Having always preferred the more observational and naturalist approach, capturing a typical, beautiful green landscape of England, I was happy that the first research point for part four, was to find the more quirky and atmospheric landscapes across many movements and nationalities of the artists, and how the culture of the country would influence the style and feeling.
My first initial research was the guidance on the OCA course, which was to look at the Surrealists, and in particular Salvador Dali and Max Ernst. Salvador Dali’s work consisted of a dreamlike landscape, bare, minimal and mysterious nature. These paintings were clean and sharp with a special awareness to capture vast areas of surface and with certain additions added a spontaneity and character to the pieces. With the addition of clocks and butterflies in the paintings below, Dali added quite a fairy tale like twist to his work and in particular reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.
Max Ernst on the other hand created quite sinister and strange landscapes using dark, bruised colours and layers of foliage and trees. Using these colours and unusual shapes and arrangements Ernst created unrealistic chaos and claustrophobic compositions that creates an uncomfortable sensation and potential danger.
One point of advice for this research point, was to look at war artists, and as a history fan, I was intrigued to see how some artists would combine both a scene of turmoil and destruction with the style and movement the artist belonged to. An artist I really took a liking to was Paul Nash who painted during the Great War and captured scenes of the trenches and no mans land. With his surrealist take on scenes of war, Nash created peculiar shapes and compositions with contrasting shades and depth, highlighting certain key areas of the view and the influences of death and battle. Nash uses quite natural and limited colours and combines them to create primitive landscapes, which could link to the act of war and the human race’s primitive act of survival.
When looking at the German Expressionist Emil Nolde, I found that his work did create quite atmospheric landscapes and waterscapes connected with the unsettled weather and stormy nights with rich unexpected sky colours. However, the only problem that I have with Nolde’s work is that I find the style too primitive for my liking, even though I understand the basic blocks of colour and rough use on linear painting actually adds to creating the mood of the weather.
As I moved onto the Symbolists, I came across Gustav Klimt whose ‘Forest’ was extremely busy with many brush marks darted across the canvas. This technique combined with the dark bland colour palette creates sinister troubled scene implying that there are many dodgy and unsafe corners filled with danger and trouble. Also the sharpness of the trees creates an extremely hard landscape with no subtlety or smooth areas giving the danger more support with the jiggered sharp edges.
In complete contrast to Klimt, Gustave Moreau created much softer and gentle landscapes creating a sense of peace and calm, with no evident drama or disruption. Moreau manages to capture beautiful views where the world simply passes by being left alone and secluded from any activity, but also secluded from the horrible destructive weather. As said before Moreau paints in total contrast to many artists who paint quirky or dark landscapes, and simply uses a peaceful still day to capture the natural beauty that has been created on Earth, which perhaps not enough artists want to capture.
The last artist I researched was Frida Kahlo, who I could only find one landscape painting for as I know that her main subject area was portraits, and so when I found this landscape I was surprised how different her style was compared to her polished and clean portraits. Her work below creates quite a child like and primitive piece, blocking the basic colours and shapes found in a basic and limited palette. Kahlo has not paid attention to tone in this painting and concentrated on using line to form the composition with just a hint of aerial perspective with the distant surfaces of the landscape. One distinctive and moody aspect of the piece is the addition of the face in the rock formation in the bottom left, giving the rather bland piece a slight character. Even though this piece is bland, the child like style does create a mood and a slight wish washy atmosphere where the viewer is not exactly sure what the message should be.
https://www.dalipaintings.com/
http://www.klimt.com/en/gallery/landscapes/klimt-tannenwald-1901.ihtml
https://www.artsy.net/artist/emil-nolde?medium=*&page=8&sort=-partner_updated_at
https://arthive.com/artists/1601~Emil_Nolde/works/498589~Boat
https://www.paintingstar.com/item-marsh-landscape-with-farmhouse-s161939.html
SOPHIE FAWCETT'S OCA LEARNING LOG 