Flooding #1 - Sisley's Seine

The Banks of the Seine in Autumn flood by Sisley

I've been looking at the films of the horrendous flooding in Vermont - and was reminded of how often floods have been recorded in paint.

Now there's a lot of every eminent artists who live in Vermont and while I expect everybody's first thoughts are for their own safety and helping others right now, I hope we might see some paintings of the floods in due course.

This particular image is by Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) who was

a French-born English Impressionist landscape painter who was born, and spent most of his life, in France. Sisley is generally recognized as the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air (i.e., outdoors).

The Seine obviously flooded a lot in the nineteenth century as a number of the Impressionists recorded flooding.

Sisley in particular loved painting rivers and water - as can be seen from this website which holds a number of his works

UPDATE:  Charley Parker takes up the theme of Sisley painting floods - you can see more on his blog Lines and Colors - The Floods at Port Marly – Alfred Sisley

"Forests, Rocks, Torrents" at the National Gallery, London

Forests, Rocks, Torrents at the National Gallery, London is currently displaying Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes from the Lunde Collection.

It includes 51 paintings from the private collection of Asbjørn Lunde, an American who has formed the world’s leading private collection of Norwegian and Swiss landscape paintings, primarily of the 19th century.  Most of the paintings have never been seen in the UK before, and are rarely on public view.

The idea behind the exhibition is to introduce a British audience - and, presumbaly, international visitors who visit the National Gallery - to landscapes by artists with whom they are less familiar. 

The 45 works displayed demonstrate the similarities of the Norwegian and Swiss traditions, but also the differences that climate, character, national temperament and political regimes impose on art.

Norway was engaged in a long struggle for freedom from Sweden and was poor, isolated and dependent for survival on its natural resources. Switzerland had been proudly independent for centuries and was prosperous, cosmopolitan and an early centre of industry.

How, the exhibition asks, are these realities implicated in their respective painting traditions?

The paintings are of two principal kinds:

• small-scale landscape oil sketches and 
• ‘finished’ paintings, some very large.

Landscape artists whose work is included in the exhibition include:

• Knud Andreassen Baade 1808-1879 Norwegian
• Peder Balke 1804-1887 Norwegian

One of the most extraordinary innovators of the 19th century was Peder Balke – but only now is he re-emerging as a master of Norwegian landscape. His 'Moonlit View of Stockholm', with the spires of the city silhouetted against a stormy night sky, shows the direct influence of Dahl’s views of Dresden. Balke’s scenes of storms at sea and shipwrecks on rocky coasts are for the most part small black and white improvisations, thinly painted on board covered in smooth white ground ('Seascape').

• Johan Christian Dahl 1788-1857, a Norwegian landscape painter, who was connected to the Norwegian romantic nationalism. He is often considered have been "the father of Norwegian landscape painting".^[1]

Dahl loved Norway with the passion of a patriot. From the start of his career, he committed himself to depicting his nation, but in 1818 he moved to Dresden and began a long friendship with the German artist Caspar David Friedrich. Soon he became famous among Norwegians as their esteemed master in exile. A pilgrimage to Dresden to learn from Dahl became a necessity for any artist travelling from Norway to Italy.

• Alexandre Calame 1810-1864 Swiss and father of the Swiss tradition of landscape painting

the artist widely regarded as the best Swiss landscapist is Alexandre Calame. His paintings owe much to the work of 17th-century Dutch landscape artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael in their portrayal of mountains, dense fir forests and raging torrents. Calame’s paintings of Lake Lucerne, such as 'Cliffs of Seelisberg, Lake Lucerne', are pervaded with a sense of nature’s grandeur and portray a harsh, majestic environment untouched by man. However, it was the theme of torrents that was central to Calame’s work, including the largest (98 x 138 cm) in the show, 'Mountain Torrent before a Storm'. This painting depicts the longest river in Switzerland, the Aare, and was acquired by Prince Yusupov of Russia.

• Johann Gottfried Steffan 1815-1905, Swiss - one of the most important Siss landscape painters.
  
