KNIT ONE, PURL ONE

I have been doing a lot of knitting recently. A bit like gazing intently at a painting, knitting settles me, concentrates my thoughts, and opens up a slow engagement with the act of creation. The methodical repetition of stitches and the soft clickety clack of needles liberates my thoughts into all sorts of unlikely territories: from shopping lists to new lecture topics. Knit one, purl one, increase, decrease, entire conversations in my mind unfold as I pile on the rows.

According to a recent scientific study, knitting has been shown to reduce stress, aid relaxation and increase happiness levels; it seems that knitters experience the state of ‘flow.’ This is when they are absorbed in what they are doing and mind and body work together effortlessly. My latest project, a large shoulder shawl in a soft wool which looks like woven herringbone, is going to take some time and has got me thinking about images of knitting in art.

Evelyn Mary Dunbar, The Knitting Party, 1940, Imperial War Museum

This is Evelyn Mary Dunbar’s The Knitting Party from 1940. She was born in 1906, her father was a tailor and her mother was an amateur artist specialising in floral still lifestyles. From an early age Evelyn displayed considerable talent as an artist, and thanks to encouragement from her mother, she was awarded a scholarship at the Royal College of Art in 1929. In 1939 she was chosen to be a war artist and her remit was to cover the home front activities of women's organisations: the Women's Voluntary Service, nursing and hospital activities, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, the Auxiliary Territorial Service and - for which Dunbar is best known – the Women's Land Army. Uniquely, among her female colleagues she remained on a series of rolling employment contracts throughout the war, and by 1945 she had submitted 44 pieces. All, in their way, represent images of growth and regeneration, with subtle overtones of feminism and peppered with occasional wit.

Hand-knitting was at a peak in Britain in the 1940s. During the Second World War, women on the home front were encouraged to contribute to the war effort by knitting for the troops, which was promoted as public duty. Advertising at the time stated: "England expects – knit your bit".

Many knitting patterns were given away free, while wool was also sent to schools so that children could knit gloves, scarves and balaclava helmets for the forces. Wool was also supplied to organisations such as the Women's Institutes of England and Wales, who made over 22 million knitted garments for the Red Cross (an average of 67 garments per member). Parcels of their knitwear were sent to prisoners of war, as well as to troops.

The warmth of woollen garments also made them popular for civilians who were faced with a shortage of heating fuel. In the face of wool rationing, knitters were encouraged to unravel old sweaters.

Evelyn Mary Dunbar Dunbar died of heart failure in May, 1960, at just 53. As a strict Christian Scientist she was barred from seeking medical help. Her work sank into obscurity until 2006, when a centenary exhibition was held at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery. Much of her work was stored away in a Sussex farmhouse until it was rediscovered in 2013; some 900 pieces of work, covering her entire career.

William Dyce, Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting, 1960, National Museum of Wales

This painting is a highly romanticised Victorian view of ‘wild Wales’ and its ‘unspoilt’ people. It is a scene that came out of William Dyce’s imagination- knitting was certainly not an outdoor activity! The younger woman in red is dressed in the recently revived Welsh national costume, but in reality this would only have been worn for special occasions. Both women are knitting stockings from scavenged scraps of wool: Wales=sheep=wool=knitting. It is full of contrived contrasts: between age and beauty, and between transience of human life versus the ancient geological formations - William Dyce was a devout Christian- while the sickle moon suggests the cyclical progression of the universe.

William Dyce was an important supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites’ aim to renew English art through truth to nature- the moral realism of nature, championed by the art critic John Ruskin. The rock surfaces and vegetation of this work echoes his best-known work, Pegwell Bay (1858-9, Tate) with its forensic attention of natural detail in recording of the chalk cliffs near Ramsgate in Kent.

This is a painting as much about geology and nature as it is about two women knitting! Dyce stayed in the Conwy valley for six weeks in the autumn of 1860, where he admired and sketched ‘every variety of Welsh scenery.’

Pieter de Hooch, Interior with a Woman Knitting, a Serving Woman and a Child, 116173, Guildhall Art Gallery

The quietly observed intimacy of 17th century Dutch Golden Age painter, Pieter de Hooch. De Hooch turned daily routines like cleaning, knitting, and sewing into enigmatic atmospheric dramas, bathed in light as to make them almost devotional in quality. In de Hooch’s worlds, domestic virtue equaled religious conviction.

For an artist who produced some 160 works in his lifetime, (Johannes Vermeer produced 35), there is surprisingly little known about his life. He was born in 1629, in Rotterdam, 15 km from Delft, the son of a bricklayer.  He settled in Delft in 1652, where he most probably would have met his younger contemporary, Johannes Vermeer, a colleague at the Painters’ Guild. Might it have been de Hooch, the slightly older artist, who inspired Vermeer into taking the art of domestic stillness into something altogether more mesmeric? While Vermeer’s subjects were more entrancing and subtly composed, and yes, he probably was a better painter, de Hooch welcomes us into interior scenes, which are infused with touching naturalism. De Hooch presents us with comforting, non-threatening glimpses of everyday life in 17th century Holland, which, however much they may have been contrived or imagined, still speak to us in a visual language we can understand. With de Hooch, there truly is no place like home. Knitting with a cat at your feet…my idea of bliss.