RUSKIN Revisited: GEORGE ROWLETT at Chamonix and Coniston: Rowlett Paintings alongside Ruskin Watercolours

About

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.’ Touring to: The Ruskin Library, Lancaster University, 11 August – 21 October, 2007 Brantwood, Coniston, November 2006 – February 2007