Wednesday 5 December 2012

Name That Painting...

Here's Naomie Harris as Miss Moneypenny in Skyfall.

You'll notice that there's a rather nice landscape painting on the wall behind her.


There seems to be a great deal of significance to the paintings in this film, so has anyone got any ideas what it is and who it's by?  

Here's a rather blurry close-up...

 

This is only half of it, unfortunately, as the delightful Miss M inconveniently has her head over the right hand part.  (However,  I had a look at another still in a book of Skyfall in a bookshop yesterday, and the right hand side just shows a dark, round tree and a bit more of the river.)

So - calling all you Art History buffs - any ideas?  Or has anyone got any better stills of this?

Those look like rather Italianate cypress trees and a little temple.  It's a very flat 19th century-looking landscape with nice Constable-like clouds, but it doesn't look very English. What place has a flat meandering river like that?  It is a foreign scene, or an English country estate in the Italian style?

Constable has been suggested to me, so have a look for comparison at this view of Weymouth by Constable in the Louvre.  This is the nearest I could find in terms of the clouds and the colouring (though not the subject) by Constable to Miss M's painting - I was looking especially at that peachy-orangey section. However, you'll see Constable has a more rugged, impressionistic handling of the paint.


So, any ideas?

I look forward to your suggestions!

UPDATE:  Thanks to an alert reader, here's the ANSWER.

3 comments:

  1. I have to admit, I only notice Naomie Harris.

    Are you sure there's something else in that picture besodes her? ;-)

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  2. It's by James Isaiah Lewis.
    Titled "View down over Ham Fields from the Top of Richmond Hill, Surrey"

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    Replies
    1. Woo-hooh!!

      Very well done and thank you Mr/Ms Bearhugsuk. You are indeed correct, and I am eternally grateful!

      Lewis isn't an artist that I'm familiar with, and I had in fact trawled the 'Your Paintings' website to no avail already - I'd thought perhaps Hampstead Heath? But no, it' s Richmond Hill. Well done!

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