Cecil Collins

(British, 1908-1989)

The Guardian of Paradise 106.7 x 121.9 cm. (42 x 48 in.)

Footnotes

Provenance
With Arthur Tooth & Sons, London, where purchased by the present owner
Private Collection, U.K.

Exhibited
London, Arthur Tooth & Sons, Cecil Collins Recent Paintings, February-March 1965, cat.no.12
Aldeburgh, Festival Gallery, Cecil Collins, June 1984 (not numbered)
London, Tate Gallery, Cecil Collins: A Retrospective Exhibition, May-July 1989, cat.no.42
Plymouth, City Art Gallery, Cecil Collins: Full Circle, 8 November 1990-5 January 1991, cat.no.36
London, Leatherby Gallery, Central St Martins School of Art, Fools and Angels: A Tribute to Cecil Collins, 14 September-20 October 2009 (catalogue untraced)

Literature
William Anderson, Cecil Collins: The Quest of the Great Happiness, Barrie & Jenkins, London, 1988, p.89, pl.64 (ill.b&w)
Judith Collins, Cecil Collins: A Retrospective Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1989, p.88, cat.no.36 (ill.)

The subject matter of the present work occupies a focal point within Cecil Collins' artistic vision. The 'Guardian' represents one of the two character poles of his lore: Angels, as accompanied by Fools. The Fool represents the openness and innocence of childhood, before adulthood closes off the wider reaches of imagination. Jonathan Sedall observes that it is "the fool in us, he believed, which enables us to connect with the angelic world and with a reality that is invisible but nonetheless substantial" (Jonathan Sedall, Angels: Cecil Collins, ed. Stella Astor, Fool's Press, London, 2004, p.11). This angelic world is essentially a vision of paradise – an idea of a dormant consciousness of the permanence and purity of the world that Collins believed existed in all of us. It is this which the Guardian in the present work is protecting for those who in Collins' eye accept and embrace the fool in themselves.

In spite of the thematic centrality of The Guardian of Paradise, the aesthetic feel of the piece is somewhat unconventional in the context of Collins' wider exploration of the theme. The idea of 'paradise' is held taut against the rather dark and weighty aura of the work. The Guardian itself towers up from a near-formless ground, eyes lit red with a harsh, angular face, wings held defensively downwards rather than optimistically up. The sweeping swirls of blue in the lower half bring a vibrance to the picture, adding to this juxtaposition, and strengthening the distinction between the disordered material and the idealised immaterial, as glimpsed through the marbling of orange and yellow hues against the purple sky. This gestural brushwork builds on a prominent magnitude, both in feel and in terms of the sheer size of the work. At over a meter in each direction, this is one of the largest oils in Collins' oeuvre.

Cecil Collins can be hard to pin down stylistically, with elements of Neo-Romanticism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism all surfacing to varying degrees. In The Guardian of Paradise, we see fully how this comes together as a means of expressing his "search for beauty in a world he knows to be fallen" (Peter Fuller, The Telegraph, 21 May 1989, p.22).