Audio description:
On Paul Hill by Stanhope Alexander Forbes
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

The painting in front of you is entitled On Paul Hill.  Stanhope Forbes painted this oil on canvas in 1922.  It is quite a large picture, measuring 89 centimetres tall by 119 centimetres wide, or 2 ? foot tall by 4 foot wide, and has an ornate gold frame.  The picture is in landscape format and shows people making their way up and down Paul Hill, which is a road just above Newlyn, with the view out over MountÕs Bay towards the neighbouring town of Penzance in the distance.  The bright colours and the shadows suggest that it is a summerÕs day; the scene is loosely, but realistically, painted.  

In the foreground, on the left side of the painting, a hay cart led by a line of two heavy horses emerges into the painting.  The horses are both chestnut with white, feathered hooves and pricked ears.  The front horse has a white flash on its nose and is led on its far side by a boy who holds its bridle in his right hand.  He wears a brown jacket over a blue shirt, brown trousers to the knee and long brown boots.  His head is tilted to one side and he has a brown cap pulled low over his forehead so his eyes are in shadow.  In his left hand, he holds a riding crop.  

To the right of the hay cart, the viewerÕs eye is drawn down a steep lane lined with small trees, which leads straight down the hill.  Walking up the lane towards the crossing of the hay cart, is a scattered procession of children, boys and girls, their clothes painted in bright colours in the light and shade cast by the trees.  They are walking home from the local school.  Behind them, just visible through the trees and leading down into Newlyn, are yellow stone houses with grey rooves and red brick chimneys, picked out in sunlight.

At the top of the lane, the right side of the picture is dominated by a large tree with a broad trunk and dark green leaves that cast dappled shade across the lane.  A boy and a girl rest against the trunk in its shade.

In the valley behind the hay cart lies Penzance.  The town sits at the foot of low hills that are chequered in browns and greens.  The blue sky behind is thick with grey and white fluffy clouds.  Penzance appears as a cluster of low buildings bordered by a sweeping crescent of yellow sand and bright blue sea, bathed in sunlight.  The tall, square tower of the Parish Church of St MaryÕs is distinctive but no larger than a match box in the distance.  

Further along from the church, on a spit of land sticking out into the bay, is a tiny, white, vertical brushstroke, representing the War Memorial.  This was erected in 1921 to commemorate those killed in the Great War of 1914 Š 1918, including Stanhope ForbesÕs only son Alec, who died in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.  It is thought that this picture, with its sunshine colours and procession of children, is the artistÕs optimistic vision of a new generation of children who will shape the future after such terrible losses.  

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