Audio description:
Eyes and No Eyes by Frank Bramley
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

The painting in front of you is Eyes and No Eyes by Frank Bramley, dating from 1887.  It is a square-ish oil on canvas painting, just over a metre high by just under a metre wide or nearly 4 foot high by 3 foot wide, with a gilt frame.  The painting shows two young women watching an old fisherman attempting to thread a needle to mend a sail.  In the background is an expanse of still, calm sea, the buildings of Newlyn Harbour and the Old Pier.  It is a sunny, light-hearted scene - all three figures are laughing!

The old fisherman is seated in the centre right of the canvas as you are facing it.  He is wearing a black souÕwester hat and an off-white fishermanÕs smock.  His face is creased and his cheeks are framed by bushy white whiskers.  Over his knee, and falling before him on the ground, is a large piece of creamy coloured sail-cloth.  The cloth carries clear marks of the square brush technique used by the Newlyn School artists and learnt in Antwerp.  (The flat of a square brush was used to lay the paint on the canvas in a jigsaw pattern of brush strokes).  The old fisherman holds up a needle in his left hand and a piece of thread in his right.  He squints at them as he attempts to thread the needle.  Behind him, at the right edge of the canvas, a black fishing net has been hung out to dry over a horizontal rail.  At his feet stands a large ochre-brown earthenware pitcher or jug with a cream glazed rim.  The same pitcher was used as a prop in other Newlyn artistsÕ work.  Around the pitcher lie cork fishing floats strung on dark brown rope.

Next to the fisherman, almost in the centre of the picture, stands a young woman.  The horizontal rail is hip height and she leans back against it - her hands are gripping the rail.  She is laughing heartily Ð her head thrown back and eyes closed.  Her head is turned away from the fisherman towards the second young woman who stands close beside her.  The second woman is also holding onto the rail behind her.  She is bending forward and laughing as she looks around her friend towards the old fisherman.  

The first female figure has frizzy reddish brown hair and pink cheeks.  (The model Frank Bramley used for this figure was Kate Jeffries who also appears in Edwin HarrisÕ The Lesson and other Newlyn paintings).  Kate wears a pale pink blouse with a beige scarf neatly tucked in around the neckline.  The sleeve of her left arm is long but has been rolled up to just below the elbow.  She wears a long bright white apron over her light brown skirt.  Below her skirt you can see black shoes and stockings.  Her left leg is crossed behind her right and her left foot casually rests on its side.

The female figure leaning forward has dark hair pinned back at her neck and a fringe.  She wears a brown blouse with a round white lacy collar.  Her sleeves are also rolled up.  A brown scarf hangs loosely about her neck.  Her apron is buff coloured and is worn over a dark brown skirt.  She also wears black shoes.  Over her right shoulder and low over the calm sea there are three gulls flying towards us.  Their heads and bodies glint white whilst their outspread wings are lines of dark grey.  There is another gull flying behind KateÕs shoulder.

Behind the figures, the water of the harbour fills the upper two thirds of the canvas.  It is very smooth and coloured yellow, blue and brown with the reflections from the sunlit harbour buildings.  Fishing boats and white painted harbour buildings only take up a small space on the upper right hand side of the canvas.  

In the background, the Old Pier, its stone yellow in the sun, stretches out across the canvas from right to left.  There is a Cornish lugger tied up at the end of the Old Pier.  Its iconic brown sails are furled.  In front of the lugger is a tiny white sailing boat Ð painted with barely three brush strokes.

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