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Inspiration from Artists Week 34 : John Piper and Terence Clarke.
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Message
Posted
Welcome to week 34 of Inspiration from Artists this weeks Featuring Artists are John Piper and Terence Clarke . Alan will open with his introduction to John Piper and on Wednesday it will be Terence Clark , I have unfortunately missed the name of the person who recommend Terence . My apologies it been on of those weeks .
I have the initial J or LH as recommending .
Have a good week and enjoy the artwork.
Posted
John Egerton Christmas Piper (1903 – 1992) was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained-glass windows. His work often focused on the British landscape. North Wales was a favourite place, often capturing the rugged landscape, and especially churches and monuments. He studied at the Royal College of Art in London.
Piper was an official war artist in World War 11 and his wartime depictions of bomb-damaged churches and landmarks, most notably those of Coventry Cathedral are well documented.
In his later years he produced many limited edition prints which are very collectible and fetch large sums of money.
There are some interesting books about his life and works, I’ve got a couple of them and some editions are becoming very collectible hence expensive!
Posted
There's a short video on Piper's work on painting Stowe gardens on Youtube: https://youtu.be/FRlmqSk8bdw which I found interesting because I lived close to Stowe back in 1986 apparently while he was working there. He was fascinated by Stowe and its decay before the National Trust 'saved' it - the follies were much more fun to discover. I really like his work - thanks for the intro Alan.
Posted
I admire much of John Piper's work, he's one of those artists who manages to be inventive whilst still retaining much of his subject's form...not easy.
However some of it leaves me cold...the third painting down in Alan's first selection hardly seems to be by the same artist. An opinion. Oddly, my first introduction to him was the design for a coffee table-top. Back then it seemed very modern and exciting.
So, for me, a fine innovative artist, apart from the odd painting that I don't like. (Pretty much how I feel about most artists I admire.)
Posted
I'd agree, there are a lot of styles on display here. He lived a long time and through many art currents and it would be natural to expect these to have had some influence on his own work. It would be interesting to see the dates of these paintings. Or it could be fun to guess... The third one posted by Paul has a bit of Kandinsky about it. Although far from as detailed as some of the others (and not being a big fan of overly-representational art), I do like the first one Alan posted simply because the colours work well and the semi-abstractness leaves some work for a viewer's imagination. Intriguing to see if this is a very early work that gave way to a more draughtsperson-like style, or vice versa.
Posted
I have the initial J or LH as recommending .If by LH you are referring to me, no, I didn't recommend Terence Clarke. I recommended Roy Lichtenstein. I can't say I enjoy John Piper's styles, but I understand the importance of his paintings in the historical context. I also like the fact that he did not care about the established tradition we see being preached everywhere that an artist has to stick to one single style in order to make it big on the art scene. Nevertheless, the foreboding feeling that permeates his body of work is too much for me. He is one of those artists whose skills I acknowledge and respect, but whose works are not something I would purchase. I spent a while looking at his paintings online and couldn't really find any that I could call beautiful. This one came close to decent:
Edited
by Lucian Hodoboc