‘Cornwall is the most beautiful place I have ever seen’ - a letter home
The unique quality of sunlight in St Ives Bay has long been an enticement to artists. In the nineteenth century, painters from all over Europe who wished to adopt the ‘plein air’ fashion found that Cornwall’s mild climate enabled them to work out of doors for longer than anywhere else in Britain. But it was primarily companionship which brought the Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck to St Ives.
