The Corn Harvest by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Corn is harvested in August - however what's in the landscape painting of a corn harvest varies according to where the artist painted (see explanation at the end).  In Europe corn means grain.

 Die Kornernte  (1564) by Pieter Breugel the Elder (1526 - 1569)
(a.k.a. The Harvesters / The corn harvest / The grain harvest)
Oil on wood,
Overall, including added strips at top, bottom, and right, 46 7/8 x 63 3/4 in. (119 x 162 cm);
original painted surface 45 7/8 x 62 7/8 in. (116.5 x 159.5 cm)
Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paintings of the Corn Harvest in August

The most famous  painting of a corn harvest is that shown at the top of this post.

What do we know about 'The Corn Harvest'?

• This painting was painting by  Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1564, when he was nearly 40 years old - some 4 years before he died in 1569.
• It's one panel in a famous series of six paintings by Bruegel called "The Months". These paintings each different times of the year. This is the fourth panel in the series and represents late summer (July/August).  See also other paintings in the series which have featured on this blog.:
• Winter Landscape: Hunters in the snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Breugal "The Return of the Herd" (Autumn Landscape #12)
• The "Months" series were commissioned by Niclaes Jongelinck and were used as a frieze for a room in his home.  Jongelinck was a merchant, tax collector and art collector who lived in Antwerp
• The painting is a view of "what is" in terms of real life.  There's no sense of a need for a religious story or pretext for painting the landscape.  The emphasis is on realism rather than the religious. This is the case with all the paintings in the series - which is why Bruegel's landscape paintings are said to represent a watershed in the history of Western Art.   
• The landscape is a dominant theme within the painting - but it's animated by the people who populate the picture plane.  The painting focuses on the harvest - the harvesters are in the foreground, their community, their church and nature in general are in the background.  The workers in the field are depicted in a naturalistic way - they are shown working, exhausted, lying or sitting, eating or sleeping.  As with all other paintings in this series there is a dominant colour - in this instance it's the yellow of the grain crop being harvested.  
• This painting now resides in the Metorpolitan Museum of Art in New York (Other paintings in the Months series are located in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Lobkowicz Collection, Prague)

The meaning of corn

"Corn" means different things in different countries.

• In the USA the term refers to maize (i.e. sweet corn)
• however in Europe, the older use of the word "corn" relates to grain and cereal crops - such wheat, oats and barley (ie maize is called maize and corn on the cob is called corn on the cob!).  That's because Europeans didn't have a name for the maize crop when they first encountered it in the New World.  So it acquired the generic name for all grain crops!

Here's the definition of corn from Cambridge Dictionaries online

B1 [U] UK (the seeds of) plants, such as wheat, maize, oats, and barley, that can be used to produce flour:a sheaf of corngrains of corn› [U] US the seeds of the maize plant, or the plant itself

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.  

The Frozen Thames - looking like the Arctic

It's been snowing here in London - so I thought I'd have a look at the pictures of Frost Fairs on the Thames.  The first one had me unpicking the trail of the story behind the painting both in terms of content and who painted it.

Here's the first one - it's a painting of The Frozen Thames, Looking Eastwards towards Old London Bridge, London - painted in 1677 by a painter I'd not heard of before - Abraham Hondius (1625–1691).

The Frozen Thames, Looking Eastwards towards Old London Bridge, London (1677) 
by Abraham Hondius
Oil on canvas, 107.8 x 175.6 cm
Museum of London
Abraham Hondius [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The really interesting thing about this painting is that, according to the websites which have details about when the Thames froze, it didn't freeze on 1677!  In fact, it hadn't frozen for some years prior to this.

I'm wondering whether this painting is an imaginary interpretation of what the River Thames would look like if it froze.  This would account for why it looks so much like the Arctic(!) in his painting Arctic Adventure - also painted in 1677 (see below).  This latter painting is in the Fitzwilliam Museum.  Guess which painting I think was finished first!

