William Ratcliffe

Painted from a high vantage point, this work shows the view south-east along Willifield Way in the newly built Hampstead Garden Suburb in London. The fronts of the houses on the left of the painting are brightly lit, while long purple shadows from the houses on the right are cast on to the road, suggesting that the time of day is late afternoon. The angle of the sun and the amount of tree foliage suggests that the time of year is spring.

Adopting the bright complementary colours used by other members of the Camden Town Group and post-impressionist painters, Ratcliffe has juxtaposed bright red and green as well as purple and yellow to create strong contrasts. Small figures populate the pavement on the right that leads to a horse, its carriage just out of sight, on the edge of the painting. In contrast to this outmoded form of transport, three motor cars are being driven along the spacious road.

At the centre of the composition to the front stand three larger figures. Two appear in dark purple silhouette while a third, a child in red coat and hat, stands out against a white path. The path, figures and straight road draw the viewer’s eye up the composition. A strong perspective is created by the road as it recedes into the distance, with the undulating treetops of Hampstead Heath articulated in a soft purple in the background, thus creating a sense of depth.

In contrast to the symmetrical Palladian style of much London architecture, the architects of the Suburb were inspired by the Arts and Crafts ideals of organic architectural forms. The houses depicted are a mixture of shapes and sizes, with plenty of healthy surrounding vegetation, creating the sense of a naturally evolving community; but the geometric lines marking out the houses, roads and gardens also give a sense of order. In this way, Ratcliffe’s painting reaffirms Hampstead Garden Suburb’s attempt to fuse the ideals of town and country living. The Times commented in 1909 that ‘The Garden Suburb at Hampstead is a proof of what can be done when order and design take the place of anarchy and chaos.’1