#This is victorian england that is the highest paid and socially important position that his career can offer

[immediatebreakfast]

Yeah this is one of the entries that makes it very clear that Jack needs to get out of the asylum, and maybe step down out of the profession after seeing how the second he went back in, the whole cycle of medical malpractice restarted. Not calling Renfield by his actual name, them simply recording everything with no indication of ever stepping up to stop the old man from spiraling more except to ask questions.

Reading how Seward kept recording what might be a very heavy depressive episode as he tries to slightly care about Renfield's well being while still pendling the "What if I just run away" idea over his head (which will never be realized) was truly an eye opener of how, despite being qualified, Jack should not be running that asylum.

It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all.

With the soul of a poet, and the red light of the sun within the foul clouds, Seward realized that he is trapped in the asylum, and that he will never escape despite holding all of the keys. Jack's insistent, and persistent mindset of finally having that moment of glory in the medical field will slowly tear him down, and whatever his response may be, it will come at the the expense of his patient's personhood.

Even with all of the beautiful imagery of finding a sunset in the middle of the heavily polluted atmosphere of london, this whole entry felt... Numb.

[ephillipsresearch]

Places of the mind – British Watercolour Landscapes 1850-1950 Kim Sloan  Notes

-Victorian and early modern painters attempt to convey the emotional and spiritual impact of place rather than just their physical properties. Artists of the later 19th and early 20th c developed these traditions to include personal responses to cultural and social upheavals of the time. 1923 William Russel Flint’s ‘moral doctrine’ for watercolour painters after Thomas Kempis’ ‘In Praise of Watercolour’

See distinctly. Compose devoutly. Sigh deeply. Suffer patiently the wind that blows, The cold that freezes, the sun that burns, And the model that arriveth not. Work swiftly. Work thoughtfully. Paint no stroke hastily Prevent your speech discreetly Temptations resist strongly Lest you alter foolishly Use water plentifully Your colours generously And your brushes charitably Observe the rain cloud lovingly Protect your picture thoroughly Pack your kit hurriedly Stably grounded in humility Return the next day meekly

