Very much a Victorian lady, Marianne North was almost certainly one of the best known British painters, scientists, and explorers who fell for the once unspoilt charms of Spain's Canary Island of Tenerife during the 19th century.
A vast
number of her paintings of island scenery and plants hang alongside other watercolours from exotic and faraway lands inside her own pavilion at
Kew Gardens, the Marianne North Gallery, and they are a testament to her love of Tenerife.
She was born in Hastings in 1830, the eldest daughter of a prosperous and distinguished family. Her father, Frederick North, was a Justice of the Peace and Liberal M.P. for Hastings, her mother the daughter of Sir John Marjoribanks, 1st Baronet of Lees in the County of Berwick.
After originally studying music, specifically as a singer with a fine voice, Marianne turned to painting after her voice failed. She was artistic by nature and lucky enough to be surrounded by several infuential friends.
Charles Darwin was a principal source of advice and encouragement during her frequent travels overseas. Always interested in plants, she also established an early relationship with Kew Gardens, for whom she collected unusual samples with her father.
Marianne North began travelling with her father Frederick when she was still very young, and in 1848 accompanied him as far as Vienna, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. But it was only after he died that she truly became a member of that very determined British group of lady travellers and adventurers, visiting Asia, Africa, Australia and America.
In Africa she carried out valuable botanical work studying and painting plants and animals. In North America she painted the Niagara Falls and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. In the south she captured some of the most fascinating varieties of exotic plants and animals.
It is exactly one hundred and fifty years ago, in 1875, that Marianne North visited Tenerife. Like so many other travellers before her, she may well have been tempted to explore the island by the sight of Mount Teide from out in the Atlantic, or influenced by so many other travellers before her.
She headed straight for the Orotava Valley after hearing so much about its stunning beauty. However, she was disappointed to find that so many of the trees and flowers described by naturalists like Baron Friedrich Alexander von Humboldt, in 1799, had been replaced by a Central American cacti variety over the years for the sake of the Canary Island cochineal dye industry.
Nevertheless, there was enough to enchant and interest her, and she spent three months painting intensely, illustrating the great variety of colour in the island, often with Mount Teide in the background and palms, cacti, dragon trees and aloes abound in her landscapes.
She became a guest at Sitio Litre, the house of Mr and Mrs Charles Smith at the time, and many of her paintings capture the amazing variety of flora in the gardens, which are famous and open to the public today. Of roses in these gardens Marianne North is known to have said “I have never smelt roses so sweet as those”.
Marianne North was also a writer, evidencing that her interest in different corners of the globe, and consequently in the island of Tenerife, was not only artistic but also of an anthropological nature. She became charmed by local customs, and by the gentle nature of the inhabitants.
Indeed, in her autobiography, “Recollections of a Happy Life”, she emphasises her fondness of Tenerife and its people. She remarked “These people are so friendly and their gardens are marvellous. The ladies flirt with their fans and have flowers in their hair. They behave in a very ladylike manner although they possess no more education than that received in some convent”.
At heart she was most interested in the preservation of nature, of course, so I do wonder what she would think if she were to spend a holiday in the Canary Islands today. Perhaps, if Marianne North were still alive, some politicians might consider her a radical ecologist!
We might presume that as long ago as the 1870s the natural treasures of Tenerife would still have been relatively undisturbed by human progress. Nevertheless, Marianne North lamented, even then, “It is sad to see how civilised people can destroy natural treasures in such a short period of time, when neither animal nor savage has ever done any harm in centuries”.
By John
Reid Young, author and Canary Island tour guide.
Books by
John include:
The
Skipping Verger and Other Tales, a collection of short stories.
A Shark in
the Bath and Other Stories, a collection of short stories.
El Hombre de La Guancha y Otras Historias, a collection of
short stories.
The Journalist, a novel.
For more
information, or if you would like to read any of my books, please click on the
images to the right of this page.
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