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PROPERTY FROM A NEW ENGLAND PRIVATE COLLECTION

BRITISH, 1860-1952
SPRING SONGS

measurements
39 1/2 by 52 in.

alternate measurements
100.5 by 132 cm

signed ARTHUR J. ELSLEY and dated 1902 (lower left)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Sale: Christie's, London, January 30, 1904, lot 120 (as Baby's Birthday)
Mr. Lister (acquired from the above sale)
Private Collection, United Kingdom (and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 15, 2000, lot 53, illustrated)
Richard Green Fine Paintings, London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in October 2000

EXHIBITED

London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1902, no. 533
Birmingham, Spring Exhibition, 1903, no. 148

LITERATURE

Terry Parker, Golden Hours, The Paintings of Arthur J. Elsley 1860-1952, Somerset, 1998, pp. 89, 91, p. 90 illustrated

NOTE

Spring Songs, also known as Baby's Birthday, reveals all the best and most memorable aspects of Elsley's work. This was one of the artist's first large-scale compositions, notable in the complex arrangement of the children clamoring down garden steps--and particularly in the careful balance of the young celebrant being carried in her elder's arms. Elsley achieved such impressive effects with preparatory oil sketches in addition to photographs of child and pet models (who often would not sit still long enough for study). He would sometimes incorporate elements of landscape painting done en plein air to join seamlessly with the studio-created portraits (Parker, p. 11). These various components combine to create a cohesive vision of gleeful childhood, where the simple pleasures of a warm spring day and a happy birthday are celebrated--even by the scampering terrier, an eager member of the group.

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902, Spring Songs was hung among works honoring the newly crowned King Edward VII. Despite the myriad of subject matter presented at the Academy, an Art Journal writer remarked: "precedence has rightly been given to the state portrait of King Edward" (July, 1902, p. 202). The writer also observed, with some tedium, the number of pictures honoring great episodes of the closing Boer War, which "whether in actuality, in journalism or in picture, we have had enough" (p. 206). Elsley's work would certainly stand apart from these official and intense compositions, serving as a visual respite from more somber scenes. This particular quality remained an essential element of the work's appeal and was reiterated again by critics when it was next offered for sale in 1904. The London Magazine noting that "childhood, to the artist, is invariably fair in color, its face bright and smiling---for it knows nothing of the cares and troubles of life--and its cheeks are plump and rosy" (as quoted in Parker, p. 91). In this aspect, Elsley's children symbolize a wish to remember childhood games and joys, while celebrating their very "English" characteristics.

As suggested by the work's alternative title, Baby's Birthday, and by the processional format of the composition, the work may depict an episode from a birthday party--a widely popular tradition by the early twentieth century, its fun and games eagerly anticipated by children. In particular, the celebratory rituals of the upper middle class, of which the children of the present work seem to be members, were an ideal way for families to convey their wealth and social refinement. With the present work, as others of the period such as I Sent a Letter To My Love (1902) and Baby's Turn/A Skipping Match (1905), Elsley uses a country manor garden as a stage setting in which children act out games described in careful visual detail. Indeed, such settings often came from photographs of gardens in the artist's bound volumes of Country Life magazine, which featured the lifestyles of wealthy country dwellers (Parker, p. 11). Here an Italianate terrace, with its long descending steps, balustrades and urns, serves as an ideal, grandiose platform for the procession, providing pomp and refinement to the scene while suggesting the impressive size and scale of the unseen house at the top of the flight. The formal architecture intermixes with a more loosely designed and romantic landscaping of deep green grasses, an ancient, gnarled tree and soft tumbles of bushes and flowers in the background. Such spaces were the perfect place for parents to launch birthday celebrations, often large, extravagant and coordinated by the mother, usually with the help of a sizable staff. Party games, such as the ceremonial floral parade of the present work, had a socializing function as well, teaching children how to interact with one another and assume their proper place in society. Elsley's children wear ready smiles and happily play but remain neat and tidy in their outdoor activity with each child having a role to play. Garlands of flowers and colorful ribbons were sometimes worn and set around the honored guest to denote their special status. Indeed, rose, hydrangea, dahlias or other blossoms were often key features in Victorian and Edwardian era birthday cards featuring children (most often young girls) stringing garlands, tossing petals or wearing floral crowns.

The immediate appeal of the work is further apparent in its Academy title of Spring Songs. In Britain, the celebration of spring has a very long history, extending from the Celtic festival of Beltane to the Roman May feasts in honor of Flora, the goddess of flowers, and Maia, the goddess of the season (and for whom the month of May is named). By the late nineteenth century these pagan rituals had transformed into nationally recognized Maying festivals. According to the Victorian compendium, The Language and Sentiment of Flowers, "in country places it was formerly the custom for lads and lasses to get up soon after midnight... to walk in a body to some neighboring wood; there they gathered as many branches and nosegays of flowers as they could carry, and then returned home about sunrise in joyous procession, garlanded with flowers, and laden with blossomy boughs" (as quoted in Louis Lippincott, Lawrence Alma Tadema, Spring, Malibu, 1990, p. 21). Indeed, Elsley's children appear to be reenacting the rituals surrounding "Bringing in the May," where children would scamper into the woods and fields on May Eve, the night before May Day, to gather flowers and greenery for decorations. Processional parades were then held toward the May Pole to celebrate the beauty of English flowers and nature's warming season of rebirth and hope. The central focus of the scene, the little girl, held aloft by two older children, is a young version of the May Queen, typically an adolescent selected to ride or walk in front of the May Day parade wearing a white gown which symbolizes purity. The various componets of the Maying festivals were frequently interpreted in the period's paintings, with many artists entitling similar compositions The Battle of the Flowers (Parker, p. 89). Such "battles" (still enacted today) derived from Continental traditions of Mardi Gras or Carnival festivals preceding Lent, in which opposing groups riding in carriage processionals pelted one another with showers of bouquets (Lippincott, p. 34). Certainly the children of Spring Songs, who hold baskets of England's beloved roses or scoop up trailing garlands, have ready ammunition. Here, Elsley uses such floral props to playfully interpret the era's "grown-up" formalities and festivals while envisioning the timeless and too often forgotten, pleasures of youth.