I am writing this blog in order to create my own moving and developing online version of a visual Journal. The sketchbook for me is the highlight of a project, from the research and the links forged, through to the journey of an idea, I am happily filled with a sense of excitement and purpose, I revel in the unravelling of information and in the development and articulation of the idea and spend hours filtering through sources in order to explain my intentions and let others know the map I have created in my own mind. The sketchbook process allows me to absorb my environment and contemplate my world, it allows me to grow and changes my path every time. To challenge myself in this final year I am endeavoring to try a new way of sharing and archiving my journey, putting aside the pritstick and Scissors, pulling up my chair and putting on my glasses this will now be my Sketchbook.
So here it begins a diary of the idea, growing and moving as I go forward with the project. It is what it is. What it will become ... I have no idea and to you the viewer I make no apologies.

Joseph Derby

Joseph Derby
Cottage on Fire at Night, oil on canvas, ca. 1785-1793

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Historical Landscapes

In beginning my research I am looking back at some of the key players in the origination of the landscape as a stand alone genre of art. I have discovered the works of William Gilpin and his theories on the Picturesque. JMW Turners sublime landscapes a prime example of natural power and Thomas Burnets theories on Earth and descriptions of  the manifestations of such things as mountains and gorges. My train of thought has been spurred by questioning the beginning of a new way of imagining. How did thinking people begin to depict the human emotion within nature, and how did they first transfer their emotion onto a fantastical make believe landscape?
WILLIAM GILPIN (1724 - 1804)




'These Splendid remnants of decaying grandeur speak to the imagination in a style of eloquence which the stippling cannot reach; they record the history of some storm, some blast of lightening or other great event, which transpires it's grand ideas to the landscape and in the representation of elevated subjects, assists the sublime'.

JMW TURNER  (1775 - 1851)  
Fishermen at Sea  exhibited 1796 Oil on canvas       1120 x 1425 x 105 mm
The Slaveship 1840
JMW Turner English Romantic Landscape Painter, watercolourist and printmaker.
John Ruskin described Turner as the artist who could most 'Stirringly and truthfully measure the moods of Nature' Turners revolutionary depictions of light, color and atmospherics in the landscape combined with his understanding of the sublime in nature made him among the most acclaimed and keenly studied European artists in the New World. Landscape painting was seen as the art form most closely allied to the identity of the newly independent nation, and Turners majestic works served as a model for a new generation of American painters. Franklin Kelly and Ian Warrell 2007
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps  exhibited 1812 Oil on canvas 


THOMAS BURNET (1635 - 1715)


Burnets beliefs on the earths geology came from the idea that when God destroyed the human raceto cleanse human sin, as written in the book of revelations, he also crushed the earths shell, (the earth to Burnet was a giant unblemished, smooth egg). The shell fragments were scattered as mountain ranges, 'very ghastly and frightful'. The mountains like great ruins.
A simplified version of Burnets theories but I love the idea that the earth is like an egg, and the wrath of God is the reason for the 'damaged', or 'broken' savage landscapes we may see, its such a beautiful image to me.
Burnet on Mountains 1680
Burnets explanation identified mountainous scenery in all its horror as a product and symbol of the fall; such terrain was punitive of desire, a reminder of how God obliterates the perverse and the transgressive.


JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY 1734 - 1797

Joseph Wright of Derby. Virgil's Tomb, with the Figure of Silius Italicus. 1779. Oil on canvas. 101.6 x 127 cm.
Vesuvius from Posillipo"- Joseph Wright Of Derby, 1734-1797. Oil on Panel,
Moonlight Italian Landscape 1785
Joseph Wright of Derby was an English Romantic Painter. Many of his paintings reflect the spirit of the industrial revolution, in particular scientific procedures and developments. I particularly love his landscapes and the way in which he captures the eeriness of the moonlight in the above images, famed for his use of the Chiaroscuro effect (emphasisng the contrast of light and dark) he adds a depth and drama to the scenes of rugged landscape and calm waters. The interplay of light and darkness fascinated the artist alongside the physical process that governed the working of the universe.
SALVATOR ROSA (1615 - 1673)
Salvator Rosa, Temptation of st. Anthony, 1646
Witches at Their Incantations (c1646)
Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter. Pre dating the Romantics he became a kindered spirit for the dramatic and emotive work that ensued in the eighteenth century his landscapes matching the dominant mood, with their rugged and wild temperament. With a rich palette and his terrifying allegoric subject matter Salvator Rosa awakened a fear in the viewer. His treatment of the landscape is equally as harsh, angry rocks and cliffs jut out onto the canvas menacingly,  the turbulent sky highlighting the sharpness of every edge. Painting the desolate and savage scenery, he saw the misery of the earth and of humanity represented in the harsh Calabrian landscape.

Rosa's landscapes have been described as savage and as Sublime. Their enormity has a God like presence but for me it is more cataclysmic than sublime. As if nature or God is fighting back.
Salvator Rosa's paintings of far off lands were popular amongst the traveling British on their Grand Tours. As they took home both authentic and copied Rosa's a new aesthetic sensibility was born.