A Dose of the Picturesque. Alej ez & Dee Ferris
I have been invited to put and exhibition with my artist friend Dee Ferris at the the Grange Gallery in Rottingdean.
13th to 24th November 2024
Artist Conversation Event Sat 14th 12:30 pm
Exhibition statement
A dose of the picturesque, an exhibition that questions the romantic theme of the picture perfect natural world, how this matters now more than ever, a conversational show between Alej ez and Dee Ferris.
‘I assure you I sometimes long for a proper spot to write to you in, as I like a dose of the picturesque in my letters.’- Excerpt John Keats’ letter to Tom Keats, 27 January 1818.
Limited edition digital pigment print by alej ez.
Picturesque
In the second half of the eighteenth century, liking for landscape painting and for looking at the land itself grew quickly. Thoughts about kinds of landscapes or views, seen from a lovely or artful point of view, followed. At one end was the awe-inspiring (fearsome sights such as great mountains); at the other, the fair, the most calm, even pretty sights. In between came the picturesque, views seen as being artful but having bits of wildness or unevenness.
The word “picturesque” means a kind of landscape that looks like art, being fair but also with some bits of wildness. The thought of the picturesque was made by writers William Gilpin (Writings on the River Wye 1770) and Uvedale Price, who in 1794 brought out “An Essay on the Picturesque as Set Against the Awe-Inspiring and Fair.” (Tate Website source)