Hastings Cliffs to Pett Level

Once you leave Hastings Old Town the entire length of the coastline here consists of cliffs and called the Country Park. You can’t reach the shoreline again until you get to Pett Level, unless you take the old path down to the shore at Lovers Seat, which is not recommended due to rapidly eroding cliffs and access is not encouraged for health and safety reasons. Both Lovers Seat at Fairlight Glen, a perfect spot for sketching rural landscapes and Pett Level for sketching the coast, the sea and changing weather effects, have attracted two artists both of which I would like to introduce.

Truth to Nature
At the age of twenty five William Holman Hunt visited Hastings. From mid-August through to December in the year 1852, wishing to paint directly from nature, he set up his easel at Lovers Seat, Fairlight Glen to sit and paint out of doors Our English Coasts,  (`Strayed Sheep') 1852.


The sheep that seem to have gone astray along the top of the cliffs were actually, I understand from letters, painted at the farm where Holman Hunt was staying. So perhaps the sheep, the crumbling cliffs by coastal erosion and this part of the coast constantly running the risk of an invasion, represents mans vulnerability. Holman Hunt may have been signifying the need for spiritual guidance and direction so that man didn’t feel vulnerable and abandoned.


The colours used in the landscape really give you the feeling of one of those sunny days you get in August, September or October, when you appreciate every moment of the day as this could be the last enjoyable day of Summer. Then as the orange glow falls over the landscape and the sun sets lower, the day gets visibly shorter and the temperature drops, you realise this is Autumn masquerading itself as Summer.

Passionate for the natural world, Holman Hunt waited through heavy mists and struggled in the cold, wind and rain to paint from nature itself, as truthfully as possible with incredible attention to detail. He was inspired by the advice of John Ruskin, the English critic and art theorist in Modern Painters (1843-60).

 'go to Nature in all singleness of heart, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing'  

This was his encouragement to artists.


Truth to Material
From Paris, at the age of thirty three, Jacob Epstein decided to move back to England and settle at Pett Level, he loved this tiny remote coastal village. He is said to of liked the idea of carving away to his heart’s content without troubling a soul. He stayed here from 1913 until 1916, creating many of his most tranquil pieces. Encouraged by the sculptor and engraver Eric Gill (1882-1940) to carve directly in stone and to allow the appearance to emerge through the process, he was inspired by so-called primitive art and he associated tribal art with liberated sexuality and creativity, which he had gained familiarity with in the British Museum.

Both his eight foot high marble sculpture Venus 1914 -16 and Doves 1914-15 were completed in his four years at Pett Level.  As you examine both Venus and Doves, you are acutely aware of Epstein’s depiction of the male act of strength with a desire for love and beauty and his sensitivity to fertility. Together they reflect Epstein’s fascination in procreative themes.

When I was studying History of Art there was no reason to emphasise that these works were created near to Hastings. It has been of interest to revisit these two beauty spots again.