Sutherland,G. Pastoral 1930 etching print. courtesy of Tate Britain.
Klee,P. Nocturnal Festivity 1921
Palmer,S. A Hilly Scene 1826-28. Courtesy of Tate Britain.
personal sketchbook work reproduction of Early Morning.
Having recently seen some drawings by the artists Samuel Palmer I was so blown away by his attention to such detail, his drawings are so intricate. I have replicated one of his drawings in my sketchbook, called Early Morning. I find that by recreating a drawing like this, I get a better understanding of his techniques. Also I noticed so many little things, like the little huddle of figures in the centre of the picture and the little details of various plants and flowers that he had created. Each blade of grass is drawn with equal importance as is each little leaf on the branches. I particularly like his mushroom shaped trees and the little half moon cottages in the distance. This is one of those drawings that you could spend hours looking at and never get bored with it.

Samuel Palmer was an english painter, draughtsman and etcher he was a key figure in the English Romantic movement. Poetry was a lifelong inspiration to him and he went on to play a central figure in a group of artists who called themselves, The Ancients whose aspirations focused on the ancient poets and painters.
His best friend and mentor was william Blake, but unlike him his work was inspired by his complete love of nature.
I can see in his work how much he loves his surroundings. There is an almost mystical appeal to his work they are like little fantasy drawings. His painting, Hilly Scene which is in the Tate Britain can only be described as a mystical dreamscape. The bright Indian Yellow leads the eye into the painting onto the hills in the distance, which are illuminated by the light of a crescent moon. The picture plane is framed by the foliage from the trees which echoes the shape of the hills. It is a lovely painting. Which when I saw it a painting by Paul Klee sprung to mind. I couldn't remember the name of it but the image was clear in my mind. I later found out it was called, Nocturnal Festivity. Both of these painters although very different in style have a dreamy mystical quality to their work.

I was also interested to discover that the artist Graham Sutherland was interested and inspired by the work of Samuel Palmer, and he produced a series of prints during the 1920s. Although his scenes had less religious and mystical overtones. His landscape scenes come across as more sinister with the twisted trees and unusual shadows. Graham Sutherland began his career as a printmaker but he changed his medium following the Wall Street crash. It is also in his paintings that you can still see the influence of Samuel Palmer, but instead of a celebration of nature, Sutherland portrayed a disconcerting and brooding landscape. This was particularly heightened during the advent of the war, providing the onset of Neo Romanticism.

landscape/ townscapes what I have learned

The construction of a successful landscape or a townscape painting is down to a lot more than just a recreation of the scene. It is often an emotional response to the surroundings.
The paintings of bombed out buildings and landscapes of Great Britain during the second world war by John Piper with his turbulent skies depicting the desolation of the area, provide a nostalgic sense of loss of the traditional view of the English landscape and buildings.
Paul Nash who is possibly one of the greatest modern day painters of the english landscape found his inspiration in landscapes with a strong ancient history, his paintings often have a mystical feel to them. He was inspired by the painter Samuel Palmer. His work as a war artist depicting grim landscape scenes from the frontline show the twisted tree stumps and barbed wire, a metaphor for the devastation inflicted upon the land and its people.
A letter to his wife claimed that he no longer saw himself as an artist, he was a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever.

John Constable is noted for his scenes of ordinairy scenes in a rural landscape in an age that looked for more romantic visions of wild landscapes and ruins.
Constable rejected the formal or "picturesque" rendering of nature found in the works of artists like Gainsborough. Instead, he tried to capture informally the effects of changing light and the patterns of clouds moving across the country sky. He loved the countryside, and his best work was of outdoor scenes in his native Suffolk and his London home in Hampstead.

In Art and Illusion by E.H. Gombrich it is quoted that,
He was inspired by the work of Gainsborough and he wrote of his native Suffolk:
"It is a most delightful landscape for a painter. I fancy I see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree.

Every artist has there own personal response to an area and it is that very response that is so elusive to capture. It is not too difficult to recreate an image that is representative of what you see, but to dig beyond that and to try and show what you feel about the landscape and to try and get other people to understand as well that is what requires skill and practice..

Townscapes

C.Monet.The Rue Saint-Denis, Celebration of June 30 1878

Hopper,E.Summertime 1943.



John Virtue. White acrylic paint,black ink and shellac on canvas - in the collection of the National Gallery.

