Monumental Turner to Hockney the best of British Landscape
A Sense of Place From Turner to Hockney
Three Daughters of John, 3rd Earl of Bute, c.1763-1764, Oil paint on canvas, Johann Zoffany (1733-1810)
British landscapes from Turner to Hockney
A Sense of Place, From Turner to Hockney presents a collection of seventy-six artworks on loan to the Hong Kong Museum of Art.
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The Tate, United Kingdom, exhibits its national collections of British art from the sixteenth century to the present day and its international modern and contemporary art through four major galleries in Britain and throughout the world, with loans to other museums.
The Surrey Canal, Camberwell (1935), Algernon Newton (1880-1968)
This significant loan to Hong Kong provides local audiences with an opportunity to see the best of British landscape paintings.
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As the name suggests, the exhibition spans the lifetimes of British landscape painters from the seventeenth century, from the birth of Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in 1776, to modern times as represented by contemporary painter David Hockney, born in 1937.
This collection provides a pictorial documentation of the evolution in tastes, styles and subject matter in landscape paintings throughout the past several centuries.
Frosty Morning, 1813, Oil paint on canvas, Joseph Mallord William Turner
The distinctive feature of British landscape painting is that objects or figures are there primarily to indicate scale. The true subject is the land, ocean and sky.
My initial interest in the exhibit began with a desire to see original paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) and his ability to capture sunlight with paint.
Harvest Home, Sunset: The Last Load, 1853, Oil paint on canvas, John Linnell (1792-1882)
Turner was born poor, but as a child prodigy, his talents were nurtured by patrons and his acceptance into the Royal Academy of Arts.
He was taught how to draw and paint with watercolours and later taught himself how to paint with oil on canvas.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Although Turner could paint realistically, he was more interested in creating an emotional reaction using light and atmosphere.
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This Romantic approach can be seen in his painting Frosty Morning.
Frosty Morning, 1813, Oil paint on canvas, Joseph Mallord William Turner
A father and daughter can be seen shivering on a cold winter morning, watching men loading a cart.
Hope is represented by the imminent arrival of the sunrise.
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Throughout his long productive life, he continually perfected his craft, travelling extensively and learning from other painters, but also incorporating scientific ideas like how to draw clouds from Luke Howard, who in 1802 classified clouds as either cumulus, stratus or cirrus.
The Beach at Walberswick, 1889, Oil paint on wood, Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942)
Turner was friends with Michael Faraday, and if we look closely at some of his later paintings, we see patterns in his storms that resemble metal filings over electromagnets.
Romantics landscapes
Unlike other painters, Turner embraced the Industrial Revolution, and in many of his paintings, he romanticised steamboats, trains and factories.
The Harbour of Brest: The Quayside and Chateau depicted the harbour of Brest in Brittany, France.
The Harbour of Brest: The Quayside and Chateau, c. 1826-1828, Oil paint on canvas, Joseph Mallord William Turner
With this painting, we see the soft edges and subtle colours found frequently in the Impressionist movement.
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However, in this work, there is a clear perspective; the delineation between buildings, water and sky is sharp, and there is a crowd of people in the foreground, but there is a complete absence of detail.
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Instead, the viewer’s eyes are drawn to the melancholy glow of the sunset.
An Avalanche in the Alps (1803), Philip James De Loutherbourg (1740-1812)
John Constable (1776-1873) was a contemporary of Turner, but instead of romanticising his subjects, he preferred realism.
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Constable presented subjects from everyday life painted in a naturalistic and realistic way.
Harwich Lighthouse, 1820, Oil paint on canvas, John Constable
As can be seen by the cumulus clouds in Harwich Lighthouse, he incorporated Howard’s cloud types into his paintings.
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Constable’s style was unique and influential, but it did not change significantly over his career.
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He never left England, and he resisted any form of modernisation that threatened nature.
Chain Pier, Brighton, 1826-1827, Oil paint on canvas, John Constable
This is illustrated in Chain Pier, Brighton.
Ominous clouds threaten both traditional fishermen in the foreground and modern leisure enthusiasts in the background.
