Paintings influenced by Welsh mythology

Landscape and Legend

The grazing ponies in Capel-y-ffin (1926-27) have been suggested to refer to the end of Arthurian Britain where the horses of the knights of the round table ran free. The artist presents the fluidity of the mountainous region in curves and subtle tones.

David Jones found Welsh hills a liberating subject. He wrote of “the impact of the strong hill – rhythms and the bright counter rhythms of afonydd dyfroedd (water-brooks).”

David Jones (1895 – 1974)

Jones was born in Kent and in 1921 he became a pupil of Eric Gill and lived with the Gill family for much of the 1920’s.

In 1924 Gill moved to Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains where Jones developed his paintings of the Breconshire landscape that are rooted in the art of Paul Cézanne.

Jones was a member of the modernist exhibiting group, the Seven and Five Society, from 1928 to 1935.

Style

Jones’ work has a mature, sensual style. He occasionally worked in oil but watercolour and pencil were his primary mediums.

Love

Jones became engaged to Eric Gill’s daughter Petra Gill between 1924 and 1927 but they never married. The painting of Petra Gill (1922) is an example of how his personal life became the subject of some of his work.

First World War

Jones served in the First World War, an experience that inspired his first epic poem called In Parenthesis.

The talent, “often described as the greatest painter-poet since Blake” by National Museum Wales, had severe nervous breakdowns in 1932 and 1947 as a result of his time spent in the trenches in the First World War.

Later work

Jones’ later paintings were richly worked, presenting allusions to theology, history and legend, for example, Trystan ac Essyllt (1960-62). A photograph of the painting features on the home page of this article.