Artists who work in series with the landscape
Peter Doig
Echo Lake 1998:
This is a dark scene, a night scene. I see a police car on the roadside, reflected in the water. The sky is dark and there are tiny stars to be seen. The trees on the right of the painting are illuminated, perhaps by a street lamp or perhaps from the natural light of the night sky. A police officer stands at the side of the river with his head in his hands, he is reflected in the river.
The painting is broken in almost half by the horizontal line of the landscape running straight through the middle of the painting. Here is where I see the lighter marks of the painting. Large brush strokes represent the riverbank, these marks are also reflected in the water.
The night sky is the darkest area of this piece, the sky is also reflected, but in a slightly lighter tone. The stars are so delicately reflected in the water also. A beautiful touch.
The scene evokes an emotion of despair. One lonely officer looking anxiously into the water.
I can see all of the elements of this painting reflected, including the lights of the police car. Doig has been quoted as saying "reflections function as entrances to the other worlds.." I like the mystery of that thought. Reflections feature throughout many of Doig's landscapes.
This painted scene could quite easily be a movie sequence - "People often say that my paintings remind them of particular scenes from films or certain passages from books, but I think it’s a different thing altogether. There is something more primal about painting. In terms of my own paintings, there is something quite basic about them, which inevitably is to do with their materiality".
Echo Lake 2000:
Nicholas Herbert creates small and intimate mixed media paintings of the landscape. He combines the mood, atmosphere, wonderment of the landscape he is painting. Herbert is quoted in his website as saying "Integral to these works are ideas of the ancient, the mythic, the residual, permanence versus impermanence, decay and renaissance, solitude and exposure". This quote is enchanting. The landscapes he is painting is not just about the physical elements that the eye can see. The emotions that a landscapes conjures are also included in each piece.
The winter landscape gives just a hint of the trees that are engulfed in snow. I can see a glimpse of their form and body in deep green. What whirls around them is a mauve mass of colour that moves around the piece. The maeve strokes are almost transparent, like water. It creates an atmosphere that fills the piece, yet I can just about see through it enough. Herbert has created weather is these simple strokes.
The line of trees are marked in with scratchy brush strokes of browns. There The scratchy nature of the strokes add details, just like branches. The sky is a whirl of maeve, again as a view I can see moisture in the heavy cloud, it feels like rain could be due. The landscape of long grass has been marked in with what I can see as strokes of the brush moving slightly upwards and to the right, the movement of the long grass.
David Hockney
I observe the works David Hockney exhibited at The Royal Academy 'David Hockney - A Bigger Picture'. The works date from 2004- 2011 and consist of vivid paintings inspired by the changing of the seasons.
Here Hockney has painted a tree and surrounding landscape. The tree on the left is bare. Its trunk is wide, painted in one brown tone. It is winding and its branches long and naked. However they all move upwards as if they are still reaching for the sun. The landscape has been painted in subdued tones although there is still brightness in the green of the short grass in the foreground. The middleground is brown mud, there is movement in the bush strokes as if there were tacks in the mud. The background is purple and green, I can see the separation of the fields. The horizon line sits just below a pale and cold sky. It is Winter.
The tree on the right has new buds on its long branches, these buds have been painted in in green and yellow. The wide trunk of the tree has a number of tones too it, this is to depict light. In the foreground the grass is long and green, each blade has been painted in with an upwards mark. The middleground and background are bright, bright yellow and green fields fill the landscape. Above the horizon line the sky is blue. As the leaves are not in full bloom on the tree, I'm led to believe the season is spring.
Hockney paints with large number of different marks to fill his landscapes, in a similar way to Vincent Van Gogh. His strokes move in a number of directions. With this two pieces he has helped the viewer understand the season of the landscape in a number of ways. The colours and tones, the length of the grass in the landscape and the light in the paintings.
Vincent Van Gogh:
In June 1888 Vincent Van Gogh created a set of ten paintings and five drawings know as The Harvest Series. As like the contemporary artists I have studies, Van Gogh spent days in the wheat fields in the burning Summer heat to understand the landscape. It is believed to be this series of paintings where Van Gogh experimented with new colour and style techniques that he had learnt whilst in Paris. I am working on a new subject, fields green and yellow as far as the eye can reach. I have already drawn it twice, and I am starting it again as a painting..."
'Wheat Field', 'Wheat Fields with Stacks', 'Harvest in Provence', 'Wheat Stacks with Reaper', 'Wheat Field with Sheaves', 'Sunset Wheat Fields Near Arles', 'Harvest at La Cra, with Montmajour in the Background', 'Green Ears of Wheat', 'Arles:View from the Wheat Fields' are the titles of this series.
