistic and highly energetic, Churchill now found it disconcerting to be doing nothing but ponder and think: “I had long hours of utterly unwonted leisure in which to contemplate the frightful unfolding of the war.” When every fibre of his being was “inflamed to action,” he was forced to remain only “a spectator of the tragedy.” (Article in the Strand magazine, 1920, quoted in Gilbert)

At precisely this moment, painting became for him a panacea for his pain. It was in 1915 that Churchill began to seriously and diligently take up painting. He describes his first encounter with it in his own poetic way:

And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue – out of charity and out of chivalry, because after all, she had nothing to do with me. (ibid)

Churchill was referring to his sister-in-law Lady Gwendeline Churchill, who was also at Hoe Farm that summer of 1915 holidaying with Winston and Clemmie. He had observed her painting and she had promptly invited him to take up her son Johnny’s brushes and give it a go. A week later, when Winston was back at Hoe Farm, having endured a torrid week in London being ignored by the Cabinet, he did give it a go. However, it was not easy to get going.

The next step was to begin. But what a step to take! The palette gleamed with beads of colour; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung poised, heavy with destiny, irresolute in the air. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto.

Winston Churchill had faced fierce fighting enemies in India, the Sudan and South Africa with more gusto, courage and glee. The intrepid warrior-soldier now shuddered slightly holding up his brush.

So very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette with a very small brush, and with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean upon the affronted snow-white shield. It was a challenge, a deliberate challenge, but so subdued, so halting, indeed so cataleptic, that it deserved no response.

I wondered long and hard at this peculiarly ironic moment in time. It was so seemingly insignificant – a meagre and slim wooden brush in hand, facing a still, stiff white board. Surely in his battles, Churchill had endured far worse dangers – bullets, cavalry charges, explosions, the drawn sword, the gleaming knife. Not to mention the sweltering inhospitable heat, the blood-curdling screams of men in fear and anger, the sand, the thirst and the wrenching uncertainties of war. And what of his capture by the Boers and subsequent captivity? Or what about his brave but death-inviting escape from the concentration camp? Surely, most surely, he whose hands had firmly gripped the rifle in battle could now hold up the brush in leisure?

We are oft prone to lionize our great men of history. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill is a great man in history. But the best of men are men at best. Even the heroes of time have their fitful starts and their “black dogs” that ceaselessly bite at their well-heeled feet. And “The Last Lion,” as one eminent biographer of Churchill described him, certainly had his tender, even weak, moments. One mark of a great man, however, is the ability (either dug up from within the deep human recesses or needled into being by some external influence) to first confront those nagging weaknesses, then swirl around to disarm them before winning them over.

Of course, we also know that Churchill was prone to exaggeration and dramatic license. At any rate, he was human enough to acknowledge some human assistance in his earthly endeavours. It was the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery, the famous painter, who came alongside and gently chastised the budding artist. As Churchill would himself later recount, she exclaimed:

‘Painting! But what are you hesitating about? Let me have a brush – the big one.’ Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette – clean no longer – and then several large fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas.

Churchill was in the thick of battle again, just as he loved it. “Anyone could see that it could not hit back…. The canvas grinned in helplessness before me.” He had engaged the enemy and as expected, had won. Churchill proclaimed that “I have never felt any awe of a canvas since.” (article in the Strand magazine, 1920, in Gilbert)

Winston Churchill quickly became quite good at his new found hobby. Soon he would be taking along with him his paints, brushes, easel and canvas nearly everywhere he went. With constant practise, his improvement was stark and clear even for the experts to see. Lavery himself was effuse with his compliments on Churchill: “I know few amateurs of the brush with a keener sense of light and colour, or a surer grasp of the essentials.” He was convinced that had Churchill not been a statesman, “he would have been a great master with the brush.” (Gilbert)

In light of Churchill constantly being in the political limelight, and in the unforgiving glare and media attention, it is of great significance to observe the emotional effects painting had on him. Soon, misery began to retreat from him. His mind, self-respect and confidence returned. Finding he could paint well, he improved with each attempt. His colours were cheerful and strong. His friends loved his paintings. Painting would become a passion, “and he painted for the rest of his life, as the perfect relaxation from his tremendous cares.” (Johnson) Gilbert adds that painting would become “a companion in good times as well as bad.” Taking up his brushes wherever he travelled, painting was to be enjoyed in different lights and landscapes. His themes were full of nature’s movements, reflecting scenes of ponds, the shore, woodlands, rivers and peaceful landscapes. (Gilbert) Indeed, the English journalist William Rees Mogg wrote that “"In his own life, he had to suffer the 'black dog' of depression. In his landscapes and still lives there is no sign of depression." (Wikipedia reference)

One of Churchill’s lifelong friends was the eminent French painter Paul Maze, whom he had first met at the Western Front in 1915. They were to renew acquaintances over and over again throughout the next decades, exchanging correspondences, visiting each other and painting together. In August 1939, just a month before the outbreak of the Second World War, the two men were together at Normandy, France. Maze recalls that on Sunday 27 August, as they worked with their art, Churchill suddenly exclaimed: “This is the last picture we shall paint in peace for a very long time.” Maze was impressed with Churchill’s deep concentration while painting, although “no one but he could have understood more what the possibility of war meant, and how ill-prepared we were.” And then Churchill grunted: “They are strong, I tell you, they are strong.” Maze noted in his diary what he next observed:

Then [Churchill’s] jaw would clench his large cigar, and I felt the determination of his will. ‘Ah!’ he would say, ‘with it all, we shall have him. (quoted in Gilbert)

Barely a week later, on 3 September, Britain was at war with Hitler’s Germany, and Churchill would soon return to the Prime Minister’s Office. Churchill painted only once during the six years of war, and that was as he was recovering from pneumonia in Marrakech in 1943. Then, he painted a picture of the snow-capped Atlas mountains.

Churchill’s nemesis during the war, Adolf Hitler, also was a painter. He had an earlier start, in 1908, while a young man living the bohemian life in Vienna, Austria. Hitler also carried with him his brushes and canvas on many of his journeys, even to the Western Front in the First World War. He painted through the Second World War, up till his death in 1945. It is estimated that he had completed hundreds of paintings in his lifetime.

And yet we barely remember Hitler as a painter. As for Churchill, historians and the reading public have been much kinder to him. His style of leadership has been analysed in volumes of books. As a consequence, all possible explanations for his achievements have been searched out and documented. Churchill’s resort to painting as a panacea for pain and the ostracism from power is simply one fascinating way to understand the great man. It was his safe outlet whenever he experienced frustrations and faced the severest of trials as a very public figure. But painting would also become his source of joy. Very memorably, he would quip:

Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end, or almost to the end of the day. (Strand magazine, 1921, quoted in Gilbert)

Hitler, largely because of the horrors he engendered, has been immortalised as the epitome of evil. Churchill and Hitler fought each other in war. One triumphed and the other died ignominiously. Both were painters. Hitler painted through the Second World War; his art often had war-ruined buildings as a theme. Churchill painted only once in those years. His paintings were always happy. Now in 2014, we are loathe to celebrate Hitler. His painting abilities therefore, remain clouded by his own reputation. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, is still very much revered, although the distance of time has naturally encouraged some revisionism. Painting was a suitable, peaceful, sane and creative counter-balance to his own frenetic yearning for action. More than that, it was his personal and intimate remedy, his panacea, for the pains of failure.

Notes:

Martin Gilbert, In Search of Churchill (1995): Paul Johnson, Churchill (2009); Christopher Catherwood, Churchill: The Treasures of Winston Churchill, the Greatest Briton (2012)

(2015)