Arctic Adventure (1677) Abraham Hondius
Oil on canvas, 55.4 x 84.7 cm
Fiztwilliam Museum

Hondius was a Dutch Golden Age artist who was noted for his portrayals of animals.  He moved to London in 1666 so this painting may very well have been a way of him bringing his work to the attention of collectors in London.

What's not obvious from the painting is the degree of devastation on one bank of the Thames at the time.  This is the year after the Great Fire of London and part of the City of London was wiped out (see an old map in the British Library of the impact of the Great Fire)

I'm very bothered by the church in the background.  In shape it looks like the old St Paul's Cathedral which had burnt down the previous year in Fire - but if the painting is looking east then it's on the wrong side of the Thames.  However if it's looking FROM the east then it makes sense and by definition must then be totally imaginary as the Cathedral no longer existed in 1667.

The Old St Paul's Cathedral in flames

The only church which was just beyond London Bridge at the time was St Thomas Church which now houses The Old Operating Theatre Museum - and which is totally the wrong shape.  (I should know - I used to work in the offices next door to it!)

You can watch a slideshow of 14 more paintings by Hondius on the Your Paintings website

These are the Museums and Art Galleries where you can see paintings by Hondius

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

BBC4 - Turner's Thames

This week I'm going to focus on JMW Turner's relationship with the Thames and, in particular, the different places where he lived near the Thames.

BBC4 - Turner's Thames

For all those who missed it last night, you can catch up with Turner's Thames on iPlayer - I watched it and recommend it

In this documentary, art critic Matthew Collings explores how Turner makes light the vehicle of feeling in his work, and how he found inspiration in the waters of the river Thames.

It's not going to be repeated and is only available until

The programme is part of the series of BBC programmes about London and the River Thames - and now forms part of the London Collection Archive - A collection of BBC programmes celebrating the people, places and spaces of London.

In this documentary, the presenter and art critic Matthew Collings explores how Turner, the artist of light, makes light the vehicle of feeling in his work, and how he found inspiration for that feeling in the waters of the River Thames. JMW Turner is the most famous of English landscape painters. Throughout a lifetime of travel, he returned time and again to paint and draw scenes of the Thames, the lifeblood of London. This documentary reveals the Thames in all its diverse glory, from its beauty in west London, to its heartland in the City of London and its former docks, out to the vast emptiness and drama of the Thames estuary near Margate.

Turner was among the first to pioneer painting directly from nature, turning a boat into a floating studio from which he sketched the Thames. The river and his unique relationship with it had a powerful impact upon his use of materials, as he sought to find an equivalent in paint for the visual surprise and delight he found in the reality of its waters.

By pursuing this ever-changing tale of light, Turner also documented and reflected upon key moments in British history in the early 19th century; the Napoleonic wars, social unrest and the onset of the industrial revolution. His paintings of the river Thames communicate the fears and exultations of the time. Turner's greatness as a painter is often attributed to his modern use of colour. Many of his paintings are loved by the British public and regularly celebrated as the nation's greatest art. This film reveals for the first time on television a key inspiration for that modernity and celebrity; a stretch of water of immense importance to the nation in the early 19th century but which today is often taken for granted - the River Thames.

Interesting aspects of the programme included:

• Turner lived near to the River Thames or its estuary most of his life - when not off on his travels and the river featured in a lot of his paintings (Tomorrow I'm going to look at the places Turner lived along the River Thames and its estuary - and highlight some of his paintings)
• He returned to the Thames again and again in terms of paintings he created - at a time when London was the most important trading capital city in the world and the Thames was a very important way in which goods were moved
• His methods of notating what he saw, creating a visual framework and language for finding a way to paint the light - and how it varied when seen with water
• His habit of creating a lot of fast sketches of what he saw and then creating watercolour studies while the subject was still fresh - and then the oil paintings back in the studio
• His use of contrast to make a painting more beautiful and the depth of field more effective
• His system for structuring colour and the scope to link colour to human emotion
• His habit of dissolving the landscape in atmospheric swathes of light - his view was that the sun is God

Turner rounded up his students at the Royal Academy and got a boat so that they could all go out into the middle of the Thames and make sketches of the Houses of Parliament burning.  Now there's dedication to your art!

