Walter Frederick Osborne RHA ROI (1859-1903)
Loiterers (1888)
Oil on panel, 35.5 x 25.4cm (14 x 10'')
Signed and dated (18)'88

Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 1889, Catalogue...

Walter Frederick Osborne RHA ROI (1859-1903)
Loiterers (1888)
Oil on panel, 35.5 x 25.4cm (14 x 10'')
Signed and dated (18)'88

Exhibited: Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 1889, Catalogue No.220; Institute of Painters in Oil Colours, undated; 'The Irish Revival', Pyms Gallery, London May/June 1982, Catalogue No.2, colour illustration; 'Walter Osborne', National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin November/December 1983, Catalogue No.27, illustrated; 'Walter Osborne', Ulster Museum, Belfast January/February 1984, Catalogue No.27.

Literature: Jeanne Sheehy, 'Walter Osborne', Ballycotton 1974, Catalogue No.220.

In his paintingLoiterersWalter Osborne shows an encounter between three people in a village street, with a pair of horses and a dog, and a hilly landscape behind lit by rosy evening sunlight. A realistic scene, the painting has a particular lyricism and warmth of colour.The boy in the foreground, holding a stick, sheepdog by his side,pauses to observe the man seated upon a white horse and a standing woman who are chatting. Each figure wears the plain clothing of English country people, the boy for instance, in a white smock. Buteach has distinctive head ware: the man a conical straw hat, the woman a bonnet, and the boy a deerstalker cap. In the background arethatched cottages and a small cart, while a basket and cloth has been left on the grassy verge on the right. The foreground is inshadow, but a strip of sunlight falls across the road, and beautiful sunlight also lights up the chimney stacks, tops of the roofs and hedge, and the hat of the mounted figure, while the hills behind and two cloudsare illuminated by a warm, roseate light.

The picture is dated 1888; in this period Osborne was working in Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire, often in the company of fellow-artists, such as Blandford Fletcher, and painting some of the finest pictures of his career. He painted in villages along the riversKennett and Thames, and "he visited that part of the English countrysidewhich lies to the north and south of the Berkshire Downs", (J. Sheehy, 1974, p.22).Loiterersmay be set in Uffington or near Newbury. Osborne admired the rustic styles of village buildings, forexample, the cottages with steep thatched roofs or stepped gables, small windows and red brick chimneys. The diagonal roofs to the right add adynamic energy to the composition.

In spite of its title, the people in the picture are not 'loitering' but relaxing, perhaps exchanging news after a day's work in the fields. In many pictures Osborne presented such people in the village street, stopping to talk, or simply observing the scene. He often usedpencil studies from his sketchbooks, or juxtaposed figures from otherpictures, to create interesting ensembles of local characters. For example, the figure of a boy in the foreground, viewed from behind and looking into the picture, becomes an archetypical image inseveral works. The woman, the boy in his smock, and the patient white and black plough horses also appear in a contemporary pictureTheLock Gate, while a faithful sheepdog is present in several of Osborne paintings. The woman in the bonnet is also a familiarfigure from many of Fletcher's Village scenes. The cottages and the landscape behind, the Downs and clouds, lit by beautiful evening light, are as much characters of the picture as the human figures. As SimonJenkins writes :
"There is a gently rolling quality to the Berkshire chalk lands... The curves are more enfolding, the slopes more wooded... Yet they can still be wild and...mysterious". (England's 100 Best Views, 2019, p. 140.)
If we look closely at Osborne's picture we see some surprising details: light paint is visible behind the boy, suggesting that his figure was added after the background was completed; and there are traces of pentimento on the grassy bank, where the figure of a seatedwoman may have been painted over. The picture is crisply executed yetOsborne's brushwork is lively, as for example in the 'blurred' treatment of the boy's smock, and the freely painted foreground and bank. Exquisite colouring is sprinkled throughout the picture, forexample in the rosy clouds, the pale duck egg blue of the sky, and the touches of red in kerchiefs and chimney stacks.

Loiterersis painted on a sturdy wood panel. Osborne made a lively ink drawing after the picture (sketchbook in NGI, cat. No. 19, 201, sheet 25), with a vignette of the boy and dog beside it, suggesting that he felt a special attachment to this painting.

Acknowledgements: with grateful thanks to Anne Hodge, NGI, for assistance in research.

Julian Campbell, September 2020.

 

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