'Harvest in Provence' 1888
Most notable is the vivid and lively colour. The wheat is yellow ochre and orange and the sky is a bright blue. Van Gogh uses a number of lines to create the wheat with further lines to indicate they are tied in bundles. He uses line to draw in the stumps of the wheat in the field, where the wheat has been cut the colour is pale on the ground. This leads the viewer to the bold and bright yellow wheat. The buildings in the background appear as basic shapes with little detail. Beyond the buildings I see hills that are painted in blue and a darker blue line for the horizon. The blue sky sits quite still in the painting with little movement. However I can see the large brush marks, perhaps are paler blue has been used to signal light cloud or perhaps the sky is cloudless and there are different shades of blue in the summer sky. There are also trees in the background painted in a darker shade of blue, again they appear in line.
The texture of this painting is striking. Every detail of the scene has been marked in, each blade of wheat, each cut of the wheat. I can feel the heat in the scene.
'Sunset at Wheat Field' 1880
The contrast in colour here is striking. The dark, almost looming sky circling around a falling sun. The oranges of the wheat, all moving in the evening breeze. Again, each blade of wheat has been marking in with a line, of different shades of orange and yellow. The lines of the wheat get smaller as the viewer is led into the middleground and there are no line of wheat as my eye ventures into the background. The background is industrious, I see the town busy with buildings. The grey of the smoke dirty the evening sky. There are no workers present in the field, their work is complete for the day.
There is movement throughout the painting, the movement of wheat in the breeze, the way the dark sky seem to move and envelope the setting sun and the plumes of smoke rising upwards into the sky. However, at the same time there is a sense of stillness. The working day is done. The workers are home to rest.
What all artists, Peter Doig, Nicholas Herbert, David Hockney and Vincent Van Gogh have in common is their complete and comprehensive study of the landscape they are painting. They lived and breathe the landscapes in all conditions and for long lengths at a time to understand every element.
The landscapes are not just the scene, each piece I have studied carries the atmosphere, landscape, condition, character of the land. There is more to a landscape than just the physical elements, there are emotions that run deeper. However to find this, I see that each artist looked deeply enough to find the true identity and essence of the landscape, an expression of feeling rather than clinical study.
Reference
http://www.hockney.com/home
http://www.nicholasherbert-drawings.co.uk/
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/vincent-van-gogh
https://www.tate.org.uk/search?q=David+Hockney
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/doig-echo-lake-p78390
https://www.vincentvangogh.org/sunset-at-wheat-field.
This painted scene could quite easily be a movie sequence - "People often say that my paintings remind them of particular scenes from films or certain passages from books, but I think it’s a different thing altogether. There is something more primal about painting. In terms of my own paintings, there is something quite basic about them, which inevitably is to do with their materiality".
Echo Lake 2000:
This is an etching in green/grey ink of the same series. A portrait scene, more intense due to the emotion that has been packed into a limited space. Again I see the same elements here however there is no halfway horizontal line of the riverbank to break this piece up. The scene rolls into one and it is hard to see where the land ends and the river begins. The positioning of the police car however clearly is guides me into understanding the landscape. The same lonely figure stands at the riverbank he is featureless.
The shows of the landscapes run like roots throughout this etching. The marks are thick and continuous. They are bold and black. The night has been blocked in with these thick strokes. There are no apparent stars in this etching.
I think the etching is more haunting than the painting. I think most likely due to the tone of it. However I do think the root like brush strokes create and eerie atmosphere.
Nicholas Herbert
The Chiltern Hills - From left to right - 'Field Sloping Down to a Line of Trees, The Chiltern Hills' 2017. Top right - 'View Northwards from Rising Ground, The Chiltern Hills' 2017. Bottom right - 'Winter Landscape near Telegraph Hill, the Chiltern Hills' 2017 '.
Nicholas Herbert creates small and intimate mixed media paintings of the landscape. He combines the mood, atmosphere, wonderment of the landscape he is painting. Herbert is quoted in his website as saying "Integral to these works are ideas of the ancient, the mythic, the residual, permanence versus impermanence, decay and renaissance, solitude and exposure". This quote is enchanting. The landscapes he is painting is not just about the physical elements that the eye can see. The emotions that a landscapes conjures are also included in each piece.
The winter landscape gives just a hint of the trees that are engulfed in snow. I can see a glimpse of their form and body in deep green. What whirls around them is a mauve mass of colour that moves around the piece. The maeve strokes are almost transparent, like water. It creates an atmosphere that fills the piece, yet I can just about see through it enough. Herbert has created weather is these simple strokes.
The line of trees are marked in with scratchy brush strokes of browns. There The scratchy nature of the strokes add details, just like branches. The sky is a whirl of maeve, again as a view I can see moisture in the heavy cloud, it feels like rain could be due. The landscape of long grass has been marked in with what I can see as strokes of the brush moving slightly upwards and to the right, the movement of the long grass.
