Rambles through Sussex without Muddy Boots

Sussex: home to probably the most enticing landscapes in south-east England in the shape of the South Downs and, most spectacularly, the cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head, together with large swathes of scarcely populated, thickly wooded countryside.  

The weather's been a bit inclement recently, but if you head down to the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester for Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water, you can wander through the entire county without getting your boots dirty and appreciate why it's attracted artists for centuries. From JMW Turner and John Constable through to Eric Ravilious and Paul Nash and contemporary artists, there's much to enjoy in a glorious exhibition that's as invigorating as a good walk. 

As you set off, you can get your bearings from a 1795 map at the entrance to the exhibition, showing what the county was like before the railways came and opened up access from London. Brighton -- or Brighthelmstone as it was then called -- is still quite small; Eastbourne and Bognor are almost non-existent. Chichester -- today a small cathedral city -- would have been one of the main settlements. 

Turner was often a guest of the Earl of Egremont at Petworth House, a dozen or so miles north of Chichester, and you can see his paintings of Sussex scenes there in the Carved Room, set amid woodwork by Grinling Gibbons. And Turner's depiction of Chichester Canal is the biggest painting in the first room of this exhibition. It's a view along the waterway that linked the city to its harbour, looking north to the cathedral with the downs in the background. The canal's still there today, though it's not navigable all the way, and the cathedral's the most prominent building for miles around. It's a view anyone familiar with the area would instantly recognise.

Hang about, though, what's Turner done with the sunset? So much more picturesque to have the celestial orb setting in the north, bang in the centre of the canvas and reflected in the canal water, rather than beyond the scene and picture frame, out of sight over Hampshire. "The Sun is God" are said to have been Turner's last words, so presumably it could set where it liked.

There's no sun to be seen in the view of Brighton beach by Turner's great rival Constable that hangs alongside, but there is an awful lot of cloud. 

Constable and his wife Maria stayed several times in Hove, hoping that the sea air and the spring waters would help her tuberculosis. It's one of those blustery days on the coast when the wind whips in, and only a couple of brave, hardy souls have ventured down to the edge of the beach. Today there'd probably be a couple of windsurfers scudding across the waves as you make your way along the seafront towards the King Alfred Leisure Centre, wondering at what point you'll decide to turn in towards Church Road or back to Brighton along the Lawns before that rain arrives. 

If it's bracing on the seafront, it'll be even more so on top of the Downs. Where's this picture by Eric Ravilious of? 

Well. it could be almost anywhere, really.... and it seems to be nowhere in particular. It's a quintessential Sussex view, the Chalk Paths made by farmers and sheep and by walkers all stretching into the distance, with scarcely a tree in sight. You can find landscapes like these all along the South Downs Way, heading eastwards from Amberley in West Sussex, perhaps, but as this is Ravilious, it's probably somewhere more over towards Eastbourne, where he grew up and studied, maybe somewhere up near Firle. 

Not too far from Charleston Farmhouse, then. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Charleston during World War I, allowing Grant to escape conscription by working on the land and providing a haven for the Bloomsbury Group to escape the conflict. If the wind was in the right direction, though, the sounds of battle could still be heard from across the Channel, out of sight on the other side of the Downs. 

This Grant painting of the pond at Charleston dates from just after the war and hangs alongside a similar view by Bell. 

Further east, almost into Kent, you get to Rye. Sussex is a surprisingly big county, and it'll take you a good couple of hours to drive to Rye from Chichester on a good day, even longer on the train. You could be in London more quickly. Back in the 1930s, the oil company Shell wanted to encourage people to fill up their cars with its petrol and get out of the metropolis to explore the coast and countryside. Paul Nash was commissioned to produce this image for the "You can be sure of Shell" advertising campaign.  

Would this angular picture really have lured tourists to The Rye Marshes, though? It looks quite an industrial scene, and despite the sailing boats in Rye harbour and the seaside delights of Camber Sands over to the left, there's not a human being in sight. 

We mentioned Beachy Head right at the start, and there are two really memorable images in this show, both of a lot more recent date. It's the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, more than 160 dizzying metres above the surface of the Channel. 

Jeffrey Camp's 1972 painting Hang Gliding captures the vertiginous feel of being close to the edge, the diamond shape accentuating the sheer drop off the top. Camp grew up in the flatlands of Suffolk before moving to Hastings and discovering the drama of the cliffs. 

The German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans' End of Land I puts us even more realistically on the edge, looking precipitously and stomach-churningly out to sea. France is out there somewhere to the left, but it's a long way away. 

We wondered if Tillmans had any thought in his mind when he made this of that classic German Romantic painting in which Caspar David Friedrich depicted three figures peering over the edge of the Chalk Cliffs on Rügen? Friedrich's view is no longer there; erosion has washed those cliffs away. The chalk is also falling into the sea not far along at Birling Gap, so please don't get too near to the precipice....

So far the curator has kept us close to the shoreline for much of the time, but a lot of the charm of Sussex lies further inland, amid the woods and streams that cover such a large proportion of the county north of the Downs. You can escape the crowds and any expectation of a mobile-phone signal and disappear down a track to emerge somewhere into an enchanted paradise, silent but for the babble of a brook and a smattering of birdsong. 

Wherever Pippa Blake found the inspiration for Deep the Stream Mysterious, it looks heavenly. 

There are many more intriguing pictures by well-known and lesser-known artists to discover in this exhibition: Edward Reginald Frampton's stained-glass-like view of The South Downs near Eastbourne; a trio of canvases by William Nicholson, including The Windmill, Brighton Downs, capturing that magical moment when you just spot the sea across the line of the hills; unexpected woodcuts by Eric Slater, including a Rough Sea that must have been influenced by Hiroshige; and Hans Tisdall's view of Hastings with its black net shops and funicular. 

So -- head to Chichester and get all your Sussex sightseeing done in one go, in another extremely enjoyable exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery.

Practicalities

Sussex Landscape: Chalk, Wood and Water is on at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester until April 23. The gallery is open from 1000 to 1700 Tuesdays to Saturdays and 1100 to 1700 on Sundays and bank holidays. Admission costs a standard £12.50, including a £1.50 Gift Aid donation, but you get 10% off if you book online, which you can do here. Allow yourself up to two hours for this delightful show that brings together works from a very wide range of sources. 

The gallery is just a few minutes walk from Chichester station, to which there's a train every half an hour from London Victoria Mondays to Saturdays, assuming no industrial action. The journey takes about 90 minutes.

Images

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Chichester Canal, c. 1828, Tate
John Constable (1776-1837), Seascape Study: Brighton Beach Looking West; A Coast Scene, c. 1824-28, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Eric Ravilious (1903-42), Chalk Paths, 1935, Private collection. © Bridgeman Images
Duncan Grant (1885-1978), Landscape, Sussex, 1920, Tate. © Tate
Paul Nash (1889-1946), The Rye Marshes, East Sussex, 1932, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums. © Ferens Art Gallery/Bridgeman Images
Jeffery Camp (1923-2020), Hang Gliding, 1972, Private collection c/o Art Space Gallery
Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968), End of Land I, 2002, Towner Eastbourne. © Wolfgang Tillmans, courtesy Maureen Paley, London and Hove
Pippa Blake (b. 1954), Deep the Stream Mysterious, 2022, Candida Stevens Gallery