Andrew Cowdell, Corvid, 2018

Andrew Cowdell, Corvid, 2018, oil on board, 10 x 8 inches

The raven is, in my view, the most imposing species of the family Corvidae. It is easy to see how people, struck by the intensity and completeness of the raven's plumage, might conclude that this bird must also be black on the inside - be black at heart. But look closer at the gloss and brilliancy of this corvid and you will notice the sharp sculpted feathers which, in certain light, glow iridescent with purple. The raven is not so black, in this respect, as he is painted. He may transform into an ideal of beauty, to which it would be a delicate compliment to compare the dark eyes or hair of a loved one.

Andrew Cowdell, Two crows at dawn, 2016

Andrew Cowdell. Two crows at dawn. 2016. Oil on linen.

My fascination with darkness requires an idea of light. In Two crows at dawn, the beauty of morning’s first light is matched by the eeriness generated by the arresting, black, thorn-like tangle of trees within the hedgerow. This traumatised landscape is a realm that snags, bites and troubles, and yet still invokes the pastoral dream of natural tranquillity. Beauty is envisaged here as William Blake’s “marriage of the contraries”, dependent upon both positive and negative aspects of existence.

The darkness of the setting serves as a representation of the Other, or the Unknown, which subtly imbues the scene with a sense of the supernatural. In subverting the aesthetic certainties of the usual green and pleasant Berkshire countryside, I am simultaneously identifying with both the picturesque and sinister presences within it. Presences which may include fiscal forces churning and poisoning the landscape; evidenced in the painting by tyre marks along the field margin. Alternatively, ‘absences’ may refer to the slow grinding away of our flora and fauna as species are lost; the two sentinel ‘carrion’ crows sent forth by vengeful nature. This landscape may even have its phantoms, lying or waiting where they fell or were taken at some unspecified time in history. And yet, all this darkness depends on the corresponding light of dawn as the beauty of the landscape reawakens.

But ultimately, I shall leave it to your own interpretation.

Andrew Cowdell, Clamour over Hermitage, 2016

Andrew Cowdell, Clamour over Hermitage, 2016, oil on linen

In this monochrome oil painting, a clamour of rooks enhances the beauty of the Berkshire landscape made desolate by the damp, overcast weather. 

In the following extract the French poet Arthur Rimbaud describes his affection for these raucous birds:

Lord, when the meadowland is cold, 

and when in the downcast hamlets the long Angeluses are silent.. 

down on Nature barren of flowers let 

them sweep from the wide skies, the dear delightful rooks. 

from The Rooks (Les Corbeaux)

by Arthur Rimbaud, 1854-1891

Andrew Cowdell, The Terrible Beauty of a Winter's Day, 2016

Andrew Cowdell, The Terrible Beauty of a Winter's Day, oil on linen

With only the corvids for company and little in the way of sunshine, the terrible beauty in my surroundings inspired the subject and title to this monochrome oil painting. The corvids I have painted are specifically rooks, which are still often spoken of under the general term ‘crow’. Many times have I observed these eccentric and ragged birds as they twist and tumble through the skies above their communal roosts in the woods. However, once out across the fields these rooks adopt a steady undeviating flight as they commute to their feeding grounds. It may be to rooks that the old saying ‘as the crow flies’ refers.

In the following extract James Thomson relates his meeting with rooks during a bygone winter:

See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,

Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—

Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,

These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought

And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!

…But chief the plumy race,

The tenants of the sky, its changes speak.

Retiring from the downs, where all day long

They pick’d their scanty fare, a black’ning train

Of clamorous rooks thick-urge their weary flight,

And seek the closing shelter of the grove.

from The Seasons: Winter

by James Thomson, 1700-1748

Gustave Doré, The Raven, 1884

Gustave Doré, The Raven, 1884

Gustave Doré was a prolific artist and illustrator who worked primarily as a wood and steel engraver. In 1884, Doré produced 26 steel engravings for a special illustrated edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic poem ‘The Raven.’ This refined and beautifully haunting portrayal of the poem’s narrator mourning his dead lover indicates the artist’s sensibilities towards love, death and the heavenly woman. The softened lines and low key chiaroscuro of Doré’s illustration successfully captures the mood of Poe’s work: 

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

Veronica Lake: cabaret noir

Andrew Cowdell, Cabaret noir, 2015, oil on canvas

Veronica Lake exudes a guileless charm as a nightclub singer in This Gun for Hire (1942). 

This classic hard-boiled thriller was adapted from Grahame Greene’s novel A Gun for Sale and made Alan Ladd an instant star. Ladd’s gun-for-hire Raven is a brutal assassin with a benevolent affection for cats; the scene where he silences a stray moggie is particularly portent. Lake’s character becomes a symbol of redemption to Ladd’s murderous anti-hero who holds her captive. United by fate, the singer and the killer form an uneasy alliance to expose a chemical company suspected of treason against their country. 

This Gun for Hire was the first film of several to pair Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake together.