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament
Joseph Mallord William Turner - 1834
watercolour, 23 x 32 cm
Collectiom: British Museum

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October, 1834
J. M. W. Turner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Link: About J.M.W. Turner - Famous British Painter

John Constable - Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge

I've been looking at views of the Thames by different artists this week and came across one which was attributed to John Constable but which just looked wrong to me.  I first found it on wikipaintings - and then noticed that they'd sourced it from one of those "we can paint you any painting you want" sites.

Finally, it dawned on me why it was wrong - the image had been reversed!  Maybe you have to have walked along this terrace to know these things?

So here is a small Constable oil sketch of Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge - the proper way round!  The real thing forms part of the Paul Mellon Collection in the Yale Center for British Art At Yale University in downtown New Haven.

Somerset House Terrace from Waterloo Bridge (c 1819) by John Constable (1776-1837)
Oil on panel, 6 1/8 x 7 3/8 inches (15.6 x 18.7 cm)
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

What's also interesting about this painting is:

• it's definitely a sketch/study - given the size and the quality of the finish.  Constable simply did not paint like this for his studio paintings but he did when painting studies for studio paintings.  It would be interesting to know whether he did anything with it.
• the sketch dates from before the Embankment was built along the edge of the Thames.  In those days Somerset House was on the banks of the Thames and didn't have a couple of roads and pavements and a wall between the terrace and the river.

The other names for this painting are:

• Somerset House Terrace and the Thames: a View from the North end of Waterloo Bridge with St. Paul's and Blackfriar's Bridge
• Somerset House, A View from Waterloo Bridge looking towards St. Paul's and the City

Whatever it's called it suggests that a good place to paint the Thames and the City of London is the north end of Waterloo Bridge.

The end of the terrace at Somerset House is not such a good spot for painting - you can see how much trees now interfere with the view in my post Sunday Papers at Somerset House on my Travels with a Sketchbook blog

Painting the Thames: Jan Siberechts

This week, in honour of the River Pageant which took place on Sunday, I'm doing posts about artists who have painted views of the River Thames.

Landscape with Rainbow, Henley-on-Thames c.1690 by Jan Siberechts
Oil on canvas, 82,5 x 103 cm
Tate Gallery, London

The first artist is Jan Siberechts and I chose him because he painted the Thames near Henley on Thames - which is an area less well know to those who only think of Thames in relation to London.  It's also a town which is associated with the Henley Royal Regatta which is held each year in July.

Siberechts was a Flemish landscape painter who was born in Antwerp in 1627.  In 1672, in his 40s, he emigrated to England and died in London in 1703.

His earlier landscape paintings tend to depict a small detailed aspect of a landscape.  His later paintings are typically more topographical in nature with sweeping views.

This particular riverscape painting of the Thames has been done from an elevated slope above the flood plain of the River Thames.  It purports to be a realistic painting of the scene and is one of the most important landscape paintings in the collection on Tate Britain.

• the painting appears to present a realistic portrayal of the profile of the natural landscape of this place.  However the true reality is that the view has been embellished and the perspective has been distorted.  (I did my usual Streetview search for the view - and it's not one which is at all easy to spot.  That might because of the growth of vegetation and development of buildings)
• on the right is the village of Henley on Thames (the church and bridge are still there, although the bridge has been replaced - the current five arched Henley Bridge across the river was built in 1786 -and the steep slopes in the background of the painting have disappeared!)
• the background portrays a steep slope up from the river - which exists - but not quite so close as indicated in the painting
• the foreground has cows and sheep eating the pasture of the lush grass meadows next to the river
• on the left there is a cargo boat.  There is another on the main river next to Henley.  These both  reflect the importance of the river's role in carrying goods between different centres of population and the countryside.  The boat on the left looks like it's on another river but judging by the map it seems very likely it's parked up.
• the shadow of storm clouds cover parts of the landscape while bright sunlight bathes Henley in a golden glow
• One of the unique aspects of this painting is that it's one of the few ever painted which appears to depict a convincing rainbow - although I'm not sure it's in the right place relative to the sunlight and rain.  I think it should be further to the left.  What do you think?

