Lot 28: John Samuel Raven (1829-1877)

John Samuel Raven (1829-1877)
The Lesser Light to Rule the Night
signed with monogram and dated '1873' (lower left)
oil on canvas
42½ x 63 in. (108 x 160 cm.)

London, Royal Academy, 1873, no. 518.

Art Journal, 1877, p. 309.

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John Samuel Raven came from a devout family; his father and two uncles were clergymen. Taught to paint by his father, he received no professional instruction, and instead studied the works of Constable and Chrome through whom he developed a profound understanding and appreciation of art. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of twenty, and continued to do so until his death in 1877.

Described as 'a beautiful moonlit scene' by the Art Journal (op. cit), The Lesser Light to Rule the Night can be positioned with some of the greatest Romantic works to have been produced by British artists. It echoes the drama of Philippe de Loutherbourg's Coalbrookedale at Night, whilst the meticulous detail and painstaking layering of paint is quintessentially Pre-Raphaelite. Indeed, Raven was praised by Ruskin for his application of elaborate and rich detail and colour. The title is taken from Genesis 1:16, 'when on the fourth day God created two great lights - the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night', and the view presented is of Carreg Cennen Castle, Carmarthenshire, South Wales.

Raised above the river Cennen by about 100 metres (328 feet), Carreg Cennen Castle overlooks the Black Mountains, and is one of the wildest and most romantic fortresses of the British Isles. Thought to have been the location of a prehistoric hillfort, it was built in the thirteenth century by the Welsh Prince Rhys Ap Gryffydd, although legend suggests it took the place of an earlier fortress constructed by the Welsh knight Urien Rheged and his son Owain, who lived during the reign of King Arthur. In its turbulent and somewhat violent history, the castle was occupied by Owain Glyndwr's Welsh soldiers, Lancastrian bandits during the War of the Roses, and Yorkists who dismantled it in 1462, deeming it a threat to the monarchy as an enclave for bandits and rebels.

Raven's friend Henry Holiday observed that he liked to 'look at the beautiful sky and mountains and trees, and think of the good God that made them' (Holiday, Reminiscences of my Life, 1914, p.112), and this is strikingly apparent in the present lot. Raven presents the viewer with a vision of mystery and pantheistic contemplation. The light of the moon, filtered through the mackerel sky, silhouettes the weathered ruins of the castle, which stand aloof on the peak of the rocks, overlooking a daunting landscape that disappears into a seemingly endless horizon. The landscape is uninviting and inhospitable to man, and the raging fire, perhaps caused by a traveller's campfire, enforces this supposition. While the landscape below appears temporarily disturbed by the flames, the fortress itself stands unperturbed, timeless and still - undaunted by time, events and history. The Lesser Light is a work of startling originality by an artist of great ability, which makes his untimely death from a drowning accident at the age of forty-nine even more tragic.