Kempis makes the activity comparable to a religious experience in which the painter is silent, humble and withdrawn from society. Other artists shared this view, noting the importance of patient study, avoiding temptation of tricks and shortcuts,  the humility to abandon a work and start again, and the immersion of the self in nature. Similar language is used by Paul Nash and his contemporaries to describe watercolour painting and the ‘religious reverence for nature’ this was a big motif in the writing of John Ruskin - Running parallel was growing popularity of Japanese watercolours as they were collected and made available by the British Museum in 1880s which tied watercolour painting with poetry and calligraphy as the highest forms of expression and spiritual quest. -From 1880 the art market grew and attracted middle class buyers to private galleries that placed the works in a higher position. Popular paintings conformed to a new visual aesthetic that represented a certain version of Englishness (rural, idealistic) Critics like Frrederick Wedmore, Ds Macoll and Elizabeth Robins (the so called ‘new critics’), who promoted the French impressionists favoured the less ‘complete’ painting style – sketchy, un-laboured with loose washes and diluted colour. Whistler popularised this style with his works depicting the Thames, Hastings, the Channel Islands, St Ives and Holland which he displayed in smaller independent galleries, creating a controversial public reaction and challenged ideas of what kind of watercolours could be displayed and what a watercolour could be. This so called ‘golden age of watercolour is said to have ended with the death of Turner. - During later 19th/early 20th c, British values lied in commerce, where art had no real value and was often seen merely as a hobby (particularly landscape which was discouraged by the RA for their feminine and amateur connotations)  – Were Flint and Nash perhaps searching for a new ‘moral doctrine’ to justify arts place in society? -The tradition of British watercolour painting, having died with the Victorians means modern watercolour painters have been brushed aside in favour of the avant garde and treated as irrelevant in the narrative progression of British art. - eg work of artists like William Simpson labelled as a topographical reporter, dismissed as uncomfortable reminders Britain’s imperial past despite their beauty and technical mastery. -Towards the late 19th century the notion of the ‘south country’ became the desired lifestyle and aesthetic: a thatched cottage in rural landscape with large gardens amid rolling hills. This was no longer the home of the workman, cottage life was now sought after by wealthy city dwellers. Interest in nature increased with the establishment of the national trust and other preservation societies, and the growing popularity of cycling and rambling- the middle classes were lured out to the countryside for a healthier life (gardening became more common in landscapes, strengthening the association of the countryside with good health, but inciting controversy over images of women labouring in fields.) There is no reference in these paintings to the agricultural recession that took place in the late 1890’s which left hundreds of acres of farmland unattended – sustaining the myth of rural life took precedent over social reality and artists like George Clausen increasingly painted unidentifiable landscapes, dream like renderings of rural utopia. -The appeal of living in an old English cottage and a village way of life with all the newest amenities was the early inspiration for the building of Letchworth garden city and what became a movement of garden city and ‘new towns’  conceived by Ebenezer Howard, with cottage style housing close to London -For many artists, drawing for pleasure eradicated the need to conform to standards of taste or technique in fashion , allowing them to experiment in their attempts to achieve the ‘sense of place’ or ‘places of the mind’ , resulting in great number of private works that stood outside the commercial art world. -The watercolours of Philip Wilson steer, part of the London impressionist group show the growing discourse about Englishness and the British landscape: Steer was influenced by the traditional Turner, Constable, style for its romantic nostalgia. They presented a sentimental view of the unsullied countryside – this nostalgic vision was part of a wider anti-urban and cultural concern with the English countryside. -The association of Steers watercolours with national identity fed into a specific discourse which associated the transparent or ‘true’ watercolour painting with Englishness, with the particular suitability of the medium for capturing the English weather   -In the 1930s, artists questioned traditional practice but continued to use the south country motif to experiment with abstract forms and new ways of evoking sense of place -Motoring and the wider surrealist movement had an impact on artists such as Paul Nash and Ralph Maynard Smith – the experience of seeing images fractured in space at high speed through unfamiliar landscapes having triggered more imaginary, surrealist compositions, taking biomorphic forms and re arranging them unconsciously to create bizarre new landscapes, sometimes from collected natural detritus. -Growth in tourism in the West Country and development of rail travel benefited artists and gave a new context to these works which were often bought as souvenirs, and appeared so frequently in galleries that the constructed image of West Country’s most desirable features was emphasised to the point of being unrealistic. The conceptual image of the far west became associated with recreation and pleasure, an anti-dote to working life with a placid, contented population – entirely separate from the modern industrialised urban England. - This masked the reality of economic hardship with agricultural recession, collapse of the mining industry and subsequent declining population (almost halved between 1841 and 1911. -Painters like George Lewis and Samuel Palmer disregarded topographic accuracy and in the new age of photography made more suggestive works concerned with mood and exploration of texture and composition. With the rise of Cubism more artists paid attention to design process over place. -Tension between physical and geographical landscape- not every watercolour is enriched by scrupulous attention to subject however showing an awareness of the wider issues can be more rewarding.

-From the 1930’s – fear that the intrinsic English identity of the pastoral was being destroyed by transport networks, heavy industry and suburbanization: inspired recording Britain under Clarke, William Russel Flint and Percy Jowett – 1549 works, 97 artists, covering 32 counties in England and Wales. Work began ahead of Ariel bombardment.  The war was largely absent from these paintings, prioritising ‘fine tracts of landscape that are likely to be spoiled by building developments or factories, ‘towns and villages where old buildings are about to be torn down’ ‘parish churches’ and ‘country parks’. - 1942, John Farleigh a contributing artist admitted public appetite for these subjects were diminishing in favour of ‘beautiful buildings to be handed down as a guide to the future generations of the beauty that always wins’ -The picturesque, said to be Britain’s greatest contribution to European art, had to be newly interpreted to accommodate the modern world =, evolving different norms of beauty. After ww2 an aesthetic that represented the ‘authentic landscape of modern England’ was advocated instead.