'Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery’ - Ruskin.

The great critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900) had a considerable appetite for the drama of nature, most notably the scenery of the Alps. He also developed uncommon skill in their depiction, as draughtsman and watercolourist. This encouraged him to see with a painter’s eye, which accounts at least in part for the authority of his writings on art, as he came to realize that painting was ‘entirely independent of the representation of facts’, and that good colour owed everything to ‘abstract qualities and relations’. These radical insights brought him to a passionate advocacy of Turner, another spirit in advance of his era. .  

George Rowlett (born 1941) is a landscape painter who responds well to the challenge and stimulus of painting in unfamiliar territory. When it was suggested to him that he might follow in the footsteps of Ruskin to the French Alps and then to the Lake District, he was immediately enthusiastic.

Rowlett’s interest in Ruskin was further fired by acquaintance with the group of his watercolours in the collection of the Alpine Club of London. From that encounter originated Rowlett’s spring 2006 trip to Chamonix spending each day painting intensively, as long as the light lasted. The pictures that came out of that trip are vintage Rowlett: luscious paintscapes of ultramarine and cream, mountains, snow and brilliant skies. Rowlett’s ability to re-enact the drama of nature in oil paint is everywhere apparent in these paintings. Whether it’s the alpenglow or morning light in snowy passes, Rowlett evokes it in paint of rare piquancy and distinctive palette.

Part Two of the project involved an autumn trip to Coniston Water in the Lake District, to paint the colours of the landscape as winter approached. Rowlett stayed at Brantwood, Ruskin’s old home, and painted the views towards the mountain, Coniston Old Man, that Ruskin knew so well. On more familiar territory, Rowlett excelled himself in the depiction of place, weather and atmosphere. The first paintings he did at Coniston have an almost Mediterranean colour and luminosity, as good weather illuminated the lake and surrounding hills. Then the clouds came and the weather was more appropriate to the season. If anything, Rowlett’s colours glow more intensely, in the red-russet-golds of the bracken and the changing leaves. This group of paintings rivals even the Alpine ones in authority and splendour. This is Rowlett painting at the top of his form, bearing out Ruskin’s remark: ‘The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most.’

Also at:

The Ruskin Library, Lancaster University, 11 August – 21 October, 2007                    
Brantwood, Coniston, November 2006 – February 2007

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