It's possible that the painting was commissioned by a landowner of one of the large houses built between Remenham Wood and the River, situated off White Hill above the town.  It's unlikely that any of the current houses were the one in question but it appears it may have become established as a a vantage point for the wealthy in the seventeenth century.

In contrast to the Flemish landscape painting of his homeland, England offers hills and slopes to a much greater degree and consequently, more components within a landscape to illustrate depth.  It possible explains why Flemish landscapes tend to focus on one aspect of the landscape while Flemish painters who move away to other countries start to depict larger views of the landscape.

This is a link to another painting by Siberechts - Henley-on-Thames from the Wargrave Road, Oxfordshire which you can see at the River & Rowing Museum on the banks of the Thames at Henley.

Links:

• Tate Museum - Landscape with Rainbow, Henley-on-Thames
• Web Museum - Landscape with Rainbow, Henley-on-Thames
• Wikipaintings - Landscape with Rainbow, Henley-on-Thames 
• Wikimedia - Landscape with Rainbow, Henley-on-Thames

The Landscapes of Georgio Morandi

Larry Groff (Painting Perceptions), a landscape and cityscape painter living in San Diego, has written an  excellent blog post about Giorgio Morandi, The Essence of the Landscape.

I'm with the person who commented to the effect they had no idea that Giorgio Morandi did landscapes as well as still life.

Here's a YouTube video of some of Morandi's work created by Groff - but I do recommend you take a look at the post too.

Here also is what Larry says about his blog.  His sentiments for starting the blog are certainly ones I can identify with and it looks like one which will get added into my Google Reader list.

After painting for about 30 years I’ve often felt discouraged that perceptual painting has often gotten less attention in the major art publications, online venues and art world in general compared to conceptually-based artists. Eventually I asked myself, “why not start a blog devoted to modern painting done from life?”


There are magazines, like American Artist, which has articles about some very good contemporary realists working from life but many of the articles lean towards a more conservative and non-modern style. There are blogs and forums on the web which focus more on academic realism or photorealism but there is little to be found in magazines or blogs that specifically focuses on perceptual painting with a contemporary modern sensibility. This blog aims to correct that problem.

Wolf Kahn - on painting and being a landscape painter

"A painting with content" (Video 2)

"I was trying even then to do something I'm still trying to do - to get away from description and at the same time still be a landscape painter"

Wolf Kahn

This a two part interview with Wolf Kahn - the renowned landscape painter who works in both oil and pastels.

The two videos from 2008 are from New Art TV

In the first he talks about the earlier part of his life and how his artwork developed and was influenced by the philosophies and contemporary art movements of the fifties.



This is the second part of the interview with Wolf Kahn in which he describes how he got launched and started to sell seriously

"I'm constantly trying to get away from the deliberate...and intentionality"

Wolf Kahn

Thanks to Debora L. Stewart (Contemporary Asbtract Pastels) for alerting me to the videos

Links:

• Wolf Kahn website - pastels and paintings 
• These are links to the original pages on New Art TV
• Wolf Kahn Part 1 of 2
• Wolf Kahn Part 2 of 2

Places to paint: Riva degli Schiavoni

The Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice is a place which has proved popular over the years with various artists who have painted Venice - from Canaletto to Francesco Guardi to John Singer Sargent and more contemporary painters such as Ken Howard.

For one thing it provides a distant view of the church of Santa Maria della Salute.  It also has a long curve which provides an interesting perspective.

I've painted on the Riva degli Schiavoni but never portrayed it and I thought it might be inteersting to see how different artists have approached this task.

The first painting below - of the Doges Palace and the waterfront which is the Riva degli Schiavoni - appears to have been painted while sat in a boat in the Bacino of San Marco.  JMW Turner appears to have painted a number of his studies in this way given the perspectives he gets on places in Venice.  In 1840, the Riva is obviously a very busy place.

