This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from more than 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK will set the questions.
Today, our questions are set by Penlee House Gallery and Museum. Penlee House is the only Cornish public gallery specialising in the historic art of west Cornwall, including the Newlyn School artists (1880–1940). Set in an elegant Victorian house and park, it has built an international reputation for its year-round programme of exhibitions, which offer the unique opportunity of viewing works a stone’s throw from where they were created.
You can see art from Penlee House Gallery and Museum on Art UK here. Find out more on the Penlee House Gallery and Museum website here.
For what is the Newlyn School most famous?
Their use of bright colours
Portraiture
Painting "en plein air" (outdoors)
Impressionism
What technique did many of the early Newlyn School artists use?
Impasto
Sgraffito
Grisaille
Square brush
Stanhope Forbes (1857–1947) was a successful artist and dubbed Father of the Newlyn School but was also an accomplished musician. Can you name which instrument he played?
Cello
Drums
Flute
Harp
One of Penlee’s most well-loved works is The Rain it Raineth Every Day, 1889 by Norman Garstin (1847–1926). Can you identify the blue object on the promenade?
Postbox
RNLI collection box
Litter bin
Telescope
Walter Langley (1852–1922) often gave his works titles from poems. Can you identify which poet he is quoting in the painting Time Moveth Not, Our Being 'Tis That Moves?
Henry Kirke White
Robert Browning
WB Yeats
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Another well-loved work, School Is Out by Elizabeth Forbes (1859–1912), is always a talking point among visitors to the gallery. Can you spot what is seemingly amiss with it?
The children’s clothes
Wrong type of building for a school
The shadow of the window
Boys and girls learning together
What was the cause of the 1896 Newlyn riots?
Fish quota restrictions
Bad storms
Alcohol
Fishing on a Sunday
With which prime minister is Primrose Day associated?
David Lloyd George
Benjamin Disraeli
Winston Churchill
Archibald Primrose
Solutions
1:C - In the 1880s, numerous British painters began to arrive in Newlyn, Cornwall, many of whom had trained in Paris or Antwerp. Most had also spent time painting in Brittany which like Newlyn, offered scenes and lives scarcely touched by the industrial revolution, with plentiful, cheap accommodation and willing models. Initially, the artists were united by a desire to paint "en plein air", depicting the lives of the villagers in a rural naturalist style. The Inner Harbour – Abbey Slip, 1921, Stanhope Forbes (1857–1947), Penlee House Gallery and Museum. Image: the artist's estate/Bridgeman Images, 2:D - During his time in Newlyn, Frank Bramley (1857–1915) was a particular exponent of the "square brush technique", using the flat of a square brush to lay the paint on the canvas in a jigsaw pattern of brush strokes, giving a particular vibrancy to the paint surface. It is especially noticeable in the folds of the women’s aprons and the sail cloth in Eyes and No Eyes. Image: Eyes and No Eyes, 1887, Frank Bramley, Penlee House Gallery & Museum, 3:A - Stanhope played the cello and, along with several other artists, held regular recitals, as well as fancy dress parties. Image: The Violinist (Walter Barnes, the Conductor of the Penzance Orchestral Society), Stanhope Alexander Forbes (1857–1947); Penlee House Gallery & Museum, 4:B - The blue structure in the middle-ground of this painting was a collecting box for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, placed on Penzance promenade in 1877. Image: The Rain it Raineth Every Day, 1889, Norman Garstin (1847–1926), Penlee House Gallery and Museum, 5:D - The title of this work is taken from Time, A Poem by Henry Kirke White (1785–1806). Image: Time Moveth Not, Our Being ‘Tis That Moves, 1882, Walter Langley (1852–1922), Penlee House Gallery and Museum, 6:C - Many people remark on the fact that the window is half open and yet the shadow shows it closed. However, if you look at the direction of the light and the way it falls across the heads of the children, it appears that this shadow is from a second window to the left and out of view. Image: School Is Out, 1889, Elizabeth Forbes (1859–1912), Penlee House Gallery and Museum, 7:D - In the 19th century, Newlyn boats frequently fished in the North Sea and by the early 1880s some of the larger east coast boats followed them home. Local custom opposed Sunday fishing, and tensions rose as the Newlyn fishermen watched Lowestoft and other east coast boats flouting the Sabbath. On the morning of 18 May 1896, a riot broke out which continued for two days. Image: Tucking a School of Pilchards (The Tuck Boat), 1897, Percy Robert Craft (1856–1934), Penlee House Gallery and Museum, 8:B - The Primrose League, founded in 1883, was dedicated to defending the traditional features of British life and to improving living and working conditions for the masses. The League was based on the ideals of Benjamin Disraeli and took his favourite flower as its symbol. Primrose Day was celebrated on 19 April, the anniversary of his death. Image: Primrose Day, 1885, Ralph Todd (1856–1932), Penlee House Gallery & Museum
Scores
6 and above.
You are certainly well schooled in the Newlyn School. Bravo!
0 and above.
A Cornish calamity.
3 and above.
Not great – a trip to Penzance is surely in order when we finally get out of lockdown.
