The sublime and the romantic landscape
This blog is an ever changing account of my work in the field of the sublime in landscape. Motifs that run though my work are environment changes, global warming, flooding and then the inevitable abandonment.
Some of my work on the Cloud Appreciation Society home page
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(Reblogged from robertyoungson)
Landscapes for me, if they are to have any consequence,
must have the immensity of silence…
the silence before the storm.
Even knowing this to be true, sometimes it is hard not to be carried away by the deluged.
must have the immensity of silence…
the silence before the storm.
Even knowing this to be true, sometimes it is hard not to be carried away by the deluged.
Robert Youngson (via robertyoungson)
Stormy Night 2016 work in progress
Sunrise 1
Prague 2 2016
“The sky’s inclemency stirs up the angry winds;
the watery clouds are soaking with ceaseless rain.
The turbulent Vltava, swollen with rainy waves,
Bursting, impetuous, breaks through its river banks.”
Smoke over an abandoned builders yard. 2017
I am pleased to announce, that I am featured in the first book from The State of Art, #2. It brings together over 50 artists from all over the world and re-examines how contemporary artists are working within what could perhaps be considered the two main strands of artistic practice - the Representational and the Abstract. Both fields are by no means confined to painting and can take any form.
@BareHillPub http://www.barehillpublishing.com/wp/bookshop/the-state-of-art-representational-abstract-2/ …
Big sky 5
Flooded Field with Pylon
Pylon over a sea of fog
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Robert Youngson’s book From City To Sea has rediscovered the tragedy of landscape.
J Foster
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Pictures like these help put me where I need to be to write. A romantic landscape has a paradoxically anthropomorphic yet faceless quality. It is alive in the same way that the landscape is the main character in so many films and novels - only the landscape character is always faceless which makes its power greater than the actor or hero.
Poet L .O. Quant
From City to Sea by Robert Youngson
Published by open window Publishing.
From City to Sea encompassing the last 6 years of my work.
“From City To Sea has rediscovered the tragedy of landscape”
J Foster
The Romantic Digital Landscape
Robert Youngson creates high-quality digital prints of contemporary landscapes, inspired by the sublimes of the Romantic painters of the 18th and 19th century and incorporating the surroundings of his own childhood. The images are imbued with an atmosphere of mystery and presage. Youngson constructs a melting pot of childhood memories, drawing, for example on local authority strikes in the 1970s, when rubbish lay uncollected and grass allowed to grow out of control, leaving the urban council estate where he grew up abandoned and neglected. Abandonment is a thread that connects much of his work.
Youngson paints with the mouse, testing and pushing the boundaries of technology and factory computer settings beyond the realm of predictable results. Here, the digital medium begins to reveal itself, using the notions behind all painting and mark making. Patches of his work are left deliberately pixelated and damaged, in contrast to other parts that appear to be glazed in oil. He does not attempt to imitate paint; instead he explores the digital medium’s textural qualities in subtle and sympathetic colours and tones. The pixels are not hidden but taken as an inherent quality of the medium: they are his brushstrokes.
Youngson encompasses the sublime by creating tiny details within vast landscapes. The subtlety of light suggests an atmospheric range from shimmering sun to overcast, heavy weather. In some pieces he will use familiar buildings as tiny reference points to place the viewer inside the wider expanse, in the same way as Casper David Friedrich would place a figure on a mountain or shoreline. Youngson is also highly influenced by the sweeping light and the highly decisive palette of JMW Turner.
Finally, a similar but essential factor of his work is the use of ‘subversion of reality’. This underpins all of his works. Due to the photographic origins, the images start off with a firm grip on what we normally accept as reality, until closer examination reveals something less reassuring. Then, these first assumptions start softly to fall apart. They are not real clouds; they are pixels. They are not painted brush strokes; they are gestural marks in 72dpi.
robyoungson@hotmail.com all images © Robert Youngson
Flowers 1 & 2