| The Nicholas Jones Collection - |
||||||||
|
Nicholas Jones is among those who believe it is still possible to say something meaningful and exciting by applying paint to canvas. Braver still, he chooses to work within the long tradition of landscape painting that has flourished with particular vigour in recent times. True, his landscapes are largely abstracted. Yet there is in them the same identification with the spirit of place that permeates the great line of English landscapists, from the Norfolk school through Turner and Samuel Palmer to Paul Nash and the neo-Romanticists led by Graham Sutherland, and some members of the St. Ives School, notably Peter Lanyon. To this Pantheon he would add as influential factors the great and gloomy German master, Caspar David Friedrich, Japanese prints of the landscape genre, and Chinese calligraphy.
One of the joys of abstracted landscapes is that they combine the highly subjective aesthetic and sensory appeal of pure abstract painting with the emotional appeal of more figurative landscape painting. Here are juxtapositions and gradations of tones to delight the eye, and texture of great subtlety. Here too is a whole world of nature, of hills, mountains, skies, water, trees, meadows and, above all, of light. Little wonder that Nicholas finds painting exciting. “Its like going on a journey when you don’t know what you will discover,” he says. Looking at what he has brought back from these journeys, it is our pleasure to share that excitement.
|
|||||||