Sunday 15 March 2015

Research point - The urban environment

I looked at the work of Whistler His foggy and night scenes are inspired and it's good to see some of his preparatory studies. (His figures and portraits are great too) He was a contemporary of Monet who also painted moody London scenes but my favourite urban painting from him is Street of the Bavolle Honfleur, from 1864 which draws you down the street.

When I was thinking about artists who work in series with the landscape I looked at John Virtue but at that stage I wasn't aware that he had been an associate artist with the National Gallery (this is a good website with insight into how he works). I like his abstract landscapes but I'm struggling with Landscape No 507 which either has a man on a unicycle or a face leaping out at me.

John Dolan has been in the news recently. He draws the urban landscape around Shoreditch in London, simple yet detailed, his work reflects the many hours he spent observing the environment around him.

I have been a follower of the Urbansketchers blog for a long time. It showcases the work of a number of invited artists from around the world, not just urban landscapes but often people too. I'm always impressed by the variety of styles, subject matter and approaches from the correspondents. Recently there have been fewer posts but they are still worth following. I particularly like it when the subject matter is ordinary, everyday, and not obviously something worth drawing. It's good to see someone draw attention to something that is beautiful and interesting but overlooked.

While researching self portrait painting I came across this lovely atmospheric painting by Van Gogh which I had never seen before.

David Tress is best known for his rural landscapes but I like his urban work equally. He manages to combine realism (I can see the landscape that he bases his painting on) with abstraction. The end result is a painting that looks like a real scene half glimpsed on a sunny day. It somehow mages to be more realistic than realism. Brilliant stuff.

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