RICHARD SWANN ART

Across The Bay From Brodick

Technically anything is a view.  You could be waiting for an elevator in a building in New York, the hideous, tasteless gold doors could open to reveal the spectacle of Nigel Farage trying to insert his head into Donald Trump’s flabby fundament like a Nazi cork in a scrofulous, acned blubber-bottle and you would be correct in your use of the English language if you turned to a companion and remarked, ‘That’s not a view I was expecting’.  But in art it usually implies a vista, a distant prospect, sweeping distances to elevate the soul, deathlessly composed into pleasing and balanced harmony.

I don’t really do views.  There are good reasons and bad reasons for this.  Good ones include the way a view can tend towards the prettified, the conventional, and demand so much technical accuracy getting everything the right size and shape the whole thing turns into a gruelling slog, with the feelings that inspired you to start long forgotten.  Concentrating on a smaller area can be more spontaneous and imply a whole landscape in the way a short story can imply a whole life.  (You can smugly quote William Blake to yourself at this point, a world in a grain of sand and all that, you know you want to).  Bad ones include laziness, a lack of painting stamina, not being dedicated enough to lug anything larger than a small pochade around, and not having enough time or space to work large-scale.

The above image is fairly viewish however.  It sort of demanded it.  Done from photographs, wisely ignoring the disastrous  watercolour I did on the spot.