My father, Winston Churchill, began his love affair with painting in his 40s, amid disastrous circumstances. As First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915, he was deeply involved in a campaign in the Dardanelles that could have shortened the course of a bloody world war. But when the mission failed, with great loss of life, Churchill paid the price, both publicly and privately. He was removed from the admiralty and effectively sidelined.
Overwhelmed by the catastrophe — “I thought he would die of grief,” said his wife, Clementine —he retired with his family to Hoe Farm, a country retreat in Surrey. There, as Churchill later recalled, “The muse of painting came to my rescue!”
Wandering in the garden one day, he chanced upon his sister-in-law sketching with watercolors. He watched her for a few minutes, then borrowed her brush and tried his hand. The muse had cast her spell!
Churchill soon decided to experiment with oils. Delighted with this distraction from his dark broodings, Clementine rushed off to buy whatever paints she could find.
For Churchill, however, the next step seemed difficult as he contemplated with unaccustomed nervousness the blameless whiteness of a new canvas. He started with the sky and later described how “very gingerly I mixed a little blue paint on the palette, and then with infinite precaution made a mark about as big as a bean upon the affronted snow-white shield. At that moment the sound of a motor car was heard in the drive. From this chariot stepped the gifted wife of Sir John Lavery .”
“ ‘Painting!’ she declared. ‘But what are you hesitating about? Let me have the brush — the big one.’ Splash into the turpentine, wallop into the blue and the white, frantic flourish on the palette, and then several fierce strokes and slashes of blue on the absolutely cowering canvas.”
At that time, John Lavery— a Churchill neighbor and celebrated painter— was tutoring Churchill in his art. Later, Lavery said of his unusual pupil: “Had he chosen painting instead of statesmanship, I believe he would have been a great master with the brush.”
In painting, Churchill had discovered a companion with whom he was to walk for the greater part of the years that remained to him. After the war, painting would offer deep solace when, in 1921, the death of the mother was followed two months later by the loss of his and Clementine’s beloved three-year-old daughter, Marigold. Battered by grief, Winston took refuge at the home of friends in Scotland, finding comfort in his painting. He wrote to Clementine: “I went out and painted a beautiful river in the afternoon light with crimson and golden hills in the background. Alas I keep feeling the hurt of the Duckadilly (Marigold’s pet name).”
Historians have called the decade after 1929, when the Conservative government fell and Winston was out of office, his wilderness years. Politically he may have been wandering in barren places, a lonely fighter trying to awaken Britain to the menace of Hitler, but artistically that wilderness bore abundant fruit. During these years he often painted in the South of France. Of the 500-odd canvases extant, roughly 250 date from 1930 to 1939.
Painting remained a joy to Churchill to the end of his life. “Happy are the painters,” he had written in his book Painting as a Pastime, “ for they shall not be lonely. Light and color, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.” And so it was for my father.
我的父親，溫斯頓·丘吉爾，在他四十多歲時開始迷戀上繪畫，當時環境異常惡劣。那是在1915年，任海軍大臣的他，積極投身于在達達尼爾海峽的一場戰役中，這場戰役本可以縮短那段血雨腥風的世界大戰。但由于遭受失敗，傷亡慘重，丘吉爾于公于私都付出了代價。他被從海軍部調離且實則坐起了冷板凳。
在災難的折磨下——他的妻子克萊門廷說：“我想他會痛苦而死，”——他攜家帶口來到薩利郡的一處鄉間靜居霍·華姆。在那兒，丘吉爾后來回憶道，“是繪畫中的冥思拯救了我！”
一天他在花園散步時，偶然看到他的弟媳在用水彩作畫。他觀察了幾分鐘，然后向她借了畫筆并一試身手。他的專注仿佛給他施了魔法！
丘吉爾很快就決定試試去畫油畫。看到他從陰暗的憂郁思中解脫出來，克萊門廷非常開心，她趕忙去買所有能買到的顏料。
然而，邁出下一步似乎有些困難，因為丘吉爾看到一塊新畫布的潔白無暇時感到無所適從和為難。他先從天空畫起，后來他描述如何“非常謹慎地在調色板上加入一點兒藍色調，然后以萬分的小心，在這塊被蓄意冒犯的雪白的防護板上點上豌豆大的一筆。這時，傳來一陣駕駛機動車的馬達聲。約翰·拉威利先生才華出眾的太太從這輛車中姍然而下。
“‘在畫畫呀！’她高聲說著。‘可你還在猶豫什么呢？給我那支筆——那支頭號的。’只見松油飛濺，她在藍白顏料間揮毫潑墨，在調色板上龍飛鳳舞，接著在嚇得發皺的油畫布上用力東戳西搗幾下藍色。”
那時，約翰·拉威利——丘吉爾的鄰居，也是一位有名的畫家—正教丘吉爾學畫。后來提及他的這位特殊的學生，拉威利說：“倘若他選擇繪畫而不是從政，我相信他會是位繪畫大師的。”
在繪畫中，丘吉爾找到了能陪他度過余生大部分時光的知已。戰后，在1921年，母親剛去世兩個月，他和克萊門廷就失去了他們深愛著的三歲女兒瑪麗戈爾德，這時作畫給了他一些安慰。在痛苦的打擊下，溫斯頓來到蘇格蘭朋友們的家中以求得安慰，用繪畫來解脫自己。他在給克萊門廷的信中說：“我出外畫了一條夕陽下美麗的溪流，背后映襯著晚霞的群山。唉，達克迪莉（瑪麗戈爾德的昵稱）使我的苦痛總是揮之不去。
史學家把1929年后的十年，也就是保守黨政府垮臺而溫斯頓下臺的時間，稱為他的荒涼歲月。政治上，他一直在舉步維艱的處境中徘徊，是一個孤獨的勇士在努力喚起受到希特勒威脅的國人，但在藝術上他在那荒涼歲月卻碩果累累。這些年他經常在法國南部作畫。在現存的500多張油畫中，大約250張是1930至1939年間的作品。
繪畫給丘吉爾帶來了樂趣直到他的人生盡頭。在他所著的《畫中的消遣》里說：“畫家其樂融融，因為他們不會孤獨。光與色，和平與希望，會始終伴隨他們。”我父親就是這樣一個人。
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