Walter Sickert

In his many paintings of the church of St Jacques, Dieppe, Walter Sickert made a concerted attempt to register a variety of atmospheric conditions. The art historian Wendy Baron has written:

"In his paintings of St Jacques, Sickert’s interest was uncharacteristically directed towards the expression of the scene under different effects of light. He painted it in sunlight; on gloomy grey days; by moonlight; with a brilliant light catching its upper façade; and caught in the rosy glow of a vivid setting sun."

In this painting the sky is graded into two uneven bands of colour. The upper register is of bright pale blue, which was thinly applied over the ground of mauve, which shows through closer to the horizon and thereby suggests a crepuscular fading from evening into night. The building to the left of the church is illuminated by the direct light of a setting sun, and so is the upper portion of the street front pictured on the left-hand side. The foreground is cast in the inky shadows that immediately precede sunset. The outlines of the church architecture—mouldings, tracery, pointed arches—are thickset with shadow. Two gaily dressed figures, wearing blue and vermilion respectively, are standing on the pavement on the right of the scene.

Taking into account the full extent of Sickert’s career, the west façade of St Jacques was one of his most frequent subjects. ‘More paintings of this view survive than of any other site in Dieppe.’ Baron’s catalogue of Sickert’s paintings and drawings includes no fewer than thirty-one pictures of this theme. This marked a considerable development from Lillian Browse’s catalogue of 1960, which recorded just thirteen versions (‘as usual none of them identical’, she noted). Describing a similarly crepuscular version of the scene, Browse wrote poetically:

"[…] as in other versions, Sickert has chosen the moment when the sun is playing on the upper part of the church, lighting the lovely rose window. The subdued light of about two-thirds of the picture, the verticals made by the figures and the dark accents of the architecture, all lead the eye up to the Rosace, which sings against the evening sky."

This painting was dated to 1902 when it was handled by the dealer Arthur Tooth & Sons; this date is given by Tooth’s label on the reverse of the frame. Wendy Baron argued that ‘[m]ost of the extant versions of this subject are works of 1899–1900.’ She noted two earlier works of circa 1894–95, and three later works—a large-scale commission for a restaurant decoration executed in 1902, another work dated 1912, and another of 1914.