DURING the miseries of the pandemic, it has been particularly cheering to be reminded of Nature’s immunity to such minor distractions as human diseases. As David Hockney pointed out during the first lockdown, ‘do remember they can’t cancel the spring’, a fact triumphantly demonstrated in his recent Royal Academy exhibition celebrating the arrival of spring 2020 in his Normandy garden (Artist of the week, April 7). Indeed, Mr Hockney is not the only contemporary artist whose latest work is full of the joys of spring. Damien Hirst has also embraced the vernal spirit of renewal in a new series of cherry blossom paintings that was recently unveiled at the Fondation Cartier in Paris.
If it took lockdown to make the former bad boy of Britart fall in love with Nature, other artists haven’t needed that stimulus. Over recent decades, a number of contemporary painters have been drawn back to that most British of landscape subjects, trees— and not only in springtime.
Aware of this growing trend, in 2013, the artist Tim Craven, then curator of Southampton City Art Gallery, co-curated ‘Under the Greenwood’, a two-part exhibition of British tree paintings, past and present, at the St Barbe Art Gallery & Museum in Lymington, Hampshire. The contemporary part was such a success with the public that Mr Craven asked the 35 contributors if they would like to join him in forming a tree painting group.
Denne historien er fra September 29, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 29, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds