Conway Castle and Coracle, Caernarvonshire
1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Conway Castle and Coracle, Caernarvonshire is a 1940 watercolor by Kenneth Rowntree, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This watercolour painting shows a castle in the background, with a green building and a stone wall in the foreground. A large, upside-down boat with a wooden frame sits on the wall. The castle's towers and walls are made of light-coloured stone, and it has a few trees growing on it. The green building has a small window and a sloping roof. The stone wall is low and has a few plants growing on it. The painting has a lot of detail and texture, with the artist using different shades of colour to create depth and interest. If you want to learn more about the artist's techniques, you might want to look up the term "chiaroscuro".
The watercolour depicts Conway Castle in Caernarvonshire as a secondary element within a broader riverside scene, viewed from inside a mussel-cleansing station. A traditional Welsh coracle, constructed of canvas stretched over split rods and sealed with tar, occupies the foreground. This work was produced in 1940 as part of the Recording Britain scheme, which employed artists to document aspects of British life and landscape during the Second World War. The scheme aimed to preserve a record of places and traditions perceived to be at risk from wartime damage or social change.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Kenneth Rowntree painted quiet British places in watercolour around 1940, from barn-stacked Essex fields to the carved oak pews of Caernarvonshire chapels.
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