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Hans Heysen: Into the Light
Considered one of Australia's greatest landscape painters, Hans Heysen reached critical acclaimduring his lifetime for his art, particularly his expressive watercolor paintings. This collection discusses the progress of his career as seen through his watercolors as well as the technique he employed in the paintings. A brief biography is also included.
- GenresArt
88 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2004
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August 25, 2019
As a painter, Hans Heysen made his name with large-scale oil paintings of the landscapes of the Adelaide Hills, drenched in a magical light that spins from his study years in Paris and his discovery there of the French Impressionists.
Back in the hills around Hahndorf, he painted his adopted fields, woodlands and wide-open skies (Heysen was Hamburg born, an immigrant to South Australia at age seven). And most of all he drew and painted the gum trees he came to love - an early conservationist, he paid up many times to save mature trees from being cut down. Often he was painting the same trees, encountered in different seasons and under different skies; portraits in effect, that even today can be compared with their original subject - still there and in leaf in the Adelaide Hills.
This book, devoted to Heysen’s watercolors, lets us in on his lifetime of painting in another medium, gum trees included.
In 1912 Heysen was thirty-five, selling out his watercolors at an exhibition in Melbourne. Into the Light shows why they sold: he paints in watercolor with a freshness, intimacy, immediacy and warmth to surpass his painting in oils. The book also has a short section on his technique, and illustrations to show how that technique works across a range of his watercolor paintings; large and small, some finished, some not.
Well into his eighties, and with failing eyesight, we’re told that Sir Hans was applying watercolor rapidly and accurately, creating familiar landscapes and - of course - still painting the gum trees he adored. Add a clear, unfussed commentary to the illustrations, a photograph of the artist’s studio and another of his brushes and tools, and it’s remarkable how close Into the Light brings you to the man and his way of seeing.
Back in the hills around Hahndorf, he painted his adopted fields, woodlands and wide-open skies (Heysen was Hamburg born, an immigrant to South Australia at age seven). And most of all he drew and painted the gum trees he came to love - an early conservationist, he paid up many times to save mature trees from being cut down. Often he was painting the same trees, encountered in different seasons and under different skies; portraits in effect, that even today can be compared with their original subject - still there and in leaf in the Adelaide Hills.
This book, devoted to Heysen’s watercolors, lets us in on his lifetime of painting in another medium, gum trees included.
In 1912 Heysen was thirty-five, selling out his watercolors at an exhibition in Melbourne. Into the Light shows why they sold: he paints in watercolor with a freshness, intimacy, immediacy and warmth to surpass his painting in oils. The book also has a short section on his technique, and illustrations to show how that technique works across a range of his watercolor paintings; large and small, some finished, some not.
Well into his eighties, and with failing eyesight, we’re told that Sir Hans was applying watercolor rapidly and accurately, creating familiar landscapes and - of course - still painting the gum trees he adored. Add a clear, unfussed commentary to the illustrations, a photograph of the artist’s studio and another of his brushes and tools, and it’s remarkable how close Into the Light brings you to the man and his way of seeing.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review