It may have been painted 340 years later and on the other side of the world, but Michael Fitzjames (1948-) has channelled the spirit of the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer’s famous View of Delft (1663) in View of Maitland from the riverbank (2006). Like Vermeer, Fitzjames has split his canvas into three horizontal bands of […]
Keyword: spires
The Flow of Time
Judith White’s (1951-) view of the Hunter River at Maitland is painted in a most appropriate medium – watercolour. White has used the transparent washes of paint to suggest the smoothly gliding waters of the river and its reflection of the stormy sky above. The massing, dense clouds threaten to burst at any minute with […]
The Paradox of Spontaneity
In On the bank John R Walker paints the banks of the Hunter River at Maitland. The rooftops and spires of the city fill the top quarter of the canvas while the expanse of the river dominates the painting’s middle section, painted in swipes of earthy olive to convey the muddy water and its reflection […]
Apologies to Vermeer and Thanks to Cezanne
In high-keyed colour and with a