KURT JACKSON

A new book about the British landscape painter Kurt Jackson (b. 1961).

This new hardback edition includes many new illustrations. including photographs taken for this new edition. The text has been completely updated.

EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4:

One of Kurt Jackson s appealing concepts is that the ocean is one of the last true wildernesses left on the planet. It s an idea that I found very interesting when he explained it to me when we first met in St Just. I took it that he meant a spiritual as well as an ecological or natural wilderness. Jackson s art can thus be seen as an art that is the border region between humanity and nature, between culture and nature, as well as literally tackling that area the coast which is neither land nor sea.

Note that Kurt Jackson is always facing outwards from the land, and looking towards the ocean, not painting with his back to the sea, and looking towards the land (and notice that the many boats and ships and helicopters and such in this area are left out of the paintings, too).

So Jackson s Porth series, about Priest Cove, and all of his sea paintings, are very important in his art in articulating this idea of the ocean as the last wilderness. Have you ever wondered what s out there? is a question that Kurt Jackson asks (it s the title of one of his major paintings, too the centrepiece of the Porth series).

Jackson has repeated the question over a number of related works: the title of two 2004 pieces is The Last Wilderness In Western Europe? This was painted on Jura (in Scotland), and both pictures are consciously emptied of human marks just empty moorland and a delicate blue sky. An earlier picture, part of the Cape series, was entitled Do You Ever Wonder What s Out There? (1999) an unusual composition in the Jackson oeuvre which puts the horizon very high, and focusses on the dark blue ocean flecked with white spray.

Kurt Jackson isn t that interested in many of the connotations of the ocean the moon, time, goddesses, rebirth (though moons do appear in his art from time to time). He s not really interested in religious or pagan or magical symbols in that way. And he s not that interested in shipping, fishing, and all things maritime, like J.M.W. Turner was.

But when Jackson asks a question like have you ever wondered what s out there?, and considers the sea as one of the last wildernesses, that alters the interpretation of his sea paintings. It doesn t apply to all of them, though: in plenty of paintings (and not only the smaller or more modest ones), Jackson is not thinking in terms of big themes. But when he titles a painting Have You Ever Wondered What s Out There? (and writes the title in big letters across the painting), it s clearly intended to resonate in the viewer at a deeper level.

Providing a detailed annotated bibliography and research guide to the Stieglitz Circle and four of its leading members--Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Max Weber--this new sourcebook offers a chapter on each of the four artists. Complete with biographical essay and guides to writings, statements, correspondence, books, articles, reviews, reference sources, and archival sources, each artist's chapter gives the researcher an exhaustive catalogue of relevant material.

The only such annotated sourcebook currently available on the Stieglitz Circle, R. Scott Harnsberger's work offers lists of annotated reproductions of each artist's works, keyed to over 600 source volumes not mentioned elsewhere in the volume, including catalogues of museums, galleries, private collections, thematic exhibitions, and auction firms.

Sunday Times Art Book of the Year 2018 'If you are interested in modern British art, the book is unputdownable. If you are not, read it.' - Grey Gowrie, Financial Times 'All the good stories, and more, are here ... this is a genuinely encyclopaedic work, unlike anything else I have come across on the topic, informed by a deep love and understanding of modern painting. Everybody interested in the subject should read it.' - Andrew Marr, Sunday Times A masterfully narrated account of painting in London from the Second World War to the 1970s, illustrated throughout with documentary photographs and works of art The development of painting in London from the Second World War to the 1970s is the story of interlinking friendships, shared experiences and artistic concerns among a number of acclaimed artists, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, David Hockney, Bridget Riley, Gillian Ayres, Frank Bowling and Howard Hodgkin. Drawing on extensive first-hand interviews, many previously unpublished, with important witnesses and participants, the art critic Martin Gayford teases out the thread connecting these individual lives, and demonstrates how painting thrived in London against the backdrop of Soho bohemia in the 1940s and 1950s and 'Swinging London' in the 1960s. He shows how, influenced by such different teachers as David Bomberg and William Coldstream, and aware of the work of contemporaries such as Jackson Pollock as well as the traditions of Western art from Piero della Francesca to Picasso and Matisse, the postwar painters were allied in their confidence that this ancient medium, in opposition to photography and other media, could do fresh and marvellous things. They asked the question 'what can painting do?' and explored in their diverse ways, but with equal passion, the possibilities of paint.

How to Read Paintings is a valuable visual guide to Western European painting. Through a gallery of artworks accompanied by informative commentary, it enables readers to swiftly develop their understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of painting, and to discover how to look at diverse paintings in detail, closely reading their meanings and methods. In the first part of the book, the Grammar of Paintings, the author reveals how to read paintings by considering five key areas: shape and support, medium and materials, composition, style and technique, and signs and symbols, as well as the role of the artist. In the second part, we explore fifty paintings through extracted details, accompanied by insightful commentary, training the reader and viewer to understand context and discover meaning within art. As a collection, the pictures featured in How to Read Paintings have a strong relationship with one another, and underpin the story of painting. This book will be a valuable tool whether you are viewing the real thing on a gallery wall, or simply reading around the subject to learn more about Western art.

