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Michael K. Fell's avatar

The doors of perception lead to the pastoral landscapes of our mind. I am in awe of an impressive city skyline, but I always return to the glorious majesty of Mother Earth - the greatest artist of them all.  

When I lived in London, I spent many hours in the Clore gallery portion of Tate Britain, housing the ever-rotating display of Turner paintings. Paul Cezanne is often called the father of modern and abstract art, but in my opinion - it is J.M.W. Turner. So often, his paintings are expressive movements of intense gestural mark-making and color with only the smallest detail that grounds it. Perhaps it is a ship, a figure, or an architectural structure. Often insignificant in the grand scale of what else is happening. Turner's tumultuous skies cast beams of light and shards of color throughout the canvas, capturing the ever-changing English sky better than most. 

I would like to add the incredible paintings of another Englishman, John Virtue. His massive canvases echo the heavy expressiveness of Turner, yet he does it in black and white. They are suffocating and weighty, but so is the sky on that densely populated island floating in the cold, windy, and stormy North Sea. 

As always, this was a delight to read, Deborah. Thank you.

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Russell C. Smith's avatar

I love Prendergast. This one I've never seen before. He's in The Met, so I would've seen him that way, but I'm sure I first saw him in art books. Another watercolorist I enjoy, who painted landscapes, but with a more abstract and modernist look is John Marin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marin

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