![“I’ve been painting that old still life of apples in the dish every day lately and also painting the two doors in Duncan’s bedroom. They come on either side of the mantelpiece you know which makes it rather an amusing whole but I’m not doing anything very startling - only pots of flowers and marbled circles. [Vanessa to Roger Fry, 22 February 1917]” [1]
“QB: The stenciled wallpaper was Duncan’s idea although I performed much of the mechanical side of the business. I think that it had a sedative effect which at that time was very helpful to both of us. His plans for redecoration coincided with the politicians’ preparations for war in 1939. As instructions were issued to the population to carry gas-masks, so Duncan began to make ready his large stencils and bowls of paint, and as the situation in Europe grew worse and worse, the extremely hand-made stencils extended across the black walls.”
“VN: As in many rooms at Charleston, the decoration was carried out rapidly and without due preparation. As the house was leased, permanency was not the most important consideration. The work was carried out with reckless spontaneity on top of many existing layers of paper, and this in due course made restoration extremely difficult. Duncan and Vanessa both made their own stencils out of paper, using a sponge to apply the paint. They used colours which in those days were cheap and easily obtainable; unfortunately they were also unstable. They were based on white chalk, which gave them body. To this was added powdered pigment, with rabbit-skin size as a binding agent, though not an efficient one as it did not entirely ‘fix’ the colours. As the colour dried the white chalk reasserted itself, giving a ‘bloom’ which is reminiscent of fresco paintings.” [1]
” ‘I wish you’d leave Wissett, and take Charleston,’ Virginia Woolf wrote to Vanessa Bell in May 1916. ‘Leonard went over it, and says it’s a most delightful house and strongly advises you to take it. It is about a mile from Firle, on that little path which leads under the downs. It has a charming garden, with a pond, and fruit trees, and vegetables, all now rather run wild, but you could make it lovely. The house is very nice, with large rooms, and one room with big windows fit for a studio. At present it is used apparently as a weekend place, by a couple who keep innumerable animals, and most of the rooms are used by animals only… There is a w.c. and a bathroom, but the bath only has cold water. The house wants doing up - and the wallpapers are awful. But it sounds a most attractive place - and 4 miles from us, so you wouldn’t be badgered by us.’ ” [1]
“Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group is a unique example of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s decorative style within a domestic context and represents the fruition of over sixty years of artistic creativity. Vanessa Bell wrote of this time; ‘It will be an odd life, but…it ought to be a good one for painting.’
In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household. Over the following half century Charleston became the country meeting place for the group of artists, writers and intellectuals known as Bloomsbury. Clive Bell, David Garnett and Maynard Keynes lived at Charleston for considerable periods; Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were frequent visitors. Inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists, the artists decorated the walls, doors and furniture at Charleston. The walled garden was redesigned in a style reminiscent of southern Europe, with mosaics, box hedges, gravel pathways and ponds, but with a touch of Bloomsbury humour in the placing of the statuary.” [2]
ALL IMAGES BY ALEN MACWEENEY, AS TAKEN FROM “CHARLESTON: A BLOOMSBURY HOUSE AND GARDEN” BY QUENTIN BELL AND VIRGINIA NICHOLSON; TEXT TAKEN FROM THE SAME [1], AND FROM CHARLESTON.ORG.UK [2]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvoy6nFy5v1qz93lzo1_500.jpg)
“I’ve been painting that old still life of apples in the dish every day lately and also painting the two doors in Duncan’s bedroom. They come on either side of the mantelpiece you know which makes it rather an amusing whole but I’m not doing anything very startling - only pots of flowers and marbled circles. [Vanessa to Roger Fry, 22 February 1917]” [1]
“QB: The stenciled wallpaper was Duncan’s idea although I performed much of the mechanical side of the business. I think that it had a sedative effect which at that time was very helpful to both of us. His plans for redecoration coincided with the politicians’ preparations for war in 1939. As instructions were issued to the population to carry gas-masks, so Duncan began to make ready his large stencils and bowls of paint, and as the situation in Europe grew worse and worse, the extremely hand-made stencils extended across the black walls.”
“VN: As in many rooms at Charleston, the decoration was carried out rapidly and without due preparation. As the house was leased, permanency was not the most important consideration. The work was carried out with reckless spontaneity on top of many existing layers of paper, and this in due course made restoration extremely difficult. Duncan and Vanessa both made their own stencils out of paper, using a sponge to apply the paint. They used colours which in those days were cheap and easily obtainable; unfortunately they were also unstable. They were based on white chalk, which gave them body. To this was added powdered pigment, with rabbit-skin size as a binding agent, though not an efficient one as it did not entirely ‘fix’ the colours. As the colour dried the white chalk reasserted itself, giving a ‘bloom’ which is reminiscent of fresco paintings.” [1]
” ‘I wish you’d leave Wissett, and take Charleston,’ Virginia Woolf wrote to Vanessa Bell in May 1916. ‘Leonard went over it, and says it’s a most delightful house and strongly advises you to take it. It is about a mile from Firle, on that little path which leads under the downs. It has a charming garden, with a pond, and fruit trees, and vegetables, all now rather run wild, but you could make it lovely. The house is very nice, with large rooms, and one room with big windows fit for a studio. At present it is used apparently as a weekend place, by a couple who keep innumerable animals, and most of the rooms are used by animals only… There is a w.c. and a bathroom, but the bath only has cold water. The house wants doing up - and the wallpapers are awful. But it sounds a most attractive place - and 4 miles from us, so you wouldn’t be badgered by us.’ ” [1]
“Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group is a unique example of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s decorative style within a domestic context and represents the fruition of over sixty years of artistic creativity. Vanessa Bell wrote of this time; ‘It will be an odd life, but…it ought to be a good one for painting.’
In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household. Over the following half century Charleston became the country meeting place for the group of artists, writers and intellectuals known as Bloomsbury. Clive Bell, David Garnett and Maynard Keynes lived at Charleston for considerable periods; Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were frequent visitors. Inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists, the artists decorated the walls, doors and furniture at Charleston. The walled garden was redesigned in a style reminiscent of southern Europe, with mosaics, box hedges, gravel pathways and ponds, but with a touch of Bloomsbury humour in the placing of the statuary.” [2]
ALL IMAGES BY ALEN MACWEENEY, AS TAKEN FROM “CHARLESTON: A BLOOMSBURY HOUSE AND GARDEN” BY QUENTIN BELL AND VIRGINIA NICHOLSON; TEXT TAKEN FROM THE SAME [1], AND FROM CHARLESTON.ORG.UK [2]
