Wildcard entries - Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2015

You too can be a Wild Card entry to the new Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year competition! Each of the heats are going to have places for 50 Wild Card entries.

All you have to do is:

• enter a heat as a Wild Card
• bring your own easel, canvas and materials
• come to one of the heats at National Trust properties around the country
• paint one of the landscapes in front of the judges

It's first come, first served - click on one of the below links to enter as a Wild Card for your preferred Heat:

• Heat 1: Waddesdon Manor, Bucks: Saturday 25th April
• Heat 2: ​Waddesdon Manor, Bucks: Sunday 26th April
• Heat 3: Trelissick Garden, Cornwall: Sunday 3rd May
• Heat 4: ​Trelissick Garden, Cornwall: Monday 4th May
• Heat 5: ​Lyme Park, Cheshire: Wednesday 27th May
• Heat 6: Lyme Park, Cheshire: Thursday 28th May

You never know - you might impress the judges and win the opportunity to go through to the semi-final!

If you did you could win the prize of a £10,000 commission for the National Trust's permanent collection and become Sky Art Landscape Artist of the Year 2015.

The Wild Card is open to artists who previously applied and were unsuccessful as well as artists who didn't apply.

For full terms and conditions and to apply to become a Wild Card, pick your heat and enter via www.sky.com/tv/show/landscape/article/wild-card

Art Competition: £10,000 prize for Landscape Artists

Read my blog post about the Call for Entries for the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2015 If you're interested in:

• winning a £10,000 landscape art commission from the National Trust
• participating in an art competition which has a number of knockout rounds prior to the final; and
• creating landscape art on television - while Sky Arts film you for a television programme about their brand new competition to find the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2015!

Image for the Landscape Artist of the Year 2015 competition on Sky Arts

In summary you need to:

• be aged 16+
• resident in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man or Channel Islands for one year or longer on 2nd February 2015
• be a competent landscape artist in any of the following media Watercolour, Oil Paints, Pencil, Charcoal, Pastel, Acrylic, Alkyds, Mixed Media (including collage) and "Other". Note sculpture or any form of digital media is NOT allowed
• complete and submit and online application form by 12pm (midday) on Friday 20th March 2015 together with images of landscape art completed in the last five years
• not mind being filmed for television while you paint!

BBC4 Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice

Tonight, BBC4 is repeating an excellent programme Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice which explores how the onset of winter has been depicted by Western painters across the centuries. The programme will be available on BBC iPlayer shortly after it is broadcast at 7.30-9.00pm.

If  you don't live in the UK and would still like to see it, I suggest you take a peek at YouTube and view the same programme in six films of 10 minutes.

The programme comprises several commentators, many of whom are wrapped up warmly and clutching reproductions of the paintings as they revisit places the artist knew and review how similar the painting is to what's there today. I'm a complete sucker for programmes like this and I'll definitely be watching!

Tales of Winter - The Art of Snow and Ice

• Part 1 of 6 covering the very cold winters in the 16th century - including Brueghel's painting of Hunters in the Snow - the first ever painting of a landscape under snow - with comments by Grayson Perry and Jonathan Jones and a cartoon based on it by Peter Brookes

A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs (c. 1684) by Abraham Danielsz Hondius (Abraham de Hondt)

• Part 2 of 6 - this features paintings of London and the Thames during the Little Ice Age
• Part 3 of 6 - covers Jacques-Louis David's paintings of Napoleon's campaign in the Alps and The Abbey in the Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich and the impact of winter in the Alps on John Ruskin - and his paintings of the glaciers 

The Abbey in the Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich

• Part 4 of 6 - continues with 
• Ruskin's painting of waterfalls including "Le Cascade de la Folie, Chamonix" 
• before moving on to the Impressionists' absorption with the colour of the snow effect "the illusive colour of the shadows in snow". The programme visits Vetheuil where Claude Monet lives when impoverished and where his wife became severely ill. It shows you the house he lived in when he had to choose between paint or medicine for his wife. 
• It also include paintings of winter by the American Impressionist  painter Childe Hassam.  
• Next it considers what is probably the first ever photograph of falling snow - "Winter, 5th Avenue" (1893) by Alfred Steiglitz and other photographs of "The Terminal", "The Flat Iron Building" and "The City of Ambitions"
• Part 5 of 6 - focuses the contrast between rural and urban winters. Giovanni Segantini painted the Swiss mountains in all seasons including winter.  George Bellows, one of the Ashcan painters, paints the raw, bitter, cruel New York winter in The Lone Tenement and John Nash, a  Royal Academician and serving solider fighting in the Artist Rifles Batallion, paints the bitter winters of the First World War

Death (1898-99) by Giovanni Segantini (1858 – 1899)

The Lone Tenement (1909) by George Bellows (1882 - 1925)

Over the Top - 1st Artists' Rifles at Marcoing, 30th December 1917 by John Nash

• Part 6 of 6 looks at the work of Nevinson and highlights the pla ing of a football game in winter and a wonderful photograph of Stonehenge under snow by Bill Brandt while Don McCullin comments on what's involved in photography in winter.

