Nature into Art

Landscape painting in watercolour is one of the best-loved branches of English art. This edition illustrates 100 of the finest examples by 70 artists. They range from the earliest topographic works of the 1750s to the inventive techniques and interpretative powers of Cozens, Girtin, Turner and Constable. A wide variety of landscapes includes picturesque ruins and old cottages, windswept moors and dramatic urban skylines in Britain, as well as distant places like North Carolina, Vancouver Island, Beijing and Tahiti. Among the earliest watercolours illustrated are those by foreign-born artists such as Hoefnagel, Hollar and Siberechts, who specialized in map-making and views of landed estates, and drawings made by John White in America in 1585. Each plate is discussed in detail, and in his introduction, the author explores the changing relationship of the artists with nature and art. His previous books are "Turner's Venice" and (co-authored) "Drawing in England from Hilliard to Hogarth".