We were both sitting on the beach at St Margaret\u2019s Bay on what was likely to be the last hot day of the summer of 2017<\/p>\n
A sea haze had obscured France and we both watched as the Dover ferries disappeared slowly into the heavy mists<\/p>\n
I looked at the artist who was sketching Noel Cowards former home<\/p>\n
Do you think that on a day as benign as this that we really understand the sea?<\/i><\/p>\n
It all depends if there is anything to understand in the first place<\/i><\/p>\n
You may have a point<\/i><\/p>\n
Do not believe me young man<\/i><\/p>\n
Make up your own mind<\/i><\/p>\n
No artist has in my view has ever captured the sea<\/i><\/p>\n
Turner?<\/i><\/p>\n
Light<\/i><\/p>\n
Turner captured the light \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
If you can paint what you can see and not what you think you can see then then maybe you have commenced your journey that’s all<\/i><\/p>\n
But who am I to discuss this with you<\/i><\/p>\n
I wish that she would keep still<\/i><\/p>\n
Who?<\/i><\/p>\n
The girl who is walking at the water\u2019s edge \u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
I looked into the strong sunlight and saw a girl walking her dog<\/p>\n
Occasionally she would throw a piece of wood into the sea for the dog to retrieve<\/p>\n
Offer her a pound to sit for me \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
That does not happen anymore<\/i><\/p>\n
She would think that we are both strange fellows<\/i><\/p>\n
Artists can be quite strange<\/i><\/p>\n
I looked at Augustus\u2019s pad<\/p>\n
It was full of rapid charcoal sketches of both the girl and the house behind us<\/p>\n
Each of us has a different understanding of things<\/i><\/p>\n
It would not do to be the same<\/i><\/p>\n
Are you going to paint later?<\/i><\/p>\n
No I painted for a number of hours this morning<\/i><\/p>\n
What was your subject?<\/i><\/p>\n
The sea of course<\/i><\/p>\n
I painted the sea<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
An account of an imaginary conversation between Augustus John and the author at St Margaret\u2019s Bay Kent on August 29th<\/sup>\u00a02017.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We were both sitting on the beach at St Margaret\u2019s Bay on what was likely to be the last hot day of the summer of 2017 A sea haze had obscured France and we both watched as the Dover ferries disappeared slowly into the heavy mists I looked at the artist who was sketching Noel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9302,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9301\/revisions\/9302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}