Monet in Mind – George Clausen

Posted: 17th May 2021

George CLAUSEN
b.1852 – d.1944
Sunrise in September 1924
Oil on Canvas
George Clausen was one of the foremost modern painters of landscapes in the early 20th Century.
He was inspired by the French Impressionists, whose work explored the effects of light as the subject of a landscape. He painted with small, bright dabs to give a flickering, animated appearance.
In Sunrise in September, Clausen applied paint thickly with a dry brush to achieve a granular effect, echoing the dewy frostiness of the scene.
Clausen chose to paint outdoors, developing a lifelong commitment to painting landscapes and scenes of rural life.

Sunrise in September is featured in Monet in Mind, a new exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery in partnership with The Courtauld, London. Samuel Courtauld, the founder of The Courtauld, wrote poetry about the artworks in his collection. Following in his footsteps many years later, young people aged 16-25 from The Warren Youth Project in Hull, were inspired by Sunrise in September to compose their own creative writing to bring a new perspective to the artwork.

Sunrise in September, 1924- A Haiku
A September sun
Rising on the village road
Makes fine light for work

By Andrew Gooch

Country Lanes

Darkened sky lightens to soft hues, while birdsong begins to fill the air, with it, the dawn of a new day;
a quiet, lonely sort of dawn to some, but there’s beauty if you know where to look.

Even at this hour, there’s plenty of work to be done, everyone knows everyone here; a quiet, peaceful dawn just like those come before it, and the ones that may follow.

Unhurried, as you journey along, all roads lead somewhere, after all, and you know where you’re going; but you wonder what else could be out there, across hills and other lanes, though still content with where you are right here and now.
As the sun rises still, and you have too, and you look out and remember, for the scars of a decade ago and the years that followed reached even this far; you look out and see all that’s been and yet could be, the sun reaches to remove final traces of night, and you turn for home.
As always, you’ll be riding back along this country lane tomorrow.

By Kelly Cartwright

Sunrise in September
Morning brings the newborn sun. It turns
Hay to gold without a spinning wheel

Or a name. A nameless road takes its
Travellers somewhere between yesterday and

Tomorrow. Here, fields and skin turn sticky with dew.
Here, for a yellow moment, travellers are delicate

As September’s sunlight, trembling like trees on
The cusp of Autumn’s amber. The day is named.

The earth turns once more. Carts of plain hay roll under
The aging sun: travelling towards tomorrow where, there,

They are born gold again.

By Sarah Magaharan