Analysis of "Tuscan Landscape" by Elizabeth V. Blackadder

Dame Elizabeth Violet Blackadder was born in Falkirk, Scotland on 24th September 1931. She spent a substantial part of her childhood alone collecting flowers and pressing them in books which surfaced in some of her other paintings. During the 60's she travelled the world painting landscapes such as France, Spain, Italy and Japan. During her travel to France, she was strongly influenced by Henri Matisse so light up her palette as shown in her pieces. She then travelled to the Zen Gardens in Kyoto which influenced her work, in many ways, to depict the principles of Zen which give paramount importance to the idea of empty space. "Tuscan Landscape is a perfect example of this empty exploration.

Her most commonly used material is oil paint on canvas, sometimes with pencil. A technique she commonly uses is showing movement through her landscapes using gentle curved lines and an extremely nude and ant-vibrant palette. Another technique she incorporates into most pieces is the lack of detail and definition. Her interpretation of the landscape is shown very simply and basic using large brush strokes and blended tones.

Within this specific oil painting, she has shown soft sweeps of hills with a larger peak to the left of the canvas. She has limited her colour palette to greys, beige, cream and brown. Trees are shown almost as silhouettes and could perhaps be seen as figures. The sky is plain beige and gets lighter as it touches the landscape, showing almost a glow from the land. The houses to the right are basic blocks of colour with the slight detail of having some windows.

Blackadder uses line softly to create the illusion of movement over the landscape, perhaps portraying the wind moving across it. There is an absence of texture but this may be because I am studying a photograph of the canvas so I would be restricted from viewing how she may have built up paint in certain areas to show texture.

As I cannot study the image from the actual canvas, I am not able to understand the true nature of its form. The size of the canvas is 51 x 71cm so considerably large. The contrasts between light and dark tones in the painting are very subtly graduated.

My interpretation of this piece is that I believe it to be very calming and it has forced my eyes to follow a downhill path down the highest peak of the hill towards the houses on the right. The emptiness of the painting makes the group of houses look quite excluded from the rest of the piece and almost looks lonely to me.