I guess my only criticism of it is it presents a curiously Western European/American view of landscape painting in winter - and misses out the very significant contributions made by the Scandinavians, Eastern Europeans, Russians and Canadians.

Peder Balke and Norwegian landscapes at the National Gallery

On the 12th November, a new exhibition of 50 paintings by the 19th century Norwegian artist Peder Balke (1804 - 1887) will open in the Sunley Room of the National Gallery in London. Admission is free and the exhibition will continue until 12th April 2015. Most of the paintings have never been seen before in the UK.

This exhibition continues a theme of exhibitions of landscapes by Scandinavian artists in recent times. Previous ones have included

• Forests, Rocks, Torrents Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection 22 June – 18 September 2011 which included paintings by Peder Balke - see my post "Forests, Rocks, Torrents" at the National Gallery, London 07 Aug 2011
• Christen Købke: Danish Master of Light 17 March – 13 June 2010 - see my review Two landscape exhibitions in London and Christen Købke

This exhibition has been organised by the Northern Norway Art Museum, Tromsø, in collaboration with the National Gallery, London.  The paintings on display include ones from private and public collections across Europe that represent every facet of the artist’s career.

Peder Balke, The Mountain Range ‘Trolltindene’  c.1845
Collection of Asbjørn Lunde, New York
© Photo courtesy of the owner

There's a video on YouTube of his paintings with some rather marvellous music

Fine Canadian Landscape Art - Auction and Previews

There's an auction of "Fine Canadian Art" being held in Toronto, Canada by Heffel Fine Art Auction House on 27th November 2014. The majority of the works in the catalogue are landscapes.

Heffel Fine Canadian Art Catalogue Cover
The Trapper's Return by Clarence Gagnon

oil on canvas, circa 1909 ~ 1913

signed and on verso signed and titled and titled

21 x 28 3/4 in, 53.3 x 73 cm

$500,000 ~ $700,000 CAD

View the catalogue

You can the works in the auction as follows:

• view the Live Auction Catalogue on the Heffel website - this includes the details of the works and what each is expected to fetch
• by downloading the catalogue from the Heffel website. This includes detailed notes about artists and paintings
• on Issuu - which has the complete catalogue (free) - and provides this widget which allows you to click to read

The Artists

Artists who are new to me who impressed 

These included:

David Brown Milne in 1909

• David Brown Milne (1882-1953) - I liked his watercolours. You can see more of his work on Wikimedia - these include some very fine paintings of the First World War eg Montreal Crater, Vimy Ridge and there is more information on the National Gallery of Canada website
• Clarence Alphonse Gagnon (1881 - 1942) - whose painting is on the cover of the catalogue. A woodcut of the same scene is also included in the sale together with a number of other paintings. He was apparently renowned as a painter of the Canadian winter - with snow being pink in the morning and blue at the end of the day. His landscapes were more 'dreamed about' than painted on the spot - with some being completed in his studio in Paris.  Paysage de Charlvoix is simply stunning!

He invented a new type of landscape - a winter world composed of valleys and mountains, of sharp contrasts of light and shadow, of vivid colours, and of sinuous lines. He ground his own paints, and from 1916 his palette consisted of pure white, reds, blues and yellows.   

National Gallery of Canada profile

• Alfred Joseph (AJ) Casson (1989 - 1992) was a m,ember of the Group of Seven and has a delightful watercolour of birch trees in the auction.

Artists familiar to me

• Lawren Stewart Harris - I was surprised to find out that Harris is Canada's top artist in terms of auction sales. I'd never before seen any of Harris's urban landscapes - his painting of Houses on Gerrard Street is very fine and is on the back cover of the catalogue

Back cover of catalogue: Gerrard Street Houses by Lawren Harris(Estimate $350,000-400,000)

Harris’s depictions of Toronto streets are like portraits. Sometimes poignant, sometimes regal, sometimes sad, each of his buildings can be seen as a sitter whose character, carriage and personality are depicted with exacting skill under Harris’s brush Catalogue

• One of my favourite painters Franklin Carmichael (1890 - 1945) - who has one work in the show. Carmichael's paintings included in the show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery really impressed me - see my blog post about Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven - Review

Information about the auction

The evening auction is being held at the Park Hyatt Hotel, Queen’s Park Ballroom, 4 Avenue Road, Toronto. 