• Caspar Wolf 1735-1783 a Swiss painter, known mostly for his dramatic paintings of Alps
• Thomas Fearnley 1803-1842, Norwegian
  

Dahl's greatest student was Thomas Fearnley, and it is with this Norwegian master that the Norwegian and Swiss landscape traditions intersect. In 1835, on his return from Italy, Fearnley spent time in Switzerland painting. The show includes three works painted in consecutive months during this period: 'Near Meiringen', 10 June 1835; 'The Mountain Wetterhorn', 18 July 1835; and 'Valley of Lauterbrunnen', 26 August 1835. Two years later Fearnley was in England (his grandfather was a Yorkshireman) painting in London and the Lake District. His visit to the Lake District gave rise to nature studies which still surprise with their originality ('Fisherman at Derwentwater', 2 August 1837).

Labrofossen ved Kongsberg (1837) by Thomas Fearnley

• François Diday (1802–1877), a Swiss landscape painter

The links are to sites which provide images by the artist but these are not necessarily in the exhibition. The exhibition can be founbd in the Sunley Room until 18th September, Daily 10am–6pm, Friday until 9pm. Admission is free.

These are links to

• The Telegraph slideshow of images from the exhibition
• Reviews of the exhibition by:
• The Telegraph - Forests, Rocks, Torrents, National Gallery, review
• Evening Standard - Brian Sewell reviews Forests, Rocks, Torrents, National Gallery - review  Typical Brian - hits the nail on the head straightaway!

From the title of the National Gallery's current exhibition, Forests, Rocks, Torrents, the most important noun has been omitted - Mountains. 

•  The Art Fund - Forests, Rocks, Torrents: Norwegian and Swiss Landscapes
• a University of Tromso website about the artistic portrayal of the Northern Lights and the role played by Peder Balke

The walkway street food market in Nuremberg

The walkway street food market in Nuremberg by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528)
Source: Wikipaintings

I've always liked Albrecht Durer's work.  It might be because he favours drawing and line.  I was delighted to discover recently some of his landscape works on wikipaintings - including this particular work The walkway street food market in Nuremberg (click this link to see a much larger version of this image)

Albrecht Durer was born in Nuremburg in 1471 and became one of the most famous painters of the Northern Renaissance.

Given that Nuremburg was his home town, this must have been a very familar scene for him - and this painting is presumably an early example of "paint what you know".

What I like about is that it's done in pen and ink with a colour wash - which is a style for recording a scene which I very much like.

The town lies either side of the Pegnita River and this walkway street food market was presumably a Nuremburg equivalent of the shops on the Rialto bridge in Venice.

What's interesting about Nuremberg is that about 90% of the old town was destroyed by strategic allied bombing during the second world war.  However the town has been rebuilt to reinstate its appearance prior to WW2 and the covered bridges appear to still be a feaure of present day Nuremberg's Ald Stadt. You can see a large map of Nuremburg's Ald Stadt (old town) today on Wikipedia

How to see more of Durer's landscapes and cityscapes

• If you click on the cityscape or landscape links in the Wikipaintings Durer page you'll see a range of thumbnails of the works he produced.  
• The paintings are organised in chronological order within each genre
• Click a thumbnail and you'll be taken to the page for that landscape - which then tells you more about the painting

Scottish Landscape Painting and a £25,000 prize

The JOLOMO Bank of Scotland Award For Scottish Landscape Painting 2011 has been won by 24 year old Edinburgh artist Calum McClure.

The award is the largest privately funded Arts Award in the UK with prize money totalling £35,000.

The first prize in 2011 was raised to £25,000. The main sponsor is the Scottish artist John Lowrie Morrison OBE (Jolomo) who awarded the prizes at a dinner at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum on 24th June 2011.  Other sponsors are the Bank of Scotland and The Scotsman.

