Latest paintings...

Farm Cottage with Harebells, Northern Ireland (Oil on linen, 32 x 32)

Latest paintings...

Here's some more from the studio.

This one is of the Peak District, near Castleton in Derbyshire.

Farmland, the Peak District (Oil on linen, 24 x 26)

The second is of the white sands at Morar.   

If you park the car at this car-park here, you can walk down to the right to the sands following a burn, which flows past sand dunes out to the sea.  

This is the point where you come out of the dunes onto the beach, and the riverwater meets the seawater.

Burn Meets the Sea, Morar (Oil on linen, 24 x 26)

The Last Leg...

I'm now (hopefully) on the last leg of work for the big consignment to London.

Here's a couple of new paintings.

The first is a night scene along the Thames of Tower Bridge - it was freezing, but the water was glittering and there was a moon shining.

Barges by Tower Bridge at Night (Oil, 10 x 10)

The next is a big contrast,  a big, bright,  expansive view out to the Hebrides from the beaches at Morar.  Quite a contrast to urban London.  However, I want my solo show to have lots of contrasts and surprises, as well as the familiar.

Heather on Rocks, Morar (Oil on linen, 20 x 20)

 All the paintings are fuelled by this.  Well, you've got to have some motivation.

 

Because there's nothing quite like a Tunnocks teacake.  

People of the world, if you've never had one, you're missing out.  I'm sure many artistic tragedies and mishaps would have been avoided if temperamental artists throughout history had just sat down with a cup of tea, cracked open a nice box of teacakes, and had a bit of a sugar rush in the afternoon.

Today's Painting from the Studio...

Catbells through the Trees, Keswick (Oil on linen, 20 x 20)

This painting is of the peak called Catbells, which is across the water from Keswick in the Lake District.

If you walk along the path by the lake to the promentary of land at the end, then you get this view of Catbells through the trees and gorse.

(Keswick is, of course, home to the famous Pencil Museum - 'home of the world's first pencil'.  )

Skyfall and the Painting in M's Office

Following on from my blogs about the paintings in the new Bond film Skyfall, I've been asked what the painting is in the final scenes where (not giving any spoilers away) Bond receives his new assignment in M's office.

Prominently between the two characters is a painting on the wall.   As you 'read' the scene between the two characters who book-end the shot, you 'read' across the painting.

Here it is close up (rather blurry, sorry)...

It's HMS “Victory” Heavily Engaged at the Battle of Trafalgar, possibly by Thomas Buttersworth (although there are a number of similar versions by both Buttersworth and other marine artists).

Thomas Buttersworth, H.M.S. “Victory” heavily engaged at the battle of Trafalgar, 1825

Anyway, the important thing is that it's the Battle of Trafalgar.  Given that the paintings in the film have been full of significance, what's the meaning of this painting in the context of a James Bond film?

Skyfall uses the metaphor of Bond as an old warship who is past his prime and no longer needed, through the medium of a Turner painting, The Fighting Temeraire.  Turner's painting, with its sunset and reflections, evokes a feeling of sadness and loss at the passing of an era (here specifically of Britain's naval supremacy), which is in turn applied to middle-aged Bond.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839

Read about the scene in the National Gallery in front of Turner's The Fighting Temeraire here and  here.

So  what about the painting which the film ends with, showing the Battle of Trafalgar?

The story of the battle is that, after a lengthy and frustrating chase across the Atlantic and back, Lord Nelson finally confronted the Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar on the morning of 21st October 1805. Outnumbered, Nelson thought up an unconventional plan to break the enemy line in two places.  Carnage ensued.  At the height of the battle, a French sharp-shooter, taking aim from the mizzentop of the Redoubtable,  hit the heroic Nelson.  This is the moment captured in the painting.   Nelson was carried, wounded, below decks.  However, he lived to hear that it was a convincing British victory, with the surviving Franco-Spanish ships fleeing to Cadiz.

Skyfall is full of flag-waving Britishness.  It's Bond as a British icon, established for 50 years.  Just as Turner's The Fighting Temeraire was voted 'The Nation's Favourite Painting', so Bond is the nation's favourite spy, in this case overcoming the baddie, Silva, played by a Spanish actor.  The Battle of Trafalgar is the quintessential British victory, with Nelson overcoming the Franco-Spanish fleet by means of a nifty new manoevre, splitting them up and picking them off. 

Bond may initially be likened to the Temeraire being towed to the scrapyard. However, by the end of Skyfall, when he receives his new orders, the story arc is such that Bond has been reborn, rejuvinated.

Now, here's the clever bit with the painting in M's office..

Is this painting therefore telling you how to interpret the battle at Skyfall (the house)?  It's actually the Battle of Trafalgar - where, against the odds, resourcefulness and unconventional tactics lead to a great British victory.  That reading would even suggest that M is a Nelson figure - think of her final scene, and the parallels with Nelson (even down to the kiss).  

But perhaps the most interesting parallel is that when Nelson led HMS Victory to engage the enemy at the Battle of Trafalgar, right behind him was (wait for it) the “Temeraire”.  That's the same Temeraire that Turner painted, and which appears earlier in the film.  But now we see it in its youthful heyday, rejuvinated, reborn, back in the thick of the action, literally right behind British Victory.  

Now there's a mission statement for the next Bond film!

Of course, the reason that there's paintings of ships and sea references at all in M's office is a reference to Dr No of 1962.

Take a look here at M's office.

M's office is full of ship paintings, models, and naval references such as telescopes.  Have a look at the drawings behind Bernard Lee here.

And also behind Sean Connery here.

Fleming himself occasionally referenced M's career in the British Navy, so it's not mere set-decorating by the film-makers.  

The fact that it's a reference in Skyfall which is then extended and developed into the meaning of the film itself is a nice touch for film fans in the franchise's fiftieth anniversary year.

You might also be interested in this blog on the painting in M's office in Skyfall HERE.

Endangered Species

How do you like this?  

Any ideas as to which artist created it?

Here's a clue.  It's just been sold at auction in New York for $1.2 million.

Here's another.  

It sold for $842,500.  And then there's this, a snip at $266,500...

They're prints (ie there's more than one of them).  They're by Andy Warhol. And he's made the classic artist career move of being dead.  Which makes his remaining available work all the more valuable and desirable because it's a finite source.

Andy Warhol at Christie’s, was the first of three single-artist sales of his Photographs, Prints, and Paintings and Works on Paper, organised between Christie's and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.  It raised over $17 million, with a sell-through rates of 91% by lot, thus diffusing another 300 of Warhol's works onto the market.

Many of the lots went well above estimate.  The first one shown is San Francisco Silverspot, from the Endangered Species Series, the second is Endangered Species, Bighorn Ram, and the last one is Dove (all (c) The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Corbis / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London 2011).

So if you want to invest that spare few hundred thousand that you've got lying about, there are worse places to put it that on your wall in the form of an Andy Warhol print (but it has to be the real thing...).

Today's Painting...

Rockpools, Morar (Oil on linen, 32 x 48)

Here's the photograph that the painting was based on.  You can see the islands of (from left to right) Eigg, Rum and Skye in the distance.

I liked the contrast of the pale turquoise sea, the dark indigo pools, and pale rocks and the zingy limes and oranges of the grasses and seaweeds.