A selection of sky-rich oil sketches made in the Roman Campagna during the first half of the 19th century.
landscape
The figure appears in later landscapes, including one by Martín Rico, and a pastel by Millet, before being radically revised by Ferdinand Hodler.
The wanderer with his back to the viewer takes on new life with Thomas Fearnley. Is he the artist’s alter ego?
Wanderers, wayfarers and pilgrims have walked across continents in search of wisdom, spiritual enlightenment, or a bite to eat and sheltered sleep.
He didn’t ‘sky’ like Constable, but did make innovative studies of skies on the coast. Paintings a good 30-40 years ahead of his time.
On returning from Australia and New Zealand, he painted commissions for Queen Victoria of state occasions, before going back to views of New Zealand.
Between about 1814 and 1836, Constable painted many fine skyscapes, and in the 1820s indulged in ‘skying’, oil sketches of the sky above him.
Swiss, born in Russia, settled in Britain after training in Germany, painted landscapes of Australia and New Zealand.
Innovation moved to the countryside around Rome, with Joseph Vernet, and Valenciennes, who prescribed skying in his textbook on landscape painting.
Early landscapes constrained the sky to a backdrop. With Rubens and the Golden Age landscape painters it became the subject in its own right.
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