Works can be seen in previews as follows

• Preview At Heffel Gallery, Vancouver: 2247 Granville Street Saturday, November 1 Through Tuesday, November 4, 11 Am To 6 pm
• Preview At Galerie Heffel, Montreal: 1840 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest Thursday, November 13 Through Saturday, November 15, 11 Am To 6 pm
• Preview At University Of Toronto Art Centre 15 King’s College Circle Entrance Off Hart House Circle Saturday, November 22 Through Wednesday, November 26, 10 Am To pm Thursday, November 27, 10 Am To 12 pm
• Heffel Gallery, Toronto 13 Hazelton Avenue, Toronto Ontario, Canada M5r 2e1 Telephone 416 961~6505, www.Heffel.Com

Susan Abbott - sketching and painting plein air

I caught up with this post The Travel Bug by Susan Abbott on her Painting Notes blog.

You can see her recent watercolour sketches of Paris on her blog A Painting Year and on her website (see below) - plus her plein air oil paintings. What I really like about her watercolour sketches and paintings is how she has a very consistent and recognisable colour palette and the way in which she keeps all her colours fresh and never muddy!

Plein Air Watercolours by Susan Abbott

For those planning plein air painting this summer check out her blog posts about painting plein air which she wrote last summer:

• Plein Air 101 - provides a number of tips for effective working plein air
• Plein Air 102 - covers her kit for watercolour and oil painting plein air

Landscape Pictures - Notes #1

"Landscape Pictures" is a new type of post for this blog. The aim is to have a periodic round-up about recommended blog posts and articles about landscape art - with an emphasis on those with decent images and places you can see landscape paintings. It will also allow me to highlight blog posts by artists just because I like the painting!

LANDSCAPE ART - ANNUAL REVIEWS

Prolific plein air painter Haidee-Jo Summers artist reviewed her plein air painting year and exhibitions in four posts which include lots and lots and LOTS of plein air landscape paintings

• My 2013 year review January to March 
• My 2013 year review - April to June
• My 2013 year review - July to September
• My 2013 review - October to December

Michael Chesley Johnson (A Plein Air Painter's Blog)has a post which lacks visual interest but reflects on which of his blogs posts in 2013 have been of most interest to Plein Air Painters - see Top 10 Posts for A Plein Air Painter's Blog

Galley Hill Allotments in the snow by Haidee-Jo Summers 
Winner of The Best Picture (Landscape) 2013

In my Making A Mark Art Blog Awards - on Making A Mark

• The Best Picture (Landscape) in 2013: readers voted was  Galley Hill Allotments in the Snow by Haidee-Jo Summers | Haidee-Jo Summers artist
• The 2013 winner of The Painting Plein Air Plus Prize was M.E. (Mike) Bailey (ME Bailey Art) 

He regularly includes lots of very useful tips relating to plein air painting and painting generally - and very obviously thoroughly enjoys his plein air painting. This particular post A Plein Air Set Up For Watercolor  (posted last month) almost deserves an award all to itself! 

• The 2013 winner of The Travels with a Sketchbook Trophy was Pete Scully (Pete Scully)

He draws the routine and the mundane in the area where he lives and the places he visits and makes most places look interesting. He opens my eyes and remind me again and again about how sketching starts with learning how to see.

LANDSCAPE ART COMPETITIONS

 

The 2013 Fleurieu Art Prize claims to be the world's richest landscape painting Prize (AU$60,000) and attracts both Australian and International Artists. Do you know different?  To see the list of 2013 finalists go to the Finalist Page.

Two competitions/exhibitions for landscape photographers:

• The exhibition for the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2013 is at the National Theatre on the South Bank until 8th February
• U.S.A. Landscape Photographer of the Year If you've taken any great landscape photographs of the USA you may well be interested in a new competition. Find out more at: http://www.usalandscapephotographeroftheyear.com/. I'll be covering this in more detail in a subsequent post.

LANDSCAPE ART HISTORY

America’s Forgotten Landscape Painter: Robert S. Duncanson is a blog post by the Smithsonianmag.com site.  Robert Seldon Duncanson is a 19th century African American artist I'd never heard of before who trained in painting in Glasgow, Scotland.  You can see more of his work on Wikimedia Commons.

Robert Duncanson - Land of the Lotus Eaters

Two paintings by Claude Monet of the cliffs at Etretat

One of the enduring motifs of landscape painting on the coast of Normandy are the famous chalk cliffs and stacks of Étretat. Charley Parker (Lines and Colors) has done a very interesting post which displays paintings by various different Painters of the cliffs of Étretat

The Standard Examiner has a fascinating piece - sadly with no images - about Top of Utah Voices: Landscape painting in the round.  However the word pictures are stunning!

Painters who utilized the art form and travelled with their depictions faced a daunting task of transporting these large works of sometimes dozens of paintings attached to each other and unrolled scene by scene. Some were advertised as being three miles long and taking over an hour to view. Usually 12 feet in height and rolled up on poles which, when unrolled by an assistant, gave the viewers a tour of the chosen scenes the painter portrayed while the artist (standing on a platform) described them.

LANDSCAPE PAINTING - EXHIBITIONS

Art In Liverpool's post 'Turner: Travels, Light and Landscape’ at the Lady Lever highlights an exhibition which runs from 14 February to 1 June 2014 at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight Village, Lower Rd, Wirral CH62 5EQ.  Turner: Travels, Light and Landscape comprises some 30 watercolours, paintings and prints, drawn from the National Museums Liverpool’s own Turner collection.

Paintings such as 'Margate Harbour' (1837) and 'Linlithgow Palace' (about 1807), will be shown alongside prints and watercolours that are rarely displayed due to their light-sensitivity. This will include the watercolours 'Dudley' (about 1830-33), 'Off Dover' (between 1820-1827), 'Wells Cathedral' (1795-96) and 'View of the Mole' (about 1818).

New Turner exhibition at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight - opens 14th February 2014

Recording Britain is a touring exhibition organised by the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. It can be seen in the Sir William Harpur Gallery at The Higgins in Bedford until March 20th 2014.

At the outbreak of the Second World War an ambitious scheme was set up to employ artists on the home front. The result was a collection of more than 1500 watercolours and drawings that make up a fascinating record of British lives and landscapes at a time of imminent change.

I've already bought the catalogue for the exhibition and it's absolutely fascinating.  I think this is one exhibition I'll definitely be going to see.  I'll be writing more about the project on this blog.

A National Art: Watercolour & the British Landscape Tradition can be viewed at the Wixamtree Gallery at The Higgins Bedford until Sunday 27th April 2014

The exhibition, drawn entirely from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery collection of works on paper, explores the landscapes of the late 18th century and early 19th century watercolourists and how they influenced their 20th century counterparts. The work of Cotman, Girtin and Turner will be shown alongside that of Nash, Ravilious and Piper in a celebration of the British landscape and its ideal medium, watercolour. It is part of a season of exhibitions exploring the idea of landscape, which includes Recording Britain and Bawden's Britain.

This one takes some beating when it comes to exhibitions of landscape art. Culture 24 introduces The best art exhibitions to see in Wales in 2014 and starts with a new exhibition in Cardiff thus 

How about this for a new take on landscape painting? National Museum Cardiff’s Wales: A Visitation. Poetry, Romanticism and Myth in Art, (February 22 - September 7) takes the neo-Romantic work of David Jones, Graham Sutherland, Richard Long and contemporary abstract landscape painter Clare Woods and wraps it around an LSD-infused trip to Wales made by beat poet Allen Ginsberg in 1967.

PLEIN AIR PAINTING

Katherine van Schoonhoven (Art and Music) has an interesting review post of a trip to the coast of California when she painted the same place at different times of the day. The timescale panorama in learning from the plein air line up
is fascinating.

"View of Pescadero" Mexico, plein air, landscape painting by Robin Weiss on the In Plein Air blog is a great visual report of a landscape painting

Tate Pictures: Winter Solstice

Click the frame icon above the small thumbnails
to see the paintings in large slideshow

Tate has put up a themed collection of artwork on its website relating to the theme of Winter Solstice

It includes a number of landscapes and streetscapes of places in winter and by artists of different eras and styles.

Click the box icon to see the slideshow version which is excellent.

The paintings are:

• The Boulevard de Clichy under Snow 1876 by Norbert Goeneutte View the main page for this artwork
• Ivy Cottage, Coldharbour: Sun and Snow 1916 by Lucien Pissarro View the main page for this artwork
• Circuit Railway at Grenelle 1922 by Antoine Villard View the main page for this artwork
• Stockholm in Winter 1928 by Stephen Bone View the main page for this artwork
• Winter Solstice 1970 by Dame Barbara Hepworth View the main page for this artwork
• Harbour in Snow, La Rochelle 1938 by Sir William Nicholson View the main page for this artwork
• Claverton Street: Snow in Pimlico 1939 by Charles Ginner View the main page for this artwork
• Snow Scene 1946 by Ruskin SpearView the main page for this artwork
• -12 1956 by Alfred Manessier View the main page for this artwork
• DECEMBER Sheep Coming In 1976-7 by Peter Brook View the main page for this artwork
• Snow Night 1974 by Philip Greenwood - View the main page for this artwork
• Ski Hill 1997 by Peter Doig View the main page for this artwork
• Winter (trial proof) 1972 by David Leverett View the main page for this artwork

The Wynne Prize - Finalists 2013 + their websites

The Wynne Prize ($35,000) for Best Landscape Painting of Australian scenery, or figure sculpture by Australian artists had 773 entries this year - which is marginally down on last year (2012: 783 entries; 2011: 712 entries)

The Wynne Prize is awarded annually for 'the best landscape painting of Australian scenery in oils or watercolours or for the best example of figure sculpture by Australian artists’.