This is a late painting by Turner.  This is a link to Turner's 1840 sketchbook of Venice - Venice and Botzen Sketchbook [Finberg CCCXIII - which can be found online at Tate Britain.  From this you can see that most of his studies are done in pencil and are monochrome.  So was this study done in venice or constructed from his sketchbook wehn he got home?

Venice: The Doge's Palace and the Riva degli Schiavoni, from the Bacino  1840 JMW Turner (1755-1851)
watercolour on paper

How many times do you put off painting landscapes because the weather is grey?  John Singer Sargent is, in my opinion, a master of the coloured grey and well worth studying if you want to find out how to make a dull subject more interesting.  When you've looked at a few of his paintings of landscapes and city scapes in grey weather, I find I start to see the colour 'grey' in a totally different light!

This is a view of the Riva degli Schiavoni which is known as Venice in Grey Weather - but grey does not mean dull in this painting.

Venice in Grey Weather (1880) by John Singer Sargent
oil on canvas

Note how this painting delivers a masterly blend of:

• complementary colours - subdued mauve greys offset by pale yellow ochre
• a mix of colours (pinks, blues ochres) in the foreground creating interest in the large area of pavement on the Riva degli Schiavoni in Venice

Cafe on the Riva degli Schiavoni (1880-82) by John Singer Sargent
watercolour on paper

In this painting Sargent is very obviously sat at a table in front of one of the hotels or cafes (round about where the Danieli is located) painting the view looking west - in the evening - towards Santa Maria della Salute.  This one is certainly painted plein air, in situ.  I suspect the time of day might account for the people thinning out - or maybe Sargent just chose to paint very few of those who were passing?

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot also painted the Riva.  Corot is admired as a landscape painter but his landscapes are often rural and this painting which includes landmark architecture appears to me to be constructed from different studies in the studio.  I say this because the proportions and perspective of this view - right outside the Doge's Palace at the western end of the Riva - look "off" to me.

Venice, the Piazetta - View from the riva degli Schiavoni by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

James McNeil Whistler did a set of etchings of Venice after he had to leave London following his little 'run-in' with John Ruskin. 

The Riva, No. 1, 1879–80 Etching and drypoint by J M Whistler

This one is of the Riva.  It's suggested that the rooftops of the campanile of the basilica of San Marco are on the right.  In which case this etching was drawn plein air and transposed when printed.  It appears as if this was drawn from a window high up in one of the buildings adjacent to the Riva and the foreground area has been flattened in order to fir the format, include the foregorund interest and yet allow the recession of the buildings in the background

Riva degli Shiavoni

The Riva degli Schiavoni is a wide waterfront promenade and landing stage in Venice which borders the Basin of San Marco.  It starts outside the Doges Palace and continues eastwards towards the Arsenal.

It was constructed in the ninth century after the area was drained and silt was dredged from the bed of the Grand Canal.  The original width would have much more like that at its western end. In 1342 it was paved using birck.  Subsequently, it was enlarged in the last years of the Republic with work being completed in 1782. The Ponte della Paglia, which marks the beginning of Riva and the Bridge of the Ca 'di Dio marks the other end.

Its name relates to the Slav merchants who used to land meat and fish on the various wharves along its length. Waterbuses, private water taxis, gondolas and working boats continue to tie up along its length today.  It's also now home to some of the more expensive hotels in  Venice such as the Danieli

Riva degli Shiavoni - from Google Maps

The idea that one cannot paint subjects like Venice because they have been done before is frankly ridiculous.

There are no new subjects, only new languages. It is how you say it that matters, just as much as what you say.

Canaletto, Corot, Boudin, Sickert, Bonnington, Monet, Renoir all painted Venice, to name but a few. Why? Because it is the most beautiful, unique and inspirational place in the world. As long as there are painters there will be paintings of Venice.

Ken Howard

Have you painted the Riva degli Schiavoni?

Painting tropical landscapes in Bali

Rice paddies, Ubud (SOLD)
12cm x 17cm (4½"x7") oil on board
Copyright Julian Merrow Smith

I'm having a lovely time at the moment revisiting - via Julian Merrow Smith's paintings of the paddy fields and tropical landscapes of the island of Bali in the Indonesian Ocean.

