Landscape Art: British Woodlands
By Peter J Gorman
Overview
Early Impressionists broke the picture-making rules of academic painting. They began by giving colors, freely brushed, primacy over line, drawing inspiration from the work of painters such as Eugene Delacroix. They also took the act of painting out of the studio and into the world. Previously, not only still lifes and portraits but also landscapes had been painted indoors, but the Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting 'en plein air'. They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly blended as was the custom at the time. Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they emphasized vivid overall effects rather than details.
The public were at first hostile but gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if it did not meet with approval of the artistic establishment. By recreating the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than recreating the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism became seminal to various movements in painting which would follow, including Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism.
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based painters who began publicly exhibiting their art in the 1860s. The name of the movement is derived from Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).
Characteristics of Impressionist painting include visible brushstrokes, light colors, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualitiy, ordinary subject matter, and unusual visual angles, with particular emphasis on landscapes.
The influence of Impressionist thought spread beyond the art world, leading to Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.
1 Overview
2 Beginnings
3 Impressionist techniques
These images are a series of studies of Tiverton woods in Devon, focusing in particular on the zones where there is a meeting of coniferous forest plantation with native deciduous woodlands. The juxtaposition of these two tree types, has a striking effect on the atmosphere of the area, which i explore in this work. I use mixed media of acrylic, pastel, charcoal and pencil and have chosen eye-level views, to reflect the natural gaze an onlooker would experience when passing through such an environment. The work was carried out between Dec 2002 and Mar 2003.