Nick Schlee
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    • Galleries
      • Drawing to Painting
      • Abstractions
      • Three aspects of a landscape
      • The Excited Line
      • A Scroll in the Country
      • Basildon Park
      • Bridging the gap
      • A walk in the country
      • Avebury and Ridgeway
      • Brighton Piers
      • Ridgeway Landscapes 1991 - 2006
      • Thames Paintings
      • Book 1 - Paintings 1987-2008
      • Book 2 - Drawings from 1958- 2010
      • Book 3 - Drawings to Painting
      • Book 4 - Abstractions

A walk in the country

When you stop walking and pause to look at the
countryside around you it is difficult to find one 
particular section of the view that typifies the 
whole. On the Ridgeway it is the sweep of eyes 
across the distance that excites and astonishes. 
It is the physical need to move the eyes across 
the terrain and the sky rather than concentrating 
on one area that gives the thrill. 

The painters problem is how to capture that 
experience in a picture. So often the visual 
interest, the elements of pattern and contrast lie
in the distance and not in the immediate 
foreground and it is difficult to find a solution 
to accommodate this fact. Painters in the past 
have often cast a strong shadow across their 
foregrounds forcing the viewer to ignore it and 
concentrate on the view from the middle 
ground. 

Another solution is to confine the picture to a 
close-up of the distance where the pattern and 
colour is strong enough to give a strong 
structure to the painting. It is as if one was 
studying the distance through binoculars. The 
result is to put the viewer in mid air as though 
in a low flying hot air balloon. You seem 
magically transported straight to the area of 
interest. At the same time your eye for detail 
and contrasts are heightened by the very fact 
you can concentrate your understanding of 
how this distant landscape works because 
there is no need to explain the space between 
where you are standing and where your eyes 
are looking. It is an uneasy experience. 

Nick Schlee, 2010
  • Tree and yellow combine
  • Green wheat with distance (left and right)
  • Stubble field and new wheat (left and right)
  • Square field (left and right)
  • Dark sky and straw
  • Barn at late evening
  • Green trees with shadows
  • House and park
  • Two bright clouds
  • Wheat fields and tree
  • Looking south over corn
  • Track into wheat
  • Corn on the Ridgeway
  • White cloud behind trees
  • Bright sky and green fields
  • Stubble field and new wheat
  • Green wheat with distance
  • Dark ploughed hill and bales

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