Keep the page in your book with this gorgeous pack of 10 foiled bookmarks, printed on both sides, with a silky ribbon and featuring artwork by Vincent van Gogh. In a letter to his sister Wilhemina, Van Gogh wrote: 'Often it seems to me night is even more richly coloured than day.' In this night painting, the sky is Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt, with sparkling yellow gaslights and stars. The spot depicted is in Arles, close to the Yellow House he famously rented.

This volume commemorates the 100th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's death. Major van Gogh scholars present essays that reexamine the painter's place in the art world of his time, the phenomenal growth in his reputation, and his influence on later art movements and individual artists. At the time of his death and for some years after, there was a question as to whether van Gogh's approach would gain recognition. Today, he is seen as one of the most popular and recognized of the world's artists, and his impact on 20th-century art is unquestioned. How and why this occurred is a major theme throughout this essay collection.

Among the topics examined are iconography; van Gogh's poetry as well as the literature that influenced him and that he, in turn, influenced; psychological and religious aspects of van Gogh's painting and self-imaging; and how van Gogh has been interpreted. A section on his legacy in art concludes this major reassessment of van Gogh's place in art history. An important collection for art scholars and researchers as well as public library patrons.

Keep the page in your book with this gorgeous pack of 10 foiled bookmarks, printed on both sides, with a silky ribbon and featuring artwork by Vincent van Gogh. In this painting the brightly lit cafe radiates with warmth and inviting light, becoming a beacon of yellow set against the rich, dark blue of a night sky, which in turn is illuminated by myriad bright stars. Van Gogh attached the colour yellow to feelings of religious inspiration, light and happiness.

This reference provides biographical, historical, and critical information on Neo-Impressionist painting and its most significant painters. Neo-Impressionism, also called Divisionism and Pointillism, was one of the most innovative and startling late 19th-century French avant-garde styles. Over 2,000 books, articles, manuscripts, and audiovisual materials as well as chronologies, biographical sketches, and exhibition lists are cited. Also provided are both primary and secondary bibliographies for each artist. Secondary bibliographies capture details about each artist's life and career, relationships with other artists, work in various media, iconography, critical reception and interpretation, archival sources and more.

Art scholars will appreciate the comprehensive bibliographic research contained in this one volume. Entries on Neo-Impressionism in general, on exhibitions, and the primary and secondary bibliographies of artists follow an introduction about Neo-Impressionism and a Neo-Impressionism chronology that spans the years 1881 to 1905. An index of art works and an index of personal names complete the volume.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

A fully illustrated survey of Early Netherlandish painting, featuring all of the major artists, and many lesser-known painters.

Early Netherlandish painting, also known as Flemish painting, is characterized by figurative realism, its incredible sense of domestic interiors and details, luminous light, its realist faces, and its fusions of a micro- and macro- cosmic vision.

We concentrate here on painters such as Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464), Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441, commonly described as the founder of modern oil painting), Gerard David (c. 1460-1523), Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482), Hans Memling (1433-1494), Joos van Cleve (c. 1485-1540), Jan Gossaert, also called Mabuse (c. 1475/8-1532), Geertgen tot Sint Jans (fl. late 15th 1485/ 95), Quentin Massys (c. 1465-1530), Joachim Patinir (c. 1485-1524), Dieric Bouts (c. 1415-1475), Petrus Christus (fl. 1442-1473) and Bernard van Orley (c. 1488-1541).

One of the most celebrated aspects of Early Netherlandish or Flemish painting is its heartfelt, intense religious emotion. It is this aspect that interests us in this book. The new aesthetic vision of Early Netherlandish art was later applied to still life paintings, satires, landscapes, and portraits, but it is the religious works with which we are concentrating on here. Michelangelos famous statement about Early Netherlandish art pinpoints the depth of devout feeling found in so much of Northern European art:

Flemish painting will, generally speaking, please the devout better than any painting in Italy, which will never cause him to shed a tear, whereas that of Flanders will cause him to shed many...

The new vision of Northern European painting which flourished in the 15th century was a combination of a new aesthetic approach to reality, and an intensifying of religious fervour. The new vision aimed at sculptural accuracy, a naturalistic use of lighting, and three-dimensionality. Mixed with the new use of oil paint, the new vision gave the art of Philip the Goods reign a special flavour and style well suited to the circumscription of devout religious truths. The new painting inherited its jewel-like brilliancy partly because many painters were trained as goldsmiths. This skilled handling of metalwork and miniature illustration shows in Early Netherlandish art.

All Early Netherlandish paintings were made on wood panels, and painted from light to dark in thin glazes. It is partly this subtle glazing which gives Early Netherlandish painting its glorious luminescence. The Early Netherlandish artists exploited the effects of different hues and thicknesses of glazes of oil paint, controlling how the glazes reflected light.