Buy this book on-line GRIGSON**, GEOFFREY: : BRITAIN OBSERVED: The landscape through artist's eyesLONDON.PHAIDON,1975. ISBN 0714815977.
UK, Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[There was also
published simultaneously,a leather, specially bound,SIGNED,limited edn of 300 copies.This is the only other H/back 1st edn.]NFINE/VG+.No owner inscrptn,but price -clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,scenic colour pictorial illustrated upper wrap,b/w lettered sun faded - as usual/normal - spine/backstrip;
with negligible shelf-wear to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Head+
foot of spine/backstrip plus all 4 corners
minimally bumped with reciprocal light creasing.Top+fore-edges slightly aged/
toned - as usual/ normal; contents bright, tight and clean.Bright,clean,unmarked, publisher's original green cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and clean,immaculate b/w
cloudscape [an oil sketch by Constable, Cirrus Clouds (1822)] illustrated endpapers.Loosely laid in at contents page,a loose,small erratum slip and publisher notifying postcard for future, further illustrated catalogue releases from them - unused and not filled in - both in Fine condition.UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj, 1st edn,4-208pp [paginated] + half-title, b/w scenic sketch illustrated title page, contents list/table,author preface,7 sections,profuse mixture of plates [149 illus,31 in colour],comments on the landscape,sources of comments,and an index.
Landscape painters produce the sort of pictures we can understand and judge by our own experience.The landscapes of Britain have been a special source of inspiration to painters from the 16thC onwards.Geoffrey Grigson has examined how some seventy artists from Rubens to Victor
Pasmore have reacted to the landscapes of
England,Scotland and Wales.His approach is emotional rather than art-historical and the result is what he calls 'a book of art and a book of places'.And how different some of the places have become since they were first painted.The artists are arranged roughly chronologically,and brief,entertaining biographies accompany the plates.The final section,consisting of painters' comments on their art,tells us much about how painters feel about nature. Thus we have Gainsborough writing complaints from London where he hates
'people and their damn'd faces' - 'I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol da Gamba and walk off to some
sweet Village where I can paint Landskips and enjoy Life in quietness and ease.' To paint out-of-doors in Britain has always made demands on the physical endurance of the artist: we see Ford Madox Brown working in a field of swedes,under an umbrella in the pouring rain and Ben Nicolson, some 120 years later, writing about a trip to Yorkshire:'I have never drawn under such fiendish and delightful conditions - cold winter winds and incessant rain, but what a landscape - I think one of the most beautiful in England. . . .we did get some work done, however,mostly from inside a small sports
Cortina.'
In fact,as Sisley put it,'Every picture exhibits a place the artist has fallen in love with.'
Geoffrey Grigson,the distinguished poet,
critic and broadcaster,is an expert on the English landscape.In addition to his many volumes of published verse,he has written on Henry Moore,Samuel Palmer and John Clare.
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