Silent Poetry

Summary

The Derby Sketching Club demonstrating the cultural benefit of art by visiting several picturesque Derbyshire locations.

Year:

1949

Duration:

0:38:00

Film type:

Colour / Silent

Genre:

Documentary

Master format:

16mm

Description

Before the title and credits there is an inter-title (a quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland):

'Then Drawling - the Drawling Master was an old conger eel that used to come once a week. He taught us Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils. What was it like? said Alice.'

Another caption:

'A documentary film demonstrating to those with leisure how they may use that leisure with cultural benefit.'

We see shots of Derby town centre including a high angle shot from the Market Place looking at Corn Market and the exterior of the Museum and Art Gallery on the Wardwick.

People are seen entering the museum where inside they view art works in an event organised by the Derby Sketching Club.

We then see a lecture and various activities carried out by the club including a still life class and a life model class.

Next we see members of the class visiting locations in Derbyshire to paint landscapes.

We see the Cat and Fiddle windmill at Dale Abbey near Ilkeston; shots of Bakewell town centre; and the artists painting Bakewell Bridge; and members of the club outside Osmaston Manor.

Finally we see members of the club leaving their meeting and a final scrolling caption:

'And it may be surmised in every man in the city where the grey streets go on for ever there are the eyes of a Constable or a Gainsborough and some times even the eyes of a Rubens, a Claude, or a Ruysdael, dimmed by the greyness but not yet sterile which long to look upon green places and coloured skies, and in some way to make a picture of so much poetry.
The Kilburn Tale by Ernest Raymond.'


Credits

(credits at start of film)

Liason Organiser W. H. Foulks
Photographed and Directed by Richard Hugh Thomas

Works by members featured in the film:

Still Life
Oils: F. J. Cudby
Pastel: C. I. Rollett
Water Colour: W. H. Adey

Portraiture
Model: Miss Olga Carrington
Pastel: A. H. Parfitt
Oils: C. I. Rollett, T. Ironmonger
(cut off by frame): G. S. W. Harrison

Landscape
Location: Cat & Fiddle, Mill Dale Abbey
L. Woodward
R. Goodhind

Location: Bakewell Bridge
A. H. Parftt
R. Goodhind
F. J. Cudby
W. N. Rodgers
E. N. Dawson

Location: Osmaston Manor
R. Goodhind
A. Greatorex
W. N. Noble

Titles designed by A. H. Parfitt, G. S. W. Harrison


Notes

Osmaston Manor was demolished in 1964. Clip courtesy Derbyshire County Council.