Pollarded Willows near Chippenham Walter Steggles
Following the War years, Walter Steggles spent much of his time travelling around the English countryside and, after retiring in 1967, he moved fairly frequently, first living with his mother and then with his sister, Muriel. He spent a number of years in Bradford-on-Avon and then, where he died, in Calne, in Wiltshire; Chippenham lies a few miles between these two rural towns and so this painting of a pair of old willows, once pollarded and now seemingly moribund, is likely to have been produced in Steggles’ later years. But, it is anything but a solemn or a melancholy picture. There is a great stretch of blue-green canopy in the background and the energetic clouds - full of colour, presaging a storm or the return of sunshine? - animate the sky. It would not be surprising if this vast expanse of countryside, reaching the distant, undulating horizon, were the North Wessex Downs to the east of Chippenham. In the foreground, there are hints of ochre and gold – where the afternoon sunshine is catching the exposed trunks of the bare willows and the surrounding turf, and scattering shadows from another tree or bush, perhaps growing just beyond Steggles’ right shoulder? The two willows themselves - having been pollarded for generations (the practice of pollarding willows and using the brash for fodder and the new shoots for wattles, hurdles, baskets is ancient) - are now in decay. But – they are also rich in the promise of life: the ivy growing on the failing trunk is supporting an abundantly biodiverse environment, whilst young stems, which may fall or be cut, can, themselves, root and thus prompt a new tree. Perhaps that is why Steggles seems to have painted the web of bare stems which captures at least a third of the surface of the picture with a kind of blithe enthusiasm? I do not read these stems as a threat; more as a promise. They reach upwards and outwards – beyond the picture frame. They betray a powerful life of their own and suggest the reassurance of perpetuity.
24cms x 34.5cms
38cms x 48cms