Winning artist Calum McClure had this to say

I can’t believe I have won, this will make a real difference to my work. I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in May 2010 and have continued to work as an artist since then. Among the focus of my landscapes are country houses and formal gardens. I paint these not only because of the interesting botanical specimens and the floral and fauna brought to the estates by their owners, but because it is a side of Scotland that is sometimes overlooked, due to our willingness to purport a skewed vernacular or kitsch version of ‘Scottishness’. The focus of my work for almost two years has been Cammo estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh, in particular its boating pond.

Seven Scottish artists reached the shortlist.  Their names are below plus the part of Scotland they live/work in.

Unfortunately the website does not have good digital images of either the winning work or the work of the shortlisted artists - with annotations for dimensions and media.  You can see something of the works shortlisted in this slideshow - but this is not the standard of presentation which I find on other art competition websites.  However what it does do is give you a better sense of the size and impact of the work when hung in a gallery.

You might like to take a look at the websites of the shortlisted artists which you can find links to below.

Aberdeenshire - Susie Lee (45) - slides 2, 20 and 21 in the slideshow

Suzie Lee website

“The Scottish landscape provides me with the perfect inspiration for my work. Sketches are made on site finding a feeling of place the intention being a poetic visual statement suggesting that a loss of intimacy with the natural world is in itself a loss of self.”
Susie Lee

Borders - David Cass (22) - slides 7, 28-30 in the slideshow

David Cass website

“I’ve always collected old wooden objects, from antique shops and markets; initially, I used these materials to construct wall-based sculptures.  However these found-objects have gradually developed a new purpose: and are now the surfaces on which I paint.”
David Cass

Edinburgh - Calum McClure (24) - slides 4, 22 and 23 in the slideshow

Calum McClure at The Scottish Gallery

“Among the focus of my landscapes are country houses and formal gardens. I paint these not only because of the interesting botanical specimens and the floral and fauna brought to the estates by their owners, but because it is a side of Scotland that is sometimes overlooked.”
Calum McClure

Edinburgh - Jenny Mason (46) - slides 24 and 25 in the slideshow

Jenny Mason website

“There is something reassuring to us as humans in the endless movement of clouds in the sky and the relentlessness of the sea, it is never the same, never boring, and its takes one's attention off the cerebral and onto the visual wonderment of the world we inhabit.”
Jenny Mason

Edinburgh - Allan Robertson (56) - slides 5, 16 and 17 in the slideshow

Allan J Robertson website

“The structures that form our industrial and manufacturing past are often hidden from sight. My aim is to capture their colours, textures and materials, the environment they sit in, to create an idealised landscape that once again makes these structures predominant.”
Allan Robertson

Edinburgh - Beth Robertson Fiddes (38)  - who won second prize (£6,000) - slides 3, 18 and 19 in the slideshow

Beth Robertson Fiddes website

“I work on large land and seascapes reflecting on themes of memory, solitude and scale, while smaller works study unusual rock formations shaped by the tides or mountain rivers and waterfalls.”
Beth Robertson Fiddes

Glasgow -  Katie Pope (26) - who third prize (£4,000) - slides 1, 26 and 27 in the slideshow

Katie Pope website

“Being located in the heart of Glasgow provides an appropriate setting, as my work is strongly rooted in reflecting life and landscape here in the West of Scotland. I hope my work reflects something of the vitality of my surroundings.”
Katie Pope

Artist John Lowrie Morrison OBE (Jolomo), who presented the prizes, said 

It was an extremely difficult job to choose not only the shortlisted artists but the three final winners of awards.  However the quality of all the work shows that landscape painting is alive and well in Scotland, although maybe not in all the Art Schools!


The winners show the best of that painting – Katie Pope’s wonderfully expressive Glasgow urban landscapes, Beth Robertson Fiddes’ primeval shorelines and Award winner Calum McClures’s beautifully intricate Wyethesque recording of garden landscape.  All the shortlisted artists’ work this year was simply stunning – however the three winners were just that bit special.

Criteria for Entry - and How to Enter

It's obviously too late for this year - but for the future reference of Scottish artists and readers of this blog the criteria for entry are as follows. 