Richard Wynne left a bequest which established the prize.  It's run and judged on an annual basis by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.  The prize was first awarded in 1897 when the present Gallery opened in its current home next to the Botanical Gardens and Sydney Harbour  (I know - I've been!).

Those whose artwork will be in the exhibition were announced last week.

You can find the Wynne Finalists 2013 listed below.  You can also explore past winners and finalists on the prize webpage on the AGNSW website

• GW Bot - Glyphs and Moon GW Bot is the the exhibiting name of Chrissie Grishin, who was born in Quetta, Pakistan of Australian parents
• Linda Bowden - The others  Linda Bowden is a sculptor
• Jun Chen - North Queensland  Born in China in 1960, Chen migrated to Australlia in 1990 and now lives in Queensland. He graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in China in 1986 and converted from being a brush and ink painter in China to using oil paint thickly applied with a palette knife in Australia!
• Xiuying ChenCentral Railway Station, Sydney  
• He is a member of the Australian Chinese Painting Society
• David Collins - Hawkesbury crossing
• Dale Cox - Tract 17 - He paints the geomorphology of the land - above and below the ground.  I'm thinking this one might be in with a chance./li>

Tract paintings in acrylic by Dale Cox
Tract 17 (burning) is bottom right

• Lucy Culliton - Table Cape
• Elisabeth Cummings - Sunrise, The Kimberleys
• Keith Fyfe - Untitled
• Neil Haddon - After the burn, Mt Nelson (a new landscape emerges)
• Nicholas Harding - Yuraygir pandanus with samp oak and pigface
• Belynda Henry - The trees
• Timothy Hutchinson - Back creek, Cowra
• Matt Huttlestone - Hardies Creek, Northern Territory
• Dinni Kunoth Kemarre - My footy heroes
• Fiona Lowry - Alone with you
• Guy Maestri - Last light over Ball’s Pyramid (won the 2009 Archibald Prize)
• Robert Malherbe - Govetts Leap
• Noel McKenna - Centennial Park<
• Shaelene Murray - Blossom
• Yukultji Napangati - Untitled



Winner of 2012 Wynn Prize
Waterfall (after Willams) by Imant Tillers

• Theo Papathomas - Figures dancing
• James Powditch - Kornfield XIV
• Mark Rodda - Alabaster Valley, Tasmania
• Margarita Sampson - Anemone incursions III: puss puss
• Alex Seton - Soloist
• Imants Tillers - Namatjira (won the 2012 Wynne Prize)
• Aida Tomescu - Sunburn
• Sokquon Tran - Wombeyan Caves
• Daniel Walbidi - Kirriwirri, Great Sandy Desert
• Annie Hsiao-Wen Wang - Conversations IV
• Susan J White - On the Hawkesbury
• Philip Wolfhagen - Thirteenth journey
• Joshua Yeldham - Yeoman's Bay, Hawkesbury River (also an Archibald finalist 2013)
• Salvatore Zofrea - Morning light

I'm hoping they will produce the online display of the individual works as they did last year

See my post The Wynne Prize 2012 - Selected artists and winner (which was published a little later than planned)

The Art of Snow and Ice

I missed Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice yesterday and will be catching up on iPlayer Click the link in the title to access it - for all those who can access iPlayer - I ask no questions as to how!;)

Winter was not always beautiful. Until Pieter Bruegel painted Hunters in the Snow, the long bitter months had never been transformed into a thing of beauty. This documentary charts how mankind's ever-changing struggle with winter has been reflected in western art throughout the ages, resulting in images that are now amongst the greatest paintings of all time. With contributions from Grayson Perry, Will Self, Don McCullin and many others, the film takes an eclectic group of people from all walks of life out into the cold to reflect on the paintings that have come to define the art of snow and ice.
BBC - Tales of Winter: The Art of Snow and Ice

[UPDATE: I've now watched it and it's excellent!  It's available on iPlayer until 1:29AM Fri, 1 Feb 2013]

Hunters in the Snow / Jagers in de sneeuw (1565) by Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder
oil on oak panel | 117 × 162 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Bruegel's painting is part of a series of six paintings to reflect different seasons of the year - of which only five survive.