Postcard from Provence has temporarily relocated to Bali in Indonesia.  I'm loving it because this is an island I've visited twice - in 1992 and 1997 (see my sketchbooks here Katherine Tyrrell travels with a sketchbook - in Bali)

The critical thing about tropical landscapes in places like Bali is to forget every colour you usually use for greens and to start afresh assessing the colours of the landscape - the green is vibrant and the browns are sundried - and the colour of the water obviously depends on what the sky is doing!  The other thing I remember is that the quality and the nature of the shadows are completely different.  Partly because of the strength of the sun but also because of the humidity in the air.

Julian is doing a fabulous job of capturing Bali as I remember it. He's even painting the places I know well - rice fields near Ubud (the artist's village) and Penestanan in the north of the island and Tanah Lot on the south coast.  You can see a photo of him painting the paddy fields in Ubud at the top of this post on his wife Ruth's blog - The first day in Ubud

Here's two more samples of his work in the paddy fields.  You can see paintings of the coast on his blog and follow him by subscribing to Postcard from Provence (in Bali).

Track through rice paddies, Penestanan (SOLD)
20cm x 16cm, oil on board
Copyright Julian Merrow Smith

Temple in the paddy fields (SOLD)
20cm x 16cm oil on board
Copyright Julian Merrow Smit

Here's part of my comment on Julian's blog - about the Penastan painting

My goodness - this takes me back. I've walked through these paddy fields in Penastan. I've even walked them in the dark and very nearly fallen into them! Try walking along the edge of a paddy field after it's dark with a pencil torch!

You are absolutely spot on with all the colours - the lush greens and the faded muted browns. You're really catching the shapes and the look of that part of Bali.

Have you ever been to Bali?

Do you have any tips about painting tropical landscapes?

Townscape: Covent Garden Market

Covent Garden Market by Balthazar Nebot c1744
oil on canvas, 35 x 48¼ in. (86.8 x 122.6 cm.)

Yesterday I was sketching in Covent Garden (see Travels with my Sketchbook) and was reminded of the many artists who have painted Covent Garden Square and market.

This is an eighteenth century painting by Balthazar Nebot of Covent Garden Market.  He did a number of very similar paintings of this view - one of which is in Tate Britain.  This is their description of their painting.

Nebot’s view of Covent Garden looks west towards St Paul’s Church. It records the activities and architecture of Covent Garden which, by the 1730s, was at the heart of London’s artistic community. It was a popular urban subject, also painted by Samuel Scott, amongst others.

The market was first developed in the 1650s. Twenty years later the Earl of Bedford was given permission to ‘hold forever a market in the Piazza on every day in the year except Sundays and Christmas Day for the buying and selling of all manner of fruit, flowers, roots and herbs’.

Paintings of townscapes are fascinating in terms of revealing to the modern eye just how old some buildings are.

The whole of the background of this painting is still in existence - St Paul's Church designed by Inigo Jones is the greek temple looking building left of centre and the brand new Apple Store in Covent Garden now occupied the building on the extreme right (with the colonnades) - which is where I sketched yesterday.  I gather it's the largest Apple Store on the planet!  How things have changed......

This is a description of the artist Balthasar Nebot who was active between active 1730-after 1765 based on that on the Tate website which in turn is based on Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 198.  The links are 

Painter of open-air genre scenes, topographical landscape and some portraits 

Life obscure. Waterhouse (1981, p.255) records that he was of Spanish origin and married in London 1729/30.  Harris (1979, p.160) suggests that he established himself within a circle of genre painters working in and around Convent Garden, including Peter Angellis (q.v., whose subjects of fishmongers' and vegetable-sellers' stalls are close to Nebot's), Joseph van Aken (q.v.) and ?Peter Rysbrack.  Known for his paintings of market scenes in the 1730s

It's always struck me that there are many more artists who specialise in landscapes rather than townscapes - or topographical pictures of towns. 

