Oil on canvas
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery Collection
© Estate of Ceri Richards/DACS 2008
La Cathédrale engloutie III
Throughout his artistic career, Dunvant-born Ceri Richards (1903-1971) derived inspiration from both music and poetry.
Between 1957 and 1962, he worked on a “series of semi-abstract seascapes [this one dating from 1960] that are a direct response to a much-loved piece of music” – Claude Debussy’s piano prelude of 1910 – La Cathédrale engloutie. The music is itself a response to the legend of the submerged cathedral at Ys on the coast of Brittany, where, it is said, bells could be heard under the sea during moments of calm.
” ‘Debussy is a visual composer’ Richards wrote, his words deliberately confusing the senses, ‘his sounds and structures are derived from a visual sensibility. He gives me a feeling of the sounds of nature, as Monet does’.”
(Mel Gooding, ‘Themes and Variations’, 2002, pp.13/14.)
To see more works by Ceri Richards in the Glynn Vivian permanent collection, see A Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, The Pianist and Music of Colours – White Blossom.