This painting represents the bleak and yet beautiful winter countryside in January.  Both hunters and dogs enliven the scene despite being obvious weary and downcast by a hunt which has obviously produced little.  In the background is a scene of snow and ice and that peculiar green grey sky which only appears in the depths of winter.  The trees are skeletal and any leaves are shrivelled and dried out in the cold.  The people and animals are all dark colours and are not much more than shapes against the cold background.

It's odd how a smidgen of orange draws our eye to the side of the painting and the roaring fire outside the inn - and I always wonder why it's outside and what they are doing.  On the one hand they might be preparing food - on the other do they really need a fire burning like that to prepare food?

When we used to have this a reproduction of this painting at school I was always preoccupied with working out what all the tiny people were up to - such as the woman towing another on a sled in the bottom right hand corner.

For me Breugel's paintings always demonstrate how much more we look at countryside when it includes people who are doing things - and not just there to give a sense of scale.

Frost Fair on the Thames 1683 #1

There are a number of paintings and etchings of Frost Fairs on the River Thames and elsewhere.  This painting is of the celebrated frost fair which occurred in the winter of 1683–84.   Titled Frost Fair on the Thames, with Old London Bridge in the distance, it was painted by an unknown artist in 1685 and is owned by the Yale Centre for British Art.

I've also found an etching of the same scene - also of unknown origin - but it does identify a number of the subjects in the scene.  You can find more versions at The 1683-4 frost fair

Looking at both the painting and engraving makes me wonder why more people don't paint accounts of contemporaneous events today - they're such wonderful records of both time and place!

Frost fair 1683-4

The temperature dropped severely at the beginning of December 1683.  The River Thames froze and remained frozen for nine weeks until early February 1684.   A road developed - called "Temple Street" between Temple Steps on the north bank of the Thames and Southwark on the south bank.  This road is what is portrayed in both painting and etching.  Booths and stalls developed along Temple Street to serve the people passing to and fro across the frozen river - and doubtless sight-seeing too!

John Evelyn, the diarist wrote, 

Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stairs too and fro, as in the streets; sleds, sliding with skeetes, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cooks, tipling and other lewd places, so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water.London: Portrait of a City. Hudson, Roger (1998). The Folio Society. 

Frost Fair on the Thames, with Old London Bridge in the distance (1685)
unknown artist, 17th century, British;
Formerly attributed to Jan Wyck, ca. 1645-1700, Dutch, active in Britain (from about 1664)
Oil on canvas | 25 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches (64.1 x 76.8 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

I've taken the liberty of lightening the painting slightly - on the basis I don't believe any artist paints a scene of this sort do that it's dark - even if it has darkened with age.  On the Yale website, there is a fascinating set of images of the painting as it used to be and following treatment.

I also found an engraving of the exact same scene on Wikipedia.  I've cropped a large version of it to show more details included by the artist in the foreground.  Below this is the text at the bottom of the picture which tells you about all the things you can see in the engraving - and the painting! It seems very likely that the painting is based on this engraving.

The National Portrait Gallery identifies William Faithorne (1616 – 1691), English painter and engraver as the probably source of the engraving - he had a shop near Temple Bar.

The Thames Frost Fair, 1683
probably by William Faithorne, published by William Warter
line engraving, circa 1684
15 in. x 18 7/8 in. (380 mm x 480 mm) paper size

Crop of foreground of the Engraving of the Frost Fair 1683

The text at the top states

AN

Exact and lively Mapp

or

REPRESENTATION

Of Booths and all the varieties of showes and

Humours upon the ICE on the River of

THAMES by LONDON

During that memorable Frost in the 35th yeare

of the Reigne of his Sacred Maty

King CHARLES the 2d

ANNO Dni MDCLXXXIII.

With an Alphabetical Explanation of the

most remarkeable Figures

The text at the bottom provides an explanation of the alphabetical annotations

The Temple Staires with People goeing upon the Ice to Temple Street A.
The Duke of Yorke's Coffee house B.
The Tory Booth C.
The Booth with a Phoenix on it and Insured as long as the Foundation Stand D.
The Roast Beefe Booth E.
The halfe way house F.
The Beare garden Shire Booth G.
The Musick Booth H.
The Printing Booth I.
The Lottery Booth K.
The Horne Tavern Booth L.
The Temple garden with Crowds of People looking over the wall M.
The Boat drawne with a Hors N.
The Drum Boat O.
the Boat drawne upon wheeles P.
the Bull baiting Q.
The Chair sliding in the Ring R.
The Boyes Sliding S.
The Nine Pinn Playing T.
The sliding on Scates V.
The sledge drawing Coales from the other side of the Thames W.
The Boyes climbing upon the Tree in the Temple garden to see ye Bull Baiting X.
The Toy Shopps Y.
London Bridge Z.
Source for text: visual inspection, and verified from Bentley's Miscellany, Volume 9 by Charles Dickens, William Harrison Ainsworth, Albert Smith; publisher: Richard Bentley; year: 1841; page 133, footnote 1.

