The course materials suggested to look at Dürer, Claude Lorrain and Lowry’s “images of industrial life”. This research point was to be done before the first practical task, however I departed from the suggested task sequence and approached it after the first exercises. Usually I prefer doing things in the suggested order, but having done it differently this time was interesting. Maybe my own attempts made me more aware of difficult elements in landscape drawing. On the other hand, my own attempts might have benefitted from looking at how other artists had approached the topic.
Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528)
I searched at the Bridgeman education library and searched for artist = Durer and with the keyword = landscape, which brought up quite a few works, not only drawings but also watercolours and engravings. I selected those which I found interesting and typical for landscape – a somewhat open view over an extended area. I made notes about what I found remarkable.
View of Nuremberg (1496-97), watercolour on paper
This drawing depicts a view on the medieval town. The colours in the foreground are quite dark, they become more pale towards the background. There is much more detail of stone walls and buildings in the foreground than in the background. Both these aspects create a sense of space in the drawing.
View of the Arco Valley in Tyrol (1495), pen & ink with watercolour on paper
This drawing depicts a fortress on a hill in the background, and the valley in the middle area. Somehow strange are the trees with blue foliage. The landscape at the distance to thre right is very pale, compared to the scenery in the middle area.
Road in the Alps (1495), gouache and watercolour on paper.
A drawing of a a mountainous landscape in golden and blue tones. Here the intensity of colour is evenly distributed over the entire image, creating less sense of distance.
St Jerome in the Wilderness (c. 1496), engraving
This is not a drawing, but it represents what could have been a deep black linear drawing. The trees are depicted in fine textural detail. Dürer created shades of tone through texture and stippling which followed the forms of the objects. I like this because it supports the visual impression – compared to my own drawings where I often found parallel hatching very disturbing to a three-dimensional effect. Size difference serves to indicate distance, for example a fortress building (?) in the background. The library collection contained more engravings, for example ‘Madonna with a Dragonfly’ (undated). These also had the deep black line effect, but Dürer used lighter lines for elements very far away.
The Watermill (1495-97), pen & ink, gouache and watercolour on paper
There is not much differentiation in how elements of foreground and background are depicted, maybe this is because the image mainly consists of elements in the middle area. The sky is quite dramatically coloured, from darkest blue tone, and purple, to light rose and yellow.
View of Bergen op Zoom (1520), silverpoint on paper
This is a verso drawing, i.e. the back side of another work. The front side is ‘Portrait of a person in front of the Abbey of Saint-Michel d’Anvers’. The verso drawing is a view on a townscape with a hill in the foreground. There’s not much emphasis on distance. This drawing was made much later than others, maybe there was a change in style with the mature artist.
View of Kachreuth, near Nuremberg (1511), watercolour on paper
This is a view of a village in the foreground. There are huge black trees to the right, and woods and a hillside landscape in the background, with hills forming the horizon line. The drawing conveys much sense of space and distance. The houses in the foreground have some details indicated with light lines, towards middle and background the amount of detail decreases and the landscape is amainly depicted through colour. A few minor details in pkack are sufficient to establish the shape of hills, forests and fields. I’m very impressed that this painting is 500 years old. It’s also one of the later works by Dürer
View of Trente (1494), watercolour and gouache on paper
This one resembles other landscapes Dürer made in the earlier years. There is a somehow naïve approach, compared to the view on Bergen op Zoom. I’m not sure why this is. It may have to do with perspective and how later works appeared more clear and straightforward. This painting depicts distant elements with considerable detail, maybe this is why it appears “naïve”.
Claude Lorrain (1600 – 1682)
Claude Lorrain was a French painter, who lived around 100 years later than Dürer. Searching at Bridgeman education library yielded way too many hits to look at all of them. So I went through the first 20 or so pages and selected some which I found more closer to drawing than to painting.
Landscape (undated), pen and bistre and wash on paper
I recognized some of the topics that I encountered myself in my first attempts at landscape drawing, for example the question of how to treat tree foliage or other landscape detail.
This drawing has some buildings in the middle section, and a tree and three people in the foreground, and some distant hills. This gives much sense of space.
A view of lake Bracciano (c. 1638-39), pen & ink with wash on paper
This is a very soft and distant landscape drawing. The foreground is created by quick lines depicting some grass and a bush. The size difference to the small trees in the middle area estabishes spatial distance.
A road outside the walls of Rome (c. 1627-30), pen & ink and wash on paper
This drawing depicts a small road at the bottom of a hill, and there’s a house at the hight. I found it interesting because it was made in portrait format. Compared to other drawings, there’s a different type of distance emphasized – that of of a height distance between the road at the bottom and the house much higher. A tree connects the two main elements of the composition. Again the foreground is established by some grasses which are much larger than the grasses in the middle area.
Landscape with Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount (undated), pen & brown ink with grey wash on paper.
This one looks like a very classical landscape, with sheep and people in the foreground, some huge trees, a townscape further away and the sea with ships in the background. The trees are to the left and the right of the open view over the area and act like a frame for the more distant elements.
