From the Brighton Aquatints suite. Hand coloured edition of 55. Notes by the artist: Bedford Square. A small square, opening onto the promenade at Hove, just east of Brunswick Terrace and the new Embassy Court building. The Regency houses are stuccoed, and some of them painted in pale yellows, greys and browns. Others are of unpainted stucco, and all their pale colours part and mingle like the counterpoint in the slow movement of a symphony. The verandas and awnings provide the decorative motif, and the bowed house-fronts themselves have an ebullience that suits the seaside scene. They are, in feeling, as near as English architecture ever is to the spirit of a Rowlandson print - a rare English spirit that combines health and heartiness with sense and elegance. On a misty October morning the beauty of shapes and colours in Bedford square takes the breath away. The yellow-grey mist; the sea begins to sparkle with prickly sunlight beyond, the fanciful bandstand on the promenade - even the Brighton Corporation lamp-standard has a suitable gaiety.
