| Thumbnotes Cyril Farey had a great love of life, a keen critical and observant eye, a readiness to apply himself to hard work and a conspicuous talent for drawing. Farey enjoyed music, drama and opera as well as dinner with fine food and a good bottle of wine. He loved walks deep into the countryside, with a particular fondness for trees and he found architecture within the landscape fascinating. The enthusiasm Farey felt for these activities showed itself throughout his career and added colour and vivacity to his work. He believed firmly in hard work and dedication, practising his drawing skills persistently and teaching himself more about architecture outside the schoolroom through continued sketching and a questioning of the subject-matter in front of him. The subject of architectural draughtsmanship for itself was one that Farey also questioned thoroughly in the book he wrote, Jointly with Trystan Edwards in 1931, entitled Architectural Drawing, Perspective and Rendering. Farey held that architects were inveterate sketchers and would draw all subjects because their talent naturally extended into many areas of artistic activity. He categorised several different kinds of sketch and distinguished between an architect on holiday (away from architecture), an architect away from home adding to his experience of buildings elsewhere, an architect exploring techniques or designs and an architect appreciating landscape with buildings set within. Farey believed that it was the innate ability of the architect to combine the various sketch forms that raised the "... prestige of the profession as a whole by indicating the range of intellectual interest of which its members are capable". However he also warned, "the only kind of sketching which appears actually useless ... is the purely desultory sketch, in which the artist expresses nothing but a certain measure of technical skill", continuing that "He must ascertain what benefit is likely to result from the particular sketch which he contemplates... [and] there should be a considered judgement when the work is concluded". "It is not more practice that such draughtsmen need, for their industry is most commendable, but more thought, more analysis and more severe self-criticism". |
In his book Farey encouraged the use of all media for sketchwork, from pen to pencil and wash to watercolour. With his own work alone Farey managed to elevate the status of
watercolour and gouache for the rendering of
architectural drawings to new heights in the way he could prepare flat areas of high or low colour without blemish, by his use of reflections and his good choice of colour and tone. Farey did however devote some time to use of the pencil in his chapter on sketching. He found that the soft pencil was "more amenable to control" than a brush or waterbased instrument and more adaptable. Moreover, by using the flat of the pencil to portray water and sky and the rounded forms of mountains and foliage, he was still able to reserve the point of the pencil for such architecture as
may be associated with the landscape. Farey
discussed the sketch in some detail and
elevated its importance as an art form,
whether it be, "... little more than a thumbnote",
or a detailed study of an extremely difficult
subject. In each case the architect has
imposed upon himself a task: one to create a
pencil or pen point 'impression' and the other
to sketch with "extreme accuracy of rendering". It is with Farey's words in mind that this exhibition has been brought together and there are examples of the various kinds of sketch executed in pencil, pen and watercolour exhibited here. There are close to one hundred original sketches drawn by Farey between 1905-1925 on display and it is hoped that the intimacy and immediacy of the drawings provides more insight into the early work of this remarkable draughtsman.  Catalogue no 36 |