Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S.

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been lined using wax as an adhesive. The paint layer is dusty, but is in good condition. There do not appear to be any restorations or damages. The painting is in lovely condition. If the painting is to look its best, the wax lining should be replaced and the surface should be cleaned and varnished. However, the work is presentable as is.
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During the early 1900s, Munnings sought out local residents of the English countryside as subjects for his paintings.  In A Summer Afternoon, fieldworkers take a well-earned break from their labor: a woman rests against a drying haystack while her companion props herself against her rake; meanwhile, two men, accompanied by an eager terrier, use long poles to launch their boat from the muddy bank to enjoy time on the cool water.  Hidden by the massive, twisted trunks of tall trees and their deep-cast shadows, this particular bend of the river, most likely the River Waverney near his Mendham home, was one of Munnings' favorite locales.  As the artist recalled, in such "secluded spots, far from any road or by-way---seen only by a mill-hand or farm-worker--- I painted in isolated abandonment" (Sir Alfred Munnings, An Artist's Life, Bungay, Suffolk, p. 238). Uninterrupted, Munnings brilliantly captured the light, texture, and colors of a summer's day, as depicted in the present work where a cloud temporarily shields the sun and leaves a deep azure tint to the river and lilies in the foreground.

In 1902, the same year as A Summer Afternoon, Munnings attended classes at the Atelier Julian in Paris. Here he admired the works of Edgar Degas, Henri Fantin-Latour and James Tissot, and the Impressionists' influence is clearly evident in the present work.  As with the Impressionists, Munnings worked en plein air, and both the artist and his critics recognized the benefits and challenges of the practice. Lionel Lindsay lauded Munnings' "exceptional courage and patience" to paint "sunlight in England where the weather god is a quick-change artist" (Lionel Lindsay, A. J. Munnings, R.A., pictures of horses and English life, London, 1939, p. 17).  As Munnings explained, the fresh spontaneity of painting in nature also demanded artists to quickly synthesize the variable climate, otherwise risking "the misery of seeing such complete, relentless transformation of everything" (Munnings, An Artist's Life, p. 239). 

Avoiding such frustration may have influenced his choice of a vertical composition, rather than a more traditional panoramic orientation for landscape.  In this more intimate perspective, Munnings focuses the viewer's attention on the contrasting complexities of nature. From the deep blue of the sky and water reeds to the soft green yellows of haystacks and lily pads, repeated color tones unify the disparate elements of the composition while also creating a sense of movement. Large blocks of shadow cast by the trees contrast with illuminated pastures to develop a sense of depth and space in this relatively restricted composition. Lindsay believed such technique allowed Munnings to avoid the "illusory moment" of the Impressionists, in which "the world stays delicately caught in a web of colored tissue," in favor of a "sense of love and form" built of "live colors—yellow and orange, scarlet, purple, and green... placed with a fine, harmonious precision" (Lindsay, pp. 17-8).

River scenes form a considerable part of Munnings' oeuvre. Munnings' early river works such as Stranded (1897), is relatively more genre-like, depicting the artist's cousins Nina and Cecil in a rowboat stuck in reeds.  This work along with Pike Fishing in January, were in 1899, among the first works the artist exhibited at the Royal Academy. Both reveal the early influence of the Norwich school artists such as John Bereny Crome and John Sell Cotman.  Painted over a decade later, A Summer Afternoon builds on early traditions, incorporates new Impressionist influences, and portends his later bold experiments in capturing the dramatic effects of light and color in his series of "Canoeing pictures" including The White Canoe (circa 1921-2) and A September Afternoon (1939).