Wooded landscape (undated), pen & ink and wash on paper
This drawing shows a bridge and trees in the center, some cows in the foreground , and trees and a steep hill or stone cliff in the background. The trees are depicted with a few lines to indicate foliage, and the wash indicating tone, with some lighter and some darker trees. There are deep contrasts in this drawing, from very light brown tones to deep browns which are almost black. The drawing is a quick sketch, there is no meticulous work on details. I think this contributes to an impression of lightness and ease.
Lowry’s images of industrial life
Again I searched Bridgeman educational library. Since there was no first name given in the course materials, I only used the family name, which brought up quite a few different artists by the name of Lowry. So the first task was to determine which was the Lowry with images of industrial life!
A Google search brought up some articles and from skim-reading a few of them, I concluded the right one must be Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887 – 1976), a british artist who also worked as a rent collector. Having identified the artist, the most interesting source I found was the website of The Lowry, a charitable organization devoted to Lowry’s legacy. They present a large collection of works by the artist.
The river Irwell at the adelphy (undated) depicts a river and industry buildings to its side, with many chimneys and smoke. It looks like a pencil drawing, using a very soft grade, or maybe charcoal. For me, the black and white drawing perfectly conveys the atmosphere of environmental pollution through industrialization.
Bandstand, Peel Park, Salford (undated). This drawing depicts a park with an industrial landscape in the background, again with many chimneys and an effect of “gray air”.
I found only a few actual landscape drawings, but many oil paintings, and many townscapes. But the collection also presents some traditional landscape drawings, for example the Country road, which also looks like a pencil drawing. It depicts a road leading from the viewer away towards a distant forest. Very far in the background again some buildings and a chimney or high tower, maybe from a church. There is not much texture. Lowry seems to have focused on tonal values and simple shapes. He structured the large area of grassland with a few horizontally stretched marks.
Looking at the works by L. S. Lowry brings back to attention how much landscapes have changed through industrialization.
Concluding reflections
I wrote this article about a month after actually doing the image search and taking the notes presented above. In the meantime, I have had a go at all the exercises in this project. I think my understanding of landscape drawing has already improved a bit, and also my perception of landscape depictions has changed. I’m beginning to see a second level in them – not only what they depict, but also the techniques the artists used to solve certain problems.
For example, in my own attempts at depicting groups of trees at a distance, I was quite frustrated from the difficulties of not being able to create different tonal values and a light impression of texture with a pencil. Now looking again at Claude Lorrain’s method of using washes to create tone and combining these with light lines, I realize that using washes is a solution to overcome the limitations of a purely linear drawing tool. The insight seems to have come only after having tried myself, or maybe I had seen it already, but now I have a deeper understanding.
Times are changing
Another aspect is the different time period in which the three artists lived. They all depicted elements of the world in which they lived. They did this in different style – for example, I have the impression that Claude Lorrain was much more part of a distinct school with rules about the “correct” way to depict a landscape. By contrast, Dürer who worked much earlier may have been one of those who developed ways of depicting which were previously unknown. Similarly I see the works of Lowry as much more independent in style and outside of established schools than those of Lorraine.
And then there’s industrialization. Maybe Dürer would have depicted factories if they had been in his world, but there weren’t any in the medieval age. By contrast, they were in Lowry’s world, and he included them in his works and even made them central elements. It was the ‘Edgelands’ article on the ‘We are OCA’ website which made me aware that my understanding of landscape drawing was one which avoided industrialization and urbanization. For me, a landscape with a factory, modern houses, roads, bridges etc tends to be spoiled and I would change my viewpoint to have them outside the composition. My understanding of landscape would welcome civilization in its more ancient forms of old wooden bridges, farm houses, fences around a meadow to keep the cows from running away, etc. – briefly, trying to depict a world how it may have looked in pre-industrial times.
At the same time, I do see the beauty in modern architecture, and I even like it in its rotten form like when formerly modern constructions have become edgelands. The concept of townscape as a contrast to landscape was new to me. Thinking about it, my concept of landscape is beginning to change, or maybe I’m just beginning to question what I have taken for granted until now.
Time spent researching
When I did this research, I was a bit worried because I spent so much time on looking at the artists work. And again much time was necessary to bring my thougths and observations into this form. I could easily spend all the time I allocated for coursework with research on artists – but this is not why I’m on this course! So it’s also an art of finding a balance between researching what other artists have done, and pursuing one’s own practical work. But I’m beginning to appreciate what I can learn from looking at other artists.
References
Bridgeman Education
http://www.bridgemaneducation.com/
Wikipedia article: Laurence Stephen Lowry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._S._Lowry
The Lowry Art & Entertainment, Collection of Lowry’s works
http://www.thelowry.com/ls-lowry/the-ls-lowry-collection/
The Lowry, selection of works depicting places – many drawings
http://www.thelowry.com/gallery/work-by-ls-lowry-places
We are OCA article about Edgelands
http://www.weareoca.com/photography/edgelands/