Dora Carrington and her impact on the art world

Dora Carrington is another legend of the postimpressionist epoch.

We can see how deeply she was absorbed by the flow of artistic ideas, how passionate she was about painting, covering each medium with her bright, meaningful and technically impeccable works.

The main argument in favour of Dora's uniqueness was a blend of styles - an attentive viewer will notice the influence of Pre-Raphaelites, Late Enlightenment, Impressionism and Postimpressionism.

Dora Carrington was a legend as an artist and as a woman. In her life a long-lasting menage a trois was one of the inspiration factors. Her heart was full of love for people and passion for art, knowledge and travel.

While the world was in crisis, Mrs Carrington did her best to enrich the minds of her audience with new topics, plots and techniques, setting bars high for her artistic novelty and productivity. She was as cool and precise as a laboratory worker, and yet as passionate as a tarantella dancer when it came to opening new pages in art and crossing borders of comprehension.

'The Mill at Tirdmarsh' was one of her signature works. In this oeuvre the house and the mill are main characters, and the quaint landscape is built into a bigger picture of suburban England. The mood of this painting is calm, romantic and nostalgic, one of the most peaceful works in her legacy.

'Lytton Strachey' is a much more personal , full of elegance and finesse painting. Here you can see how the loving eye transforms the visualization of the beloved, how a man flourishes under her mild and enchanted gaze.

This was a tell-tale sign of  a lasting and fulfilling relationship between an artist and a writer - both intelligent, both hard-working, both strong-willed and both freedom-loving. They've managed to create the atmosphere of abundance and romance, long talks about philosophy and human nature and spontaneous overseas trips. Everything they did, they did together.

Apart from arduous love affairs, Carrignton was well-know for her gregarious, easy-going and outstandingly charismatic nature. Many of her works were devoted to friends of hers and even to her friends' relatives. While in most cases she would work with oil on canvas, in one of her cycles another technique was used - oil, silver foil and ink on glass. This work is called 'Rouen Ware' and was presented to the world in 1923.

In conclusion, the impact of Dora Carrington on the world of visual arts is tremendous.

Her perfectionist approach to art, deep knowledge of geographic, historical, cultural, naturalistic details, her wanderlust and a wide array of philosophical views, values and theses, finally, her ability to communicate and involve people into her projects eventually turned her into a phenomenon of postimpressionism and cross-style art. Her incomparably bright and harmonious works convey a message of human freedom, peak states of mind and love as acceptance of the Universe around us.


© Maryna Tchianova

*'Lytton Strachey' (1916) work is taken from an online photo stock, and the original work is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
© Maryna Tchianova, 2021