Nocturnes
On the advice of the painting tutor at Norfolk Painting School, I’ve made a couple of studies of paintings that I find interesting. The aim of these is to learn processes and techniques to inform my practice. Often such work can add additional forking paths to one’s practice-garden.
The first choice was a Corot, I chose this painting to consolidate my learning in painting original nocturnes, based on imaginary landscapes with empty chairs. The Corot chimes well with the Gothic of the time. The image is part of a triptych – a landscape in the light of different times of the day. The three together are oriented as landscape ratio, but individually are vertical in format. As mentioned elsewhere verticality works well with the vertiginousness that Folk Horror seeks to bring. In addition, the image is a romance with Northern Italy, painted around the same time as the early Gothic novel was hitting the streets. Both are informed by Romanticism and the sublime. I am reminded very much of the setting of Anne Radcliffe’s novel The Mysteries of Uldolpho – which is strongly informed by ‘travelogue’ mechanics but romancing the gothic sublime in the crags and mountains of Northern Italy.
Iteration 2. getting the rheology of the glaze right.
Iteration 3 to follow….
The second painting that I copied is by JW Waterhouse. It is called The Magic Circle. It draws on the figure of Medea, famous for murdering her own children and a magical practitioner. I copied this one to understand better the preRaphaelite method, although I chose to use a more modern approach using bridging lines and a fresher approach to the brushstroke – this time not sticking with the smooth blended and meticulous application of paint.
Tanya Krzywinska Art Blog 