Although I chose to paint the landscape project , instead of the Townscape
I have investigated what I consider to be three very different approaches to painting a townscape.

Edward Hopper is known for his realism, he paid close attention to detail and chiaroscuro. A lot of his paintings seem to capture a moment in time when the viewer is looking into a private or lonely part of someones life. He painted american life in a town ranging from people sitting in a cafe late at night to the out of town gas stations. His paintings find beauty in the most mundane aspects of life and he captures a truth in the day to day life of ordinairy americans. There is often a sense of loneliness in his paintings, his use of strong light and shadow add to this atmosphere.

The Impressionist painter, Monet was concerned with the treatment of colours in the open air. The colours were painted quickly with rapid strokes and he was not concerned with capturing detail but for the overall effect with the aim to capture the impression of the moment.

John Virtue has painted abstracted landscapes using just black ink and white acrylic since 1978. His inspiration comes from the oriental brush painting and the american Abstract Expressionists. Some of his paintings are on a monumental scale of which these are his best as he manages to create amazing space and depth in his paintings. His loose expressionist techniques are created by smearing, throwing and spraying paint onto raw canvas.

Amanda Hislop exhibition.

Amanda Hislop, Twilight Trees
Amanda Hislop, Rain Coming in.

Amanda Hislop is a textile artist who had an exhibition at Oxford castle. Her landscape paintings are created using a variety of paper, linen, paint and stitch. They are really beautiful.
Her images dont reveal the landscape directly, but her response to it. They capture what it feels like to be within the landscape at that moment.She manages to capture the light, giving an impressionistic sense of place.
Her colours are quite subtle and combined with the tactile qualities of the threads throughout the image she evokes atmosphere and stillness.
This was an exhibition worth seeing and I will look out for her work again..

john William Inchbold landscape artist

John William Inchbold In Early Spring.

This is an artist who I must admit I had never heard of, although I instantly recognised the Pre Raphealite style of painting. He is a figure who stood on the periphery of the Pre Raphealite circle. He was highly significant in the context of victorian landscape painting and was respected by many comtemporaries including Millais and Ruskin,

Ruskin was the most important and influential art critic of the victorian era. Rukins doctrine was that nature should be painted truthfully in the minutest detail.

In Early Spring, shows a photographically precise scene using bright colours. The light of the sun hitting the tree opens up the whole painting. It is amazingly detailed in true Pre Raph style.

john Piper Landscape

John Piper, June Landscape 1969. The Artists estate.Ashmolean museum Oxford.
'...Abstraction is a luxury that has been left to the present day to exploit. It is a luxury just as any single ideal is, and like a single ideal it should be approached all the time, but not pre-supposed all the time. To pre-suppose it always, if you you are a painter, is to paint the same picture always: or else to give up painting altogether because there is nothing left to paint...'

Extract from 'Abstraction on the Beach' John Piper 1938

John Piper often focused on the British landscape, paying particular interest to the depiction of churches, castles and stately homes.

The colours of this painting immediately captured my attention. It is a beautiful painting which has no reference to any recognisable scenes, but his use of complementary colours create a sense of space. Maybe the orange is the heat of a summers day and the complementary blue, a summer sky. There are various different paint applications with flat areas contrasted with areas of layered colours probably applied with a dry brush.

His styles often changed throughout his career and although he became frustrated with abstract art his return to realism had abstract elements to it and a very unique style.

John Nash landscape artist

Studies of A Gloucestershire Landscape,1914. John Nash. Ashmolean Museum Oxford.

I recently went to Oxford to visit the Ashmolean museum and an exhibition that was on at the castle. As I am studying the different ways that artists have painted the landscape I have chosen a few paintings that I thought were relevant to the subject.

One of the paintings I chose was A Gloucestershire Landscape by John Nash. I created a quick drawing in the gallery, and found that the painting was essentially a collection of abstract forms, with each one being carefully balanced to echo the other. For example the shape and form of the landscape is balanced by the form of the clouds, with the light of the sun through the crowds, hitting and highlighting diagonally through the composition. The tree in the middle of the composition dominates the painting.

John Nash had no formal art training, and he always had a life long love of the countryside and nature. He said of his work that, he was searching for the basic form of things, and often painted from drawings that he had done on the spot. This painting was painted in the summer of the outbreak of world war 1. He would later become an official war artist and painted the war torn countryside.

project 12 a landscape

What I was tring to achieve.
My aim was to try and capture a magical quality to the painting. inspired by many artists such as Peter Doig and earlier artists Samuel Palmer and John Piper. I didn't just want to replicate the scene completely I wanted it to be recognisable but slightly mystical.

