''August Blue'' is an

oil-on-canvas Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or copper for several centuries. ...

painting by English artist Henry Scott Tuke. It depicts four youths in and around a boat, bathing in the sea. Tuke started the painting in 1893, probably ''

en plein air ''En plein air'' (; French language, French for 'outdoors'), or plein-air painting, is the act of painting outdoors. This method contrasts with studio painting or academic rules that might create a predetermined look. The theory of 'En plein ai ...

'' on a boat in the harbour at

Falmouth, Cornwall Falmouth ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Falmouth was founded in 1613 by the Killigrew family on a site near the existing Pendennis Castle. It developed as a po ...

. The finished painting was exhibited at the

Royal Academy summer exhibition The Summer Exhibition is an open art exhibition held annually by the Royal Academy in Burlington House, Piccadilly in central London, England, during the months of June, July, and August. The exhibition includes paintings, prints, drawings, sc ...

in 1894, and immediately purchased for the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

, where it remains to this day. It has a light

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

ic style, possibly influenced by his travels to Italy,

Corfu Corfu ( , ) or Kerkyra (, ) is a Greece, Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands; including its Greek islands, small satellite islands, it forms the margin of Greece's northwestern frontier. The island is part of the Corfu (regio ...

and Albania in 1892.

Background

Tuke was born in York in 1858, but his family moved to Falmouth the following year, where it was hoped the milder climate would ameliorate the tuberculosis suffered by his father, the doctor Daniel Hack Tuke. He showed early talent for art, and studied at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London in 1874–79 and in Paris from 1881–83, and also travelled to Italy. He returned to Cornwall to live in Falmouth 1883, and is usually identified as a member of the

Newlyn school The Newlyn School was an art colony of artists based in or near Newlyn, a fishing village adjacent to Penzance, on the south coast of Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early twentieth century. The establishment of the Newlyn School was remini ...

. Many of his works involve boys or young men, often in or beside the sea, and usually naked, although generally in a position where their genitals are hidden from view.

Painting

The painting depicts four young men bathing in Falmouth harbour: one in the sea holding on to the side of a rowing boat, one standing up in the boat holding a cloth or towel, and two sitting in the boat, one leaning back at the stern sunbathing, and one leaning forward by the oars. The first three are apparently

naked Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. While estimates vary, for the first 90,000 years of pre-history, anatomically modern humans were naked, having lost their body hair, living in hospitable climates, and not ...

, while the fourth wears a blue shirt and brown waistcoat. The dominant colour, reflected in the title, is blue: the sky is blue above, with a golden sunlight creating glowing colours; there are clear blue waters below, with a greenish shadow of the boat. Boats with their square-rigged sails furled ride at anchor in the background. The careful composition shows the youths' healthy bodies in a fresh and modern style, which may be contrasted with the lifeless classical models depicted in contemporary academy paintings, and Tuke's earlier work. The painting is ambiguous, and can be read in several ways: as a celebration of athletic masculinity; or as a representation of the innocence and purity of youth, unselfconscious in a natural setting, reminiscent of a lost rural idyll; but many discern a

homoerotic Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, including both male–male and female–female attraction. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be tempor ...

charge. The painting measures by {{convert, 183, cm, in. A discoloured varnish was removed in 2000, but the painting shows grey stains to the lower left and upper right corners, perhaps indicating mould in the underlying paint structure. The title is taken from the last verse of "The Sundew", a poem by

Algernon Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist and critic. He wrote many plays – all tragedies – and collections of poetry such as '' Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the Eleve ...

published in 1866, describing a lovers' tryst in marshland, witnessed by a

sundew ''Drosera'', which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. 2 volumes. These members of the family Droseraceae lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous ...

, which ends "Thou wert not worth green midsummer // Nor fit to live to August blue, // O Sundew, not remembering her." Tuke's paintings of naked boys bathing inspired several works by Uranian poets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including "The Dawn Nocturne (August Blue)" by Alan Stanley (1894), and the earlier poems "Sonnet on a Picture by Tuke" by Charles Kains Jackson (1889) and "Ballade of Boys Bathing" (1890) by

Frederick Rolfe Frederick William Rolfe (surname pronounced ), better known as Baron Corvo (Italian for "Crow"), and also calling himself Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe (22 July 1860 – 25 October 1913), was an English writer, artist, ph ...

, the self-proclaimed "Baron Corvo". File:Henry Scott Tuke - Study for „August Blue“, 1911.jpg, upright=1.2, ''Study for August Blue'' File:Henry Scott Tuke - Preliminary Sketch for „August Blue“.jpg, ''Preliminary Sketch for August Blue''

Reception

The painting was a critical success when it was exhibited at the

in 1894, although some critics complained that its informal Impressionistic style made it closer to a sketch than a finished work. It was bought from the artist by the

the same year for 500 guineas (or £525), using funds from the Chantrey Bequest Fund, established from the estate of sculptor

Francis Chantrey Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey (7 April 1781 – 25 November 1841) was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable w ...

and charged with encouraging British art by buying paintings and sculpture of the "highest merit" executed entirely within Great Britain. It was the second of Tuke's works to be purchased by Chantrey Bequest Fund for the Tate, following '' All Hands to the Pumps'' in 1889, an uncommon compliment to the artist. It was followed by many other works by Tuke on similar themes, including '' Ruby, Gold and Malachite'', exhibited at the RA in 1902. Pictures of naked youths outside of a classical context were not generally acceptable in this period, with a notable exception for depictions of bathing: another prominent example is

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American Realism (visual arts), realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artist ...

' '' The Swimming Hole'' (1884–85). Tuke was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1900 and a full member of the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

in 1914. His work remained popular until the First World War ended the gilded age of late Victorian and Edwardian England. It is difficult to identify Tuke's models, due to his habit of interchanging heads and bodies in his paintings, but one was Maurice Clift, a nephew of a family friend, who was killed in France in the First World War. Another was the artist Lindsay Symington, who modelled for the boy holding onto the boat in the water. Tuke's work fell out of favour after the war, and Tuke died in 1929. His work regained popularity after it was discovered by a generation of

openly gay Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

art enthusiasts in the 1970s. File:Henry Scott Tuke - All Hands to the Pumps - Google Art Project.jpg, Henry Scott Tuke, '' All Hands to the Pumps'', 1889, Tate Gallery. File:Tuke, Henry Scott (1858–1929), Ruby, gold and malachite, 1902.jpg, Henry Scott Tuke, '' Ruby, Gold and Malachite'', 1902, Guildhall Art Gallery.

References

Painting
Tate Gallery
Catalogue entry
Tate Gallery
Technique and condition
Tate Gallery
Henry Scott Tuke, 1858-1928
The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, University of Glasgow
''The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West''
Emmanuel Cooper pp. 39–43.
"The Romance of Boys Bathing: Poetic Precedents and Respondents to the Paintings of Henry Scott Tuke"
by Julia F. Saville, in ''Victorian Sexual Dissidence'', edited by Richard Dellamora, pp. 253–278.
The Edwardians: Henry Scott Tuke
advocate.com
''Dialogos: Hellenic Studies Review''
David Ricks, Michael Trapp, p. 139.
''Literary Visions of Homosexuality''
Stuart Kellogg, p. 26. 1894 paintings Paintings by Henry Scott Tuke Paintings in the Tate galleries Nude paintings of men