When Mrs. Allingham finally, I will not say determined to cut herself away from figure painting, but by the influence of her surroundings drifted away from it, she did not, as so many do, become the delineator of a single phase of landscape art. Her journeyings in search of subjects for some years were neither many nor extensive, for a paintress with a family growing up around her has not the same opportunities as a painter. He can leave his incumbrances in charge of his wife, and his work will probably benefit by an occasional flitting from home surroundings. But a mother’s work would not thrive away from her children even if absence was possible, which it probably was not in Mrs. Allingham’s case. Hence we find that the ground she has covered has been almost entirely confined to what are termed the Home Counties, with an occasional diversion to the Isle of Wight, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire, and Cheshire. In the Home Counties, Surrey and Kent have furnished most of her material, the former naturally being oftenest drawn upon during her life at Witley, and the latter since she lived in London, whither she returned in the year 1888. This inability to roam about whither she chose was doubtless helpful in compelling her to vary her subjects, for she would of necessity have to paint whatever came within her reach. But her energy also had its share, for it enabled her to search the whole countryside wherever she was, and gather in a dozen suitable scenes where another might only discover one.

As evidence of this we may instance the case of the corner of Kent whither she has gone again and again of late, and where in the present year she has still been able to find ample material to her liking. A visit to this somewhat out-of-the-way spot, which lies in Kent in an almost identically similar position to that which Witley does in Surrey, namely, in the extreme south-west corner, shows how she has found material everywhere. In the mile that separates the station from the farmhouse where she encamps, she shows a cottage that she has painted from every side, a brick kiln that she has her eye on, an old yew, and a clump of elms that has been most serviceable. Arriving at the farm-gate she points to the modest floral display in front that has sufficed for “In the Farmhouse Garden” (Plate 2), whilst over the way are the buildings of “A Kentish Farmyard” (Plate 58). Entering the house the visitor may not be much impressed with the view from her sitting-room window, but under the artist’s hands it has become the silvern sheet of daisies reproduced in Plate 38. “On the Pilgrims’ Way” (Plate 41) is a field or so away, whilst a short walk up the downs behind the house finds us in the presence of the originals of Plates 32 and 36. A drive across the vale and we have Crockham Hill, whence comes Plate 40, and Ide Hill, Plate 55.

A ramble round these scenes, whilst a most enjoyable matter to any one born to an appreciation of the country, was in truth not the inspiration that would be imagined to the writer of the text, for he had seen, for instance, the daintily conceived water-colour of “Ox-eye Daisies” (Plate 38), painted a year ago, and he arrived at the field to find this year’s crop a failure, and on a day in which the distant woods were hardly visible; the scene of the “Foxgloves” had all the underwood grown up, and only a stray spike suggestive of the glory of past years; gipsy tramps on the road to “berrying” (strawberry gathering) conjured up no visions of the tenant of Mrs. Allingham’s “Spring on the Kentish Downs,” but only a horrible thought of the strawberries defiled by being picked by their hands.

This description of the variety of the artist’s work within a single small area will show that it is somewhat difficult to classify it for consideration. However, one or two arrangements and rearrangements of the drawings which illustrate these phases of the artist’s output seem to bring them best into the following divisions: woods, lanes, and fields; cottages; and gardens. These we shall therefore consider in this and the following chapters, dealing here with the first of them.

Midway in her life at Witley, The Fine Art Society induced Mrs. Allingham to undertake, as the subject for an Exhibition, the portrayal of the countryside under its four seasonal aspects of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. She completed her task, and the result was shown in 1886 in an Exhibition, but a glance at the catalogue shows in which direction her preference lay; for whilst spring and summer between them accounted for more than fifty pictures, only seven answered for autumn, and six, of which one half were interiors, illustrated winter. These proportions may not perhaps have represented the ratio of her affections, but of her physical ability to portray each of the seasons. Autumn leaves and tints no doubt appealed to her artistic eye as much as spring or summer hues, but for some reason, perhaps that of health, illustrations were few and far between of the time of year

In so selecting she differed from Mr. Ruskin, who has laid it down that “a tree is never meant to be drawn with all its leaves on, any more than a day when its sun is at noon. One draws the day in its morning or eventide, the tree in its spring or autumn dress.” This naturally exaggerated dictum is the contrary of Mrs. Allingham’s practice. She almost invariably waits for the trees until they have completely donned their spring garb, and leaves them ere they doff their summer dress.

The drawings of the woods, lanes, and fields which Mrs. Allingham has selected for illustration here comprise six of spring, three of summer, and two of autumn, winter being unrepresented. They are culled as to seven from Kent, three from Surrey, and a single one from Hertfordshire.

Taking them in their seasonal order we may discuss them as follows:—