/REALIST_LANDSCAPES_INVITATION

Realist Landscapes 4 - 30 June 2012

Realist Landscapes www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/realistlandscapes

Rebecca Collins John Gardiner Crawford Masayuki Hara Fred Schley Realism, as it describes the Nineteenth Century School of artists, which included Courbet and Millet, implies painting which engages with the harsh reality of working life, often in a rural setting. Now more commonly realism is understood to be the opposite of abstract painting; a corrective without relevance in an era before Kandinsky and Malevich. Today we recognise that our greatest landscape painters are not obliged to paint a horizon, or place a tree in the foreground for its repoussoire effect. But these artists are united in painting the experience of what they see, which may be more, or less realistic.

Front cover: John Gardiner Crawford Quiet Water watercolour 36 x 54 cms Left: Masayuki Hara Manor House 2012 oil on board 60.8 x 91.2 cms Right: Rebecca Collins The Five Sisters oil on canvas 80 x 55.5 cms

All painters edit the natural world they observe, unable and unwilling to paint every blade of grass (to paraphrase Ruskin’s exhortation to his Pre-Raphaelite acolytes). It is no coincidence that the greatest landscape photographers, like Anselm Adams, are masters of light and drama but their greatest images are also homage to the extraordinary in nature. The decision of what to paint becomes of paramount importance for the realist. Fred Schley’s Orkney carries all the majesty that a Romantic poet could bring to bear. John Gardiner Crawford’s credentials as a painter of detail are unparalleled but he chooses to paint enigmas: a limekiln over a turbid sea which looks like a Moorish fort or here a little boat hangs under the canopy of a river bank while a reflected moon ripples in mid-stream. Rebecca Collins takes us back to the romanticism and awe of the mountains but her reality is more suggestion: veils and cloud swirl to reveal the vision. Masayuki Hara’s Manor House depicts a frozen moment as if breath is held while memory is made.

Left: Fred Schley Rackwick Cliffs, Hoy, Orkney oil on canvas 120 x 100 cms Right: John Gardiner Crawford Floating Moon watercolour 36 x 54 cms

The Scottish Gallery June Exhibitions 4 – 30 June Private View Saturday 2nd June 11am – 2pm Works are for sale on receipt of this invitation Exhibitions can be viewed online: www.scottish-gallery.co.uk

The Michie Family Realist Landscapes Hans Vangsø Siân Matthews Left: Masayuki Hara Mailbox oil on board 80.4 x 60.4 cms Right: Rebecca Collins Towards Cluanie oil on canvas 45.5 x 70 cms Back cover: Fred Schley Sgurr Dearg, The In Pinn, Skye oil on canvas 65 x 90 cms

16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6HZ Tel 0131 558 1200 Email mail@scottish-gallery.co.uk Web www.scottish-gallery.co.uk

THESCOTTISHGALLERY CONTEMPORARY ART SINCE 1842