This is a handsome large format soft back volume ( 280cm x 240 cm) in full colour throughout. The 130 or so paintings illustrated show examples of the artist’s work in oils chronologically for the period 1987 to 2008. At the back of the book is a page of quotations from Nick Schlee that give illuminating insight into his working practice and approach to painting. The book includes several of his large pairs of pictures that share different sections of the same subject but which overlap in the middle. Schlee’s idea is that both the left and right portions of a landscape painting should be capable of standing as satisfactory compositions on their own. Hanging together with a small gap between them encourages the onlooker to explore each separately and, crossing over the gap, to see a much larger picture of the whole subject. This ‘Audience participation’ encourages the eye to enjoy an increased visual excitement. The plates include several examples of his pictures of the wreck of the Brighton West Pier before and after its destruction. Many examples of the dramatic landscape along the Ridgeway in West Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire with the White Horse at Uffington and the Avebury stones included together with a selection of his pictures of the Thames which record its progress from source to London. This is a book for people who appreciate strong, dynamic and evocative paintings of the countryside.
Academy Press £25 inc p&p