In the background is the Old London Bridge which was started in 1176 and completed in 1212.  Over the years properties were built on top of it (see below an etching of it just three years earlier).  The bridge and its buildings survived the great fire of 1666 due to a fire break at the northern end caused by a previous fire.

Drawing of London Bridge from a 1682 London MapSurveyed by: Morgan, William, d. 1690. Published: London, London Topographical Society, 1904

To the south of the Bridge was a gate where the heads of those executed for treason used to be put on spikes - with the head of William Wallace being the first to appear on the gate, in 1305.  This practice stopped in 1660 - just 25 years before this painting.

The church in the background of the frost fair painting is Southwark Cathedral which lies just to the west of London Bridge.  

Mapping landscape paintings on Google Maps

I'm in two minds about a website I came across today.  MyReadingMapped maps places to historic events - or in the case of artists - landscape paintings to places on maps

The thing is that they're mapping the place in the picture - not the place from where the picture was seen and/or painted - and it's often the latter which artists are interested to see.  Not least because some of us are rather fond of trying to see what we make of the same view! (see my "Places to Paint" series)

The Google Map view of the world as seen in landscape paintings

Here's the link - The Works of Artists, Architects and Photographers in Google Map - and you can see for yourself.

Click on the map title below to go to the blog page with an embedded map, photos and background and source information about each subject.

• The Life and Art of Vincent van Gogh / Google Map / Google Earth

• The Life and Art of Paul Cézanne / Google Map / Google Earth

• The World as seen in Famous Landscape Paintings

• The Works of Michelangelo / Google Map / Google Earth

• Works of Frank Lloyd Wright / Google Map / Google Earth

• Works of I.M. Pei / Google Map / Google Earth

• Scenes Photographed by Ansel Adams

• Le Train: The Rescuing of the German-Looted French Art Train (1944) Fact vs. Fiction. / Google Map / Google Earth

• The World as seen in Landscape Paintings / Google Map 

I think the problem for me is that this has the potential for being a good idea - however it needs more content and the pins in the map need to be rather more accurate - preferably being placed "where the easel stood" literally or metaphorically!

Places to Paint: Agawa Canyon, (Algoma)

I'm very grateful to Jeff McColl for a comment he left on my post about Canada's Group of Seven at Algoma.  This alerted me to the fact that he's been putting an awful lot of effort into pulling together a portfolio of photographs on Google+ of the locations where the Group of Seven painted in the Agawa Canyon in Algoma.

Places to Paint: Agawa Canyon, Algoma, Canada
Some of Jeff McColl's portfolio of photographs matched to paintings by the Group of Seven
© Jeff McColl

Between 1918 and 1923 several members of the Canada's Group of Seven painted in the Algoma region including Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Frank Johnston, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Arthur Lismer. To gain access to this remote area they rented a boxcar from The Algoma Central Railway, which had been outfitted like a cabin and was shunted to sidings near choice painting locations. From these locations they set out on foot or canoe to capture this untamed area on canvas. Their paintings brought this vast, rugged, and beautiful part of the country to fellow Canadians and the world.Wikipedia - Agawa Canyon

Below are links to Jeff's photos and the paintings by G7 artists at various locations.  Do read his comments as to location as it's obvious that not all the original locations are now accessible due to changes in growth of vegetation or changes in the course of rivers made as a result of floods.  He also provides photographs of what the locations look like in winter.

The links in the name of the artist are to the biography of the artist on the National Gallery of Canada website.

• AY Jackson's "First Snow, Algoma County" - Photo | Painting
• AY Jackson's "Agawa Canyon" - Photo | Painting
• Lawren Harris's "On the Agawa River, Algoma"  - Photo | Painting (click painting to see larger version)
• Bridal Veil Falls (68.5 meters (225 ft) - painted by various of G7 from various angles) - Photo | Painting by Lawren Harris
• AY Jackson's view of Bridal Veil Falls from the south side  - Photo + Photo (winter) + Photo @ -25℃ | Painting
• J.E.H. MacDonald's "Little Falls" located on the Little Agawa river on the east side of the ACR bridge - Photo + Photo + Photo (winter) + Photo @ -35℃ | Painting
• Lawren Harris site of one of his sketches, Algoma Waterfall, Canyon 1, Sketch 111, downstream of the ACR and Little Falls site - Photo | Painting
• Lawren Harris Algoma Stream - Photo | Painting
• JEH MacDonald's Landscape sketch Northern Ontario - Photo | Painting + the rock where he probably painted from
• JEH MacDonald's site for "Agawa river, Algoma" (McMichael Collection) - Photo + Photo + Photo + Photo | Painting (click though to third image)