In future I'm going to try and feature more artists who specialise in this specialist type of "landscape" painting - and to highlight how topographical paintings often tell the story of our culture and history.

Places to Paint - Marine Scenes

While visiting the Royal Society of Marine Artists - 65th Annual Exhibition 2010 (click link for my exhibition review) last week I made a note of all the places in the UK and overseas where people were painting marine scenes.  This was mainly because some of the names kept cropping up again and again.

So, as a further development of my "places to paint" theme, here's the list of the marine places I saw paintings of in the exhibition - split between the UK and 'overseas'.  That's everything which includes tidal water.

Two oil paintings of Cornish harbours 

Mevagissey and Mousehole

by Ivan Lapper ARCA ARSMA

Also included are images of some of the very impressive figurative paintings of places in the UK which could be seen in the RSMA Exhibition this year.  The exhibition has now closed but will return to the Mall Galleries next year. 

UK Marine Painting Locations

• Cornwall
• Boscastle
• Mevagissey
• Mousehole
• Polperro
• Polruan
• St Ives
• Devon
• Beer
• Bideford
• Brixham

• Dorset
• Sidmouth
• Essex
• Leigh on Sea
• West Mersea
• Wivenhoe
• Isle of Wight
• Yarmouth
• Lancashire
• River Wyre

Shadows and Reflections, River Wyre

Watercolour by Keith Noble RSMA

• Norfolk
• Cley Marshes
• Cromer
• North Yorkshire
• Staithes
• Whitby
• Northumberland
• Lindisfarne
• Suffolk
• Aldburgh
• Dunwich
• River Blyth
• Southwold
• Woodbridge
• SCOTLAND
• Scottish Highlands - Plockton
• Scottish Islands - Skye
• WALES
• Ceredigion - Aberavon

High Water, Polperro Harbour
Oil Painting by David Curtis RSMA ROI

Overseas Marine Painting Locations

• France
• Honfleur
• St Malo
• Italy - Venice

I've also commented in a previous post about a book British Painters of the Coast and Sea: A History and Gazetteer which I now own and which I need to get round to reviewing!

For details of how to submit work to next year's exhibition of the Royal Society of Marine Artists:

• see the Mall Galleries for details of the Open Exhibition
• see the guidance on the RSMA website about admission to membership 

Links:

• Marine Art - Resources for Artists  This lens provides information and advice from various websites for artists wanting to understand and draw and paint marine subjects, seascapes and waterscapes. 
• The Best Books about Landscape Art  Do you want to learn about landscape art? Do you want to find out which which are the best books about painting landscapes? Do you want to know more about famous landscape artists?

David Curtis demonstrates "A Light Touch: Landscapes in Oils"

In this video, David Curtis is back to painting in oils and this time the 'light' is all about a lightness of touch which he likes to use when painting in oils.



Notes I made while it was playing focus on:

• he likes to use scrubby strokes at the beginning of landscape paintings
• palette focus on main colours used for his landscape palette
• capitalise on the light and getting the patina of light right
• getting the highlights marked in at the beginning of the painting
• seeing the picture as a whole in terms of shapes of light and shade
• a constant focus on tones and getting the register of light and dark right
• the importance of developing your memory when painting plein air
• the importance of NOT honing in on one area - which you might like a lot - for too lomg

Books and DVDs by David Curtis

You can find a new section about David Curtis in my "resources for artists" website The Best Books about Landscape Painting  

These are my Amazon Associate links to David Curtis's books

United Kingdom

• The Landscape in Watercolour: A Personal View (Atelier)
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
  
• Light and Mood in Watercolour
  
• NEW BOOK published May 2010 Painting with Impact
  

United States of America

• A Personal View - David Curtis -The Landscape in Watercolor
• Artists living in the USA can also buy DVDs (Region1) of this artist.  Here's a link to A Personal View: Landscapes in Watercolour with David Curtis 
• A Light Touch: Successful Painting In Oils 
• Capturing the Moment in Oils
• his new book published September 2010 Painting with Impact