How did I try to achieve this?

The flicking of paint was an experiment which I hope helps achieve a looser feel to the painting as I still have the tendency to paint a little too tight which often results in my image looking too overworked. I am interested in the effects when using gels, which when worked back allows the paint underneath to show through, giving a luminescence to the work, which I wanted to help add to the magical atmosphere. I also think that this helps add some unusual interest to the painting.
I am happy with the colours in the painting, I always seem to aim for a vibrancy in my work. The bands of orange and green in the landscape happened by accident it was such an unusual play of light and it was these two colours that seemed to work so well together. I have deliberately tried to keep the two colours well defined as I have noticed a lot in Doigs work that he has these strong bands of colour running through and it really has a striking effect. I chose blue tones for the stonework so that it would provide a strong contrast against the orange tones.

The Composition
The point I am not entirely convinced about is the composition. I hope I have got it right. I have used the sunlit path to lead the eye diagonally into the painting.
The main focal point is the structure itself, but I also wanted to place the same importance to the landscape behind, by heightening the colours of the area behind the arch. Which I suppose could be a little unusual as it is normal practice to paint the distance in blue tones to give a feeling of depth.

peter Doig

Peter Doig,Concrete Cabin, 1994.

I really appreciate the work of Peter Doig, and I have found the way that he captures a moment of time and the way he manages to portray a perfect tranquility and render a wild and fanciful quality to his images really inspirational to my landscape project.
The painting, Concrete Cabin is quite a bizarre painting. He has captured a view of a modern apartment block in the distance, while the viewer is looking through a woodland copse. The way that he has painted the trees is really unusual and gives them an almost ethereal quality. It looks like he has built up the greenery using a stippling technique.
The composition has been cropped so there is no view of the sky or ground which adds to the overall effect of the viewer spying through the greenery.

I think I will stick with painting the arch. At this point I prefer the second image, as it places more prominance on the arch rather than the viewpoint which is painted from further away. I feel that this is too centralised in the composition. I also want to use the light coming through the arch to lead the eye diagonally into the painting.

Friedrich Caspar David,Ruins in the Riesengebirge.1830-34.
Friedrich Caspar David,The Tree of crows 1822.

I have researched a couple of landscape artists who I find quite interesting. The first artist is Caspar David Friedrich. He is a 19th century German Romantic painter. Who is best known for his allegorical landscapes which generally feature contemplative figures, gothic ruins and moody mists and fogs. He sought to portray the spiritualness of the world around him, through the contemplation of nature, often using the landscape to express religious themes.
His paintings to me are beautiful, the way that he can capture a mood of a landscape is quite inspirational. His painting, The Tree of Crows is a particular painting that I saw many years ago at The Louvre it is work that really stood out for me and out of all the painting s that I saw that weekend that one really had a lasting impact on me.

Landscape Project 12

I have chosen to paint the Landscape option. The brief is to paint a landscape which focuses on a particular feature.

The place that I have decided to paint from is a local place near where I live which is full of follies it is such an interesting place and I think that it should provide me with some interesting images for me to use.

I want to try and capture a sense of atmosphere, an almost otherwordly feel to the painting.

Patrick Caulfield

Caulfield, Patrick. Coloured still life,1967

© The Bridgeman Art Library - London, New York, Paris.

I have deliberately chosen artists who paint in very different styles. It is so interesting to investigate the variety of ways that a still life can be portrayed especially the more contemporary artists.
This image is bold and colourful, and could be described as Pop Art. The difference being though, Caulfield does not paint the same subject matter as the American Pop artists, such as Andy Warhol.
Instead of painting advertising products and celebrities he tends to paint everyday objects and interiors. His work is characterised by the flat planes of colour with each object surrounded by a thick, black line which further emphasises the strength of the colours.

Lucien Freud

© Freud, L,Still life with melon 1946.

Lucien Freud is probably one of the most important figurative painters around today . His works now, concentrate on the depiction of the human figure; but his earlier still life paintings are very different from the stark observations of his subjects in his more expressive painterly style that he is now famous for. This lemon is meticulous in its control of both the brushstrokes and line.