Clare Woods
Christopher Corr
Whitby Landscape Yorkshire, 1972 Burra for me is an amazing magician in the way he turns landscape into a something other. Looking at this painting (above) I do not feel any sense of open space, a view or even a landscape. For me the painting is a carefully constructed sculptural image. Its abstract shapes fitting together to create an almost monster like creature with a lighter painted spinal line running over the contours of its back. The air around it is thick with fog blocking any hope of a pastoral view. The background is replaced by dense dirty paint that suspends the creature blocking its movement away from me. The surrounding forms all nestled together feel dormant waiting to be woken. This image has a detachment to time and place with only the painted road and posts having any connection with a human presence, but this still does not give any clues to place. The title obviously helps to locate but remove the title and you are left with something more than a painting of Yorkshire.
Market Day, 1926 'Market Day' (opposite) is a hectic scene. It's 1926. Look at the clothes, the hats and the shoes. We're down by the port in a foreign place but where exactly are we? There's a palm tree, a broken viaduct. It could be Marseille, Toulon or maybe Genoa. The composition of the painting is complicated. It's like a still from a film or a theatre set, people are rushing along in all directions. It has a great feeling of motion and action: women with baskets on their heads, carrying strange fruits, men working down at the port unloading a ship, working the cranes, driving trucks, fishing boats, passenger ships. There are boats coming into port and others sail away. In the far distance you can see ships just visible on the horizon. A bus has stopped to let the passengers off. There are people looking from their windows, people at a cinema. There's so much depth to this painting. Two smart black sailors on shore leave are lugging their kitbags, looking for a room or a bar or some fun. There are girls, strange-looking girls, looking for a good time too. This is what I like about Edward Burra's work. He sets the scene with all the characters but he leaves it to us, the spectator, to complete the story. He made me want to see these places and draw scenes like this. I've been to Marseille, Toulon, Genoa and La Spezzia and I've looked for the sailors and the girls on the street. I still get excited when I see a basket on someone's head.
Edward Burra, Market Day, 1926, Watercolour on paper, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (on long-term loan from a private collection); Near Whitby, Yorkshire,1972, Watercolour on paper heightened with Gouache, Simon Draper Collection; All images Š Estate of the Artist c/o Lefevre Fine Art Ltd., London
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