David Hockney
I observe the works David Hockney exhibited at The Royal Academy 'David Hockney - A Bigger Picture'. The works date from 2004- 2011 and consist of vivid paintings inspired by the changing of the seasons.
Here Hockney has painted a tree and surrounding landscape. The tree on the left is bare. Its trunk is wide, painted in one brown tone. It is winding and its branches long and naked. However they all move upwards as if they are still reaching for the sun. The landscape has been painted in subdued tones although there is still brightness in the green of the short grass in the foreground. The middleground is brown mud, there is movement in the bush strokes as if there were tacks in the mud. The background is purple and green, I can see the separation of the fields. The horizon line sits just below a pale and cold sky. It is Winter.
The tree on the right has new buds on its long branches, these buds have been painted in in green and yellow. The wide trunk of the tree has a number of tones too it, this is to depict light. In the foreground the grass is long and green, each blade has been painted in with an upwards mark. The middleground and background are bright, bright yellow and green fields fill the landscape. Above the horizon line the sky is blue. As the leaves are not in full bloom on the tree, I'm led to believe the season is spring.
Hockney paints with large number of different marks to fill his landscapes, in a similar way to Vincent Van Gogh. His strokes move in a number of directions. With this two pieces he has helped the viewer understand the season of the landscape in a number of ways. The colours and tones, the length of the grass in the landscape and the light in the paintings.
Vincent Van Gogh:
In June 1888 Vincent Van Gogh created a set of ten paintings and five drawings know as The Harvest Series. As like the contemporary artists I have studies, Van Gogh spent days in the wheat fields in the burning Summer heat to understand the landscape. It is believed to be this series of paintings where Van Gogh experimented with new colour and style techniques that he had learnt whilst in Paris. I am working on a new subject, fields green and yellow as far as the eye can reach. I have already drawn it twice, and I am starting it again as a painting..."
'Wheat Field', 'Wheat Fields with Stacks', 'Harvest in Provence', 'Wheat Stacks with Reaper', 'Wheat Field with Sheaves', 'Sunset Wheat Fields Near Arles', 'Harvest at La Cra, with Montmajour in the Background', 'Green Ears of Wheat', 'Arles:View from the Wheat Fields' are the titles of this series.
'Harvest in Provence' 1888
Most notable is the vivid and lively colour. The wheat is yellow ochre and orange and the sky is a bright blue. Van Gogh uses a number of lines to create the wheat with further lines to indicate they are tied in bundles. He uses line to draw in the stumps of the wheat in the field, where the wheat has been cut the colour is pale on the ground. This leads the viewer to the bold and bright yellow wheat. The buildings in the background appear as basic shapes with little detail. Beyond the buildings I see hills that are painted in blue and a darker blue line for the horizon. The blue sky sits quite still in the painting with little movement. However I can see the large brush marks, perhaps are paler blue has been used to signal light cloud or perhaps the sky is cloudless and there are different shades of blue in the summer sky. There are also trees in the background painted in a darker shade of blue, again they appear in line.
The texture of this painting is striking. Every detail of the scene has been marked in, each blade of wheat, each cut of the wheat. I can feel the heat in the scene.
'Sunset at Wheat Field' 1880
The contrast in colour here is striking. The dark, almost looming sky circling around a falling sun. The oranges of the wheat, all moving in the evening breeze. Again, each blade of wheat has been marking in with a line, of different shades of orange and yellow. The lines of the wheat get smaller as the viewer is led into the middleground and there are no line of wheat as my eye ventures into the background. The background is industrious, I see the town busy with buildings. The grey of the smoke dirty the evening sky. There are no workers present in the field, their work is complete for the day.
There is movement throughout the painting, the movement of wheat in the breeze, the way the dark sky seem to move and envelope the setting sun and the plumes of smoke rising upwards into the sky. However, at the same time there is a sense of stillness. The working day is done. The workers are home to rest.
What all artists, Peter Doig, Nicholas Herbert, David Hockney and Vincent Van Gogh have in common is their complete and comprehensive study of the landscape they are painting. They lived and breathe the landscapes in all conditions and for long lengths at a time to understand every element.
The landscapes are not just the scene, each piece I have studied carries the atmosphere, landscape, condition, character of the land. There is more to a landscape than just the physical elements, there are emotions that run deeper. However to find this, I see that each artist looked deeply enough to find the true identity and essence of the landscape, an expression of feeling rather than clinical study.
Reference
http://www.hockney.com/home
http://www.nicholasherbert-drawings.co.uk/
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/vincent-van-gogh
https://www.tate.org.uk/search?q=David+Hockney
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/doig-echo-lake-p78390
https://www.vincentvangogh.org/sunset-at-wheat-field.
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