You can also read an article by Jeff - Paddling/Hiking/Photographing in the footsteps of Legends by Jeff McColl - in the Spring Newsletter of the Group of Twelve - Fine Arts Society of Milton 

Mention the Group of Seven to any artist or photographer and there are instantly visions of great Canadian Landscapes. I have known for years that the Group of Seven had visited the Agawa Canyon and when asked to describe the area I have said it was like paddling into one of their paintings. I have also known that fellow canoeists Sue and Jim Waddington of Burlington have a hobby that include working with the McMicheal Gallery in finding locations where they painted. They have been very successful in finding locations in Georgian Bay, Killarney and Algonquin Prov. Parks. They know that I frequent the Agawa area every year and they asked me if I could identify a few areas

All photos are copyright Jeff McColl. You can see more of Jeff's wonderful photographs of the Canadian countryside on Panoramio

Seems to me that the logical extension of all this work by these canoeists is a book - complete with maps and details of how to get to these places to paint!

Group of Seven fans may also like:

• my post about 'Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven' at Dulwich Picture Gallery
• my website about Canadian Art Calendars 2013

Breugal "The Return of the Herd" (Autumn Landscape #12)

Pieter Breughal the Elder (1525-1569) is one of the great painters of landscapes in different seasons that are also located within the timeline of annual tasks of the ordinary man.  This is his painting of an autumn landscape - and the return of the herd.

The Return of the Herd (Autumn) / De Terugkeer van de kudde (najaar) (1565) 
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 
oil on panel, 117 x 159 cm
Gallery: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

What's fascinating about this landscape scene is that it involve mountains. Those who know the Low Countries will appreciate that mountains are not the normal subject matter of a Flemish painter working at home!  The museum where now owns this painting has an explanation.

Bruegel introduced to the art of painting the autumn motif of the returning herd, a subject untypical for the Netherlands. To achieve this, he would have been able to draw on impressions gained during his travels through Switzerland. Driving the cattle down from the Alpine pastures, a key event in every peasant's year, is made into the title scene. Yet the main subject is the landscape which the artist has raised to the sublime in its tonal colouring and mood.
The Return of the Herd (Autumn) / De Terugkeer van de kudde (najaar)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

The name for the return of the cattle from upland pastures to the valleys is the transhumance. (see Transhumance and Transhumance in the Alps).  The same word is used for the migration in the other direction in the springtime.

This painting is also a very good example of why you should NOT always believe everything you read on Wikipedia (note the comment about the direction of the cattle which is complete twaddle!)

About one third of Bruegel's surviving paintings are located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

The painting is classified as being part of the Northern Renaissance.

Links: Winter Landscape - Adoration of the Magi by Pieter Bruegel

'Dieppe from the East' by John Sell Cotman and JMW Turner

This post is about two paintings of Dieppe painted by JMW Turner and John Sell Cotman at more or less the same time - give or take a year!  It also covers the concept of staffage and how to access Turner's sketchbooks

You can see both paintings - hung next to one another in  Cotman in Normandy - the new exhibition of watercolour paintings, drawings and etchings by John Sell Cotman at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

The Cotman painting was definitely produced in his studio and the Turner was either painted on a loose leaf of watercolour paper while in Dieppe or was worked up as a colour study from his sketchbook.  They neatly contrast the different approaches and styles of the two artists when faced with the identical view.  (See my Review: Cotman in Normandy - at Dulwich Picture Gallery on Making A Mark for the explanation of why all Cotman landscapes were done in his studio.)

Dieppe from the heights to the East of the port (1823) by John Sell Cotman
Graphite and watercolour with pen and ink and scratching out of the paper
Victoria and Albert Museum

Dieppe from the East (?) (1826-7) by JMW Turner
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Turner Bequest

Turner's 1826 French tour began at Dieppe towards the end of August. His first sketchbook (no.5) includes only a general view of the town of the kind he had already noted two years earlier. But it seems that he also made some sketches on loose sheets of paper. On these he again recorded the quaysides, which had formed the subject of his large oil painting of 1825 (Frick Collection, New York)

Interestingly the description of the work in the exhibition indicates that this watercolour was probably developed from the 1821 sketchbook and produced as part of an unrealised sceheme to represent both sides of the Channel.