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over a Cornfield’ to see how mood and interpretive depth can be achieved.
Van Gogh is, of course, unique and very few would be unable to recognise
at least his later works of art. Artists working in pastels or water colour
have to rely on tonal depth mixing or blending of colours , but, even here,
how they achieve their results is their style. No-one utilises pastels better
than Edward Degas—his ballet dancers are unmistakably his as would be
his handwriting. There is also to be taken into consideration the time and
age when such work is being executed; for example religious and triptych
work would never in style be attributed to the 19 th , 20 th or 21 st centuries in
the same way that the Cubism of Braque and Picasso or the earlier work of
Cezanne could never be attributed to the 16 th , 17 th or 18 th centuries.
Style changes with the times and contemporary events for example
photography meant that Art was never going to be of the same format
again, except for the very rare example or perhaps the Pre Raphaelites who
sought to retreat by way of escape into the centuries of rural romanticism
and chivalry. So how then do we define the style in printing and the style
of an individual engraver? With great difficulty!
Today engraving is mechanical and uniform. We are not engravers and
certainly not 18 th century engravers, so all we are able to address is the
visual impact of the prints as found on pottery. We have some knowledge
of style in painting and how it develops in the individual artist as
seemingly it did with Rothwell. He adjusted his engravings both for
printing on pottery and with the need for the style change required with
Chinoiserie, commemorative or idyllic romantic type images. We have
endeavoured to assess his work as best we can but do please bear in mind
we do not set ourselves up as expert engravers.
In transferware pottery the fashionable and well-to-do of the 18 th century
were desirous of the views in the Chinoiserie style, oriental and the
appealing and attractive romantic and idealistic view of rural life and
landscape on pottery. Important contemporaneous historic events including
the lives of the Royal family were also of intense patriotic interest and
Thomas Rothwell provided all of the above.
We endeavour to illustrate with examples some of the patterns that not
only relate to each other in date but also how the engravings were
achieved. It seems to us that to show small groups of patterns and borders
linked by their style is an effective way of doing this and so we will begin
with some of the earliest Rothwell must have executed on his arrival at
Swansea.
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