Applicants must be painters who:

a. are currently living and working in Scotland and are aged 18 or over on 1st January 2011.

b. have studied, or are studying, at a college of art or in an art discipline at a university, further education college or independent art college.

c. Should more than five years have passed since studying, or if the applicant has no formal qualification, the body of work submitted must be proposed and approved by a suitably qualified referee, e.g. art lecturer, teacher, gallery owner.

d. The Jolomo Bank of Scotland Awards welcomes entries from artists with special needs.

e. There will be a main prize of £25,000 with an additional £10,000 divided among the runners up.

It seems to me that criteria (c) is probably a rather useful one in terms of winnowing down the scope for people entering who are way short of the standard required.  It's very nice to see an exhibition which doesn't have generation of entry fees as one of its main aims and performance indicators!

Applications to enter should be made by way of 

one central, titled image which should be a painting and between five and ten supporting images which may be paintings, sketches or drawings. All entries should be accompanied by title, metric size, the medium used and the year the work was made. Also included should be the entrant's full Curriculum Vitae.

All entries are viewed anonymously by the judging panel of six people.

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

A view of Box Hill, Surrey and English landscape painting

I guess I should not have been surprised to find A View of Box Hil, Surrey - one of the paintings from the BBC programme This Green and Pleasant Land in Tate Britain. 

After collecting my errant sketchbook last week (see ) I got more exercise for the day by walking around all the galleries on the main level.  Everything has moved!  It was a very odd experience because everything has moved (due to a major refurbishment programme - see Tate Britain is changing)

As a result, I found myself looking at everything with fresh eyes.

A View of Box Hill, Surrey by George Lambert (1700-1765)

A View of Box Hill, Surrey (1733) by George Lambert (1700 – 30 Nov. 1765)
considered to be the first proper landscape painted in England
Oil painting on canvas support: 908 x 1804 mm

Location: Tate Britain

I came across one of the landscapes mentioned in This Green and Pleasant Land in the room devoted to eighteenth century art.  This included a small section about very early landscape painting.  That's the point at which landscapes start being painted purely because of the scene.  There are no buildings or landowners with their estates being portrayed as such.

A View of Box Hill Surrey is George Lambert's most famous painting.  This is what the Tate has to say about this painting

Lambert was one of the pioneers of landscape painting in early eighteenth-century Britain.

This painting presents the landscape without the sorts of buildings –palaces or an aristocratic estate – which traditionally featured in such views. Is this evidence of a new appreciation of nature for its own sake? Certainly, landscape became the focus for discussions about the relationship between painting and poetry, and aesthetic ideas such as beauty and the sublime.

 (From the display caption March 2011)

I seem to recall the programme as saying this particular painting is regarded as one of the first proper landscape paintings in Britain.  Certainly Lambert's claim to fame is that he was one of the first artists to develop an English way of painting landscapes.  His paintings were not purely about imitating the Italian way of doing things - landscapes were painted for their aesthetic value rather than as a backdrop to a history story

I discovered that this painting is unusually wide and not a conventional format.  I tried sketching it - and it's much wider than the two squares side by side which I initially thought was the format.  I've taken a look at some other landscape paintings by Lambert and it seems he rather likes this almost letter box-like format.  Just imagine if this had become the accepted dimensions of landscape format!

After George Lambert - Box Hill, Surrey
pencil and coloured pencils

The land in front is now part of the vineyard of Denbies Wine Estate.  Below is an extract from Google Maps which shows both the subject and the approximate location of the artist - although the wheatfields are now vineyards.  It would be interesting to see what the view looks like today from the same fields.

Denbies Vineyard on left, Box Hill on right
the red marker marks the approximate viewpoint of the artist - looking east
From Google Maps - click this link to see full size

I'm doing a post about George Lambert this week as he's an interesting artist and one I was completely unaware of until I watched the programme.

A footnote - the Olympic Road race
 
Interestingly I learned while researching this picture that Box Hill is to be one of the locations involved in the cycle road race at the Olympics next summer.  The zig zag road up Box Hill - so beloved of both cyclists and motorbike riders - provides the hill challenge to the race. See Cycling Weekly's Olympic road race route officially revealed