Gwynedd Museum & Art Gallery, Bangor is currently hosting two special exhibitions which look at north Wales’ wondrous landscape.
The Betws-y-coed Artists’ Colony exhibition includes landscape and subject paintings by H. Clarence Whaite, David Cox and many others who contributed to the creation of a national art world in Wales. An exhibition of Jeremy Yates’ work is also on-show with studies inspired by the waterfalls and rivers of north Wales.
Betws-y-coed Artists’ Colony, 1844 – 1914
When artist David Cox decided to spend his summers at Betws-y-coed in the mid 1800s, a number of other noted landscape painters followed, travelling regularly to the Conwy Valley and surrounding area. Henry Clarence Whaite was amongst them.
It became the first Artist’s colony in Britain and eventually led to the formation of the Royal Cambrian Academy for Wales, based at Conwy, and to high nationalist aspirations for the development of visual art in both north and south Wales and the emergence of what could be described as a Welsh Art World.
The works in the exhibition explores the genesis of a flourishing artistic community in Betws-y-coed and the Conwy Valley and shows examples by many of the artists who were painting in the area at this time. Many of the works are sketches and paintings taken from the everyday – sketches that would be painted and ‘worked up’ to become larger works for exhibition. A section of the exhibition contains a selection of works on paper by Henry Clarence Whaite (1828 -1912) which record directly from nature and demonstrate Whaite’s strength as both a draftsman and colourist.
A book Betws-y-coed Artists’ Colony 1844 – 1914 by research fellow and renowned art historian, Peter Lord is available at the exhibition.
Jeremy Yates: Falling Water
Recent studies of rocks and water in watercolour, acrylic and oil inspired by waterfalls and sites on the Conwy, Machno, Ogwen and other rivers in north Wales.
“I have long had an affinity with water as a subject, with the endless ways it falls, flows and descends over and around rock,” he said.
“The subject typifies this region, this land of hills and rivers – and high rainfall – and is seen at its best when the river is full and when the water falls from a height. It is endlessly absorbing and a challenge for the artist – it also reflects something of the restlessness in the human spirit, the ungraspable something that evades our understanding, like water through our fingers.
“The mountains of north Wales have offered many visitors over the centuries a similar experience to that seen in certain Chinese depictions of mountainous landscapes. The idea of a spiritual ascent to a place above an everyday level of human activity, not necessarily a place of danger but of heightened contemplation and solitude, achieved only by exertion and effort, a contrast to the wooded hillsides and river valleys below. Through this work I am connected to those artists who have preceded me to these places and who have translated their experiences in ways I could not think of equaling.”
Both exhibitions will be on display at the Gwynedd Museum and Gallery, Bangor until 13 November 2010.
The Gwynedd Museum and Gallery is open Tuesday-Friday, 12.30pm-4.30pm; Saturday 10.30am-4.30pm. Admission is free.
For more information about all the activities on offer at Gwynedd Council-run museums, visit the website www.gwynedd.gov.uk/museums
