Falaise, Normandy: the entrance on the road from Caen

Cotman visited Falaise, the birthplace of William the Conqueror, twice: once in 1818 at the end of his visit to Normandy, and again in 1820 as it lay south on his route from Caen. On his second visit he found the town quite different writing, ‘A different atmosphere changes places like magic. The Falaise of 1818 & that of 1820 are two distinct things, the one all haze, rain, smoke and dirt, like Leeds for blackness, the latter – grey green with all the vigour of spring.’ (Letters, vol. XV, p. 111). Although the castle was his main focus, he also sketched the road approaching the town from Caen, delighting in the number of fine coloured groups of figures he encountered as he approached the historic town. The present watercolour was exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists along with a further fifteen Normandy subjects. This submission was an important event for the artist as he returned to exhibiting after a gap of ten years. Regarding the present watercolour Timothy Wilcox notes in his exhibition catalogue that ‘he took another leaf out of Turner’s book in casting this townscape as a paraphrase of Poussin’s A Roman Road (in the Collection of Dulwich Picture Gallery) giving the composition an additional gravitas which was simultaneously classical and gallic.’ T. Wilcox, Cotman in Normandy, exhibition catalogue, London, 2012, no. 28.