CITY + LANDSCAPES
hen you think of landscape paintings, which artists first come to mind? Is it Turner – the great
painter of light, who is hailed as the father of modern art? Perhaps it is John Constable, whose landscapes of Dedham Vale offer a romantic retrospective of the English countryside? Or perhaps the grand scenes of Canaletto or the hazy lilies of Monet come to mind? There’s no doubt that landscape art has been a popular genre for centuries, but the tradition actually goes back millennia. There are examples fromMinoan Greece, dating to about 1500 BCE, while the Romans captured bucolic scenes in their frescos and mosaics. A few hundred years later, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in China, artists were revered for their exquisite work depicting the natural world. However, in the Western world, interest in landscapes did not begin in earnest until the 16th century, when the Renaissance painters used those sweeping scenes as a backdrop to religious paintings. Slowly, the love affair with landscapes developed and in the 17th century, Italy and the Netherlands became the two main centres for the art. Later in the 18th century, it was France and Britain that dominated the genre.
Its popularity endures today and as a homage to both land and cityscape art, Washington Green has commissioned new works from some of the UK’s leading artists. The paintings by Neil Dawson , Lawrence Coulson , Paul Kenton , and Richard Rowan offer powerful and dramatic images of big skies and urban spaces that awaken our senses. Lawrence Coulson is renowned for his big scenes and is profoundly influenced by the great English landscape artists Turner and Constable. And although his newest three paintings for this collection are a departure from his usual style, they are no less dramatic for it. ‘A Winter’s Tale’ is his first winter scene in many years. It is an undoubted triumph which will delight collectors, old and new. “We all love the romance of snowfall and I was keen to do something different,” he explained. “When I came to paint the snow, I was trying to find something that looked like it was falling without it being deliberate. “I knew I had to get the consistency of the paint right because if it was too thin it would have run. Luckily I got it right first time – I flicked it onto the canvas and it looked like tiny snowflakes.” »
GlimpseOfTheInfinite -RichardRowan Glasseditionof95 ImageSize191/2”x191/2” FramedSize33”x33”
Framed£750
14 FIN e ARTC o LL e CT o R AUTUMN2014
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker