Walking the coast 1

The "Essence of Nature" show at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle is stunning: a comprehensive selection of British painting of the rural from the Pre-Raphaelites through to around 1915 - a good number of lesser known pics from lesser known northern museums, which meant there were plenty of images I'd never seen before, even in reproduction - and overall I did some good thinking there, too.  But - I faithfully promised not to make any of the photos that I took publicly available, except for teaching (and there was no catalogue, so that meant there are a lot of them) - so a visit is strongly encouraged.  It was also the first C19th show that I've seen to have what I'd call environmentally aware labels - pointing to future landscape changes as a result of climate change - an ecological version of the labels that decolonize, and completely in line with my own current work.

After that, I took myself off on the Metro to the seaside ... starting at Whitley Bay.  The on-line material emphasizes that it's undergoing a revival; smartening itself up; that the Spanish City building has been restored to its former glory ...

but overall, it was one of those run down and depressing chunks of British seaside that saw its best times a hundred years ago, and even then put up some underwhelming domestic architecture facing the sea.  But look at those poppies!

The main object of my walk down this part of the English Coast Path, though, was to go to Cullercoats: a fishing village that became an artists' colony in the C19th, and where Winslow Homer spent eighteen months (from April 1881 to November 1882), painting the sea looking wild and stormy, which it obviously isn't today.

All the same, there was someone sketching on the breakwater, outside the lifeboat station.

and here's some contemporary art in an underpass in Cullercoats.

Onwards still, and here's Tynemouth's Longsands coming into view, with masses of wild roses.

It's fairly obvious why it's called Longsands.

And people were not just surfing, but swimming.  In bikinis.  The air temperature was 56: no wonder they were squealing in the sea.

The ruins of the Priory come into view,

and here's this year's photogenic seagull.

Tynemouth was a really pretty little town - I had absolutely no idea.