Laing Art Gallery

Weather and light fascinated many landscape artists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Artists like Alfred East and Tom Mostyn took sketching easels into the countryside, recording sun filtering through foliage and sparkling on water. In contrast, Albert Goodwin explored the subtle variations of sun veiled by mist in his picture of Durham Cathedral above the river.

As well as the visual effects of weather, artists hoped to capture its sensations. The blustery energy of wind-blown clouds features in Charles Napier Hemy’s Through Sea and Air. Blazing heat beats down on Duncan Grant’s vineyard landscape, while the coolness of shade on a sunny day characterises other scenes. David Bomberg expressed his sense of emotional connection to landscape in a view of Bideford Bay, where the setting sun and threatening clouds combine to create richly dramatic colour. Similarly, Winifred Nicholson’s ebullient use of bright colour conveys the uplifting feeling she experienced in the landscape of her country home.

The exhibition also includes David Young Cameron’s huge and sombrely beautiful Highland landscape, as well as pictures by Alfred de Bréanski, local artist JF Slater, and many other landscape painters.

You can read about the installation of this exhibition in this blog post by Sarah Richardson, Keeper of Art at the Laing.