Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Hans Gude in Britain

Norwegian landscape painter Hans Gude (1825-1903) wanted his work to be better represented in the British art market, so he went to to England, Scotland, and Wales to paint there. 

Hans Gude, Scotland, 1889

He noticed a different approach to plein-air work among British painters. 

Hans Gude, Fresh Breeze off the Norwegian Coast

Among Scandinavian painters in the 1850s, most artists made plein-air paintings on location and then brought the studies back to the studio, where they used them as reference for their larger studio works. 

He noted the practice was different in England, where artists would often paint finished works on location. He wrote: "My English stay was of great benefit to me in that I freed myself from many of the prevailing studio maxims by being alone and in a landscape so new to me that it forced me to observe more keenly."
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Hans Gude on Wikipedia

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You find some really great but obscure artists. Where do you find all that information about them?

Bill Marshall said...

Thanks James!
In my view, he painted some of the most naturalistic skies of any artist past or present. Quite an accomplishment for either on site, or studio painting. Makes me wonder if he painted the rapidly changing sky first when on location, and then used that to dictate the light affects for the rest of the work.

Bill Marshall