Linocut

This is rather pleasant.  Cricket by Edith Lawrence.  It is a linocut made in 1925.

Edith Lawrence was one of a number of British artists who made extensive use of the linocut technique of print making in the first part of the 20th Century.  Her partner was Claude Flight who wrote extensively on its merits, advocating that the relative cheapness of the material could democratise art.  There is a lot of similarity of style between his work and Edith Lawrence's, and the influence of Cubism and Vorticism in both is evident. 

Influence of the knowledge of cricket is not so evident.  FB has not managed to find any cricketing images by Flight and this appears to be Lawrence's only offering on the game.  What is the story behind it?  Did she pass a blue pitch one day and rush off home to capture the impression it made on her?  Who knows?  What is charming about the picture is the energy it depicts - and how all the characters are focussed on what is happening at the batter's end.  Is an appeal being made?

Linoleum is not so omni-present as a floor covering as it once was, so linocut may be less popular as an artistic technique.  But it was still going strong when FB was at school.  He distinctly remembers how he would gouge out an image of some sort on a square of lino, and then smear it with ink or paint to produce - well in FB's case nothing ever beyond an almighty mess.  Perhaps if the art master had made reference to Edith Lawrence's work, FB might have achieved something.

But it is not the poverty of his artistic endeavour that FB recalls from those distant encounters with linocut.  No, there is one thing about linocut that will stir the pulse of every cricketer.  Maybe this is what inspired Edith Lawrence. 

It is the smell.  Just a sniff transports all cricketers.  Just a sniff makes them weak at the knees. It is beyond Chanel, beyond cocaine, beyond anything.  The incomparable smell of linseed oil.

It comes to FB now - maybe he will have another go at linocut.