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Modern leisure was foreign to him, and he never would have been at Brighton if it were not for his wife convalescing there.
Hampstead Health, with the House Called “The Salt Box”, c.1819-1820, Oil paint on canvas, John Constable (1776-1837)
Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940) was an Irish painter influenced by Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, whom he painted within the artist colony at the fishing village of Pont-Aven in southern Brittany, France.
Painting outdoors En Plein Air
O’Conor embraced Impressionism, which included the practice of painting landscapes and scenes of everyday life out of doors rather than in a studio.
Yellow Landscape, 1892, Oil paint on canvas, Roderic O’Coner
Although the landscape in Yellow Landscape is identifiable, the pure, out-of-the-tube colours, the thick paint, and obvious brushstrokes all aim to capture mood, not realism.
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Unlike Turner, Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) did not embrace the industrial revolution.
Otho, with John Larkin up (1768), George Stubbs (1724-1806)
His style is classified as naïve, which refers to artists who have had no formal training in an art school or academy.
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Lowry was a rent collector in Manchester who studied art in his spare time.
Arenig, North Wales (1913), Oil paint on plywood, James Dickson Innes (1887-1914)
Because of his profession, he witnessed firsthand the human suffering, water and air pollution, and the blight caused by coal-burning factories.
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In his painting Industrial Landscape, humanity is represented by matchstick figures dwarfed by industrial machinery.
Industrial Landscape, 1955, Oil paint on canvas, Laurence Stephen Lowry
Although some of the buildings are identifiable, the complete scene is an imaginary construct designed to evoke strong emotions and question the price paid for humanity’s progress.
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Lowry’s art may have been classified as naïve, but it has a unique style, beauty and a memorable message.
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Paul Nash (1889-1946) painted in a surrealistic style that explored the workings of the mind, championing the irrational, the poetic and the revolutionary.
Landscape from a Dream, 1936-1938, Oil paint on Canvas, Paul Nash
Landscape from a Dream is situated on the English coast of Dorset, but the mirror and the empty screens work as a foil so that the hawk and spheres can, respectively, be symbols of the material world and aspects of the soul.
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George Clausen (1852-1944) painted in an Impressionist style.
Winter Work, 1883-1884, Oil paint on canvas, George Clausen
Winter Work makes a social statement about inequality and tries to glorify the stoicism of fieldworkers.
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This type of subject matter reflects a romanticism for peasant workers and reflects changes brought on by industrialisation, whereby it is now possible for the lower class to appreciate and buy art.
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David Inshaw (born 1943) is a Romanticist. His works explore psychology and express his personal feelings and his interest in the natural world.
Farm Pond, Leonard Stanley (1940), Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)
Inshaw claimed he was in love with both the women in The Badminton Game, yet the idealised scenery, not the women, is the focus of this painting.
The way it is presented, one could easily think he is in love with his idealised love of both women.
The Badminton Game, 1972-1973, Oil paint on canvas, David Inshaw
The Badminton Game is hauntingly beautiful yet lacking the randomness and flaws that occur in nature and true love.
The works by Joseph Mallord William Turner and David Hockney are the most recognisable in this exhibition, so it is no coincidence that their paintings bookend the title.
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Hockney has broken so many rules that it is difficult to classify his style.
Bigger Trees near Warter, 2007, Oil paint on 50 canvases, David Hockney
Bigger Trees near Warter is a vast landscape, spread out over fifty individual panels composed together.
He used traditional oil painting techniques and Photoshop, painted outdoors, en plein air, as well as in a studio.
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Hockney argues that the camera homogenises the world and discourages active looking.
Glacier of Rosenlaui, 1856, Oil paint on canvas, John Brett (1831-1902)
This image is unique in scale, medium, and technique, presenting a familiar and perhaps ordinary landscape in an extraordinary way.
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A Sense of Place, From Turner to Hockney, presents the development and evolution of British landscape paintings over the past centuries, showing that the genre can convey a myriad of messages and meanings.
The challenge for British artists continues, regardless of their style and intellectual interests.
Text Martin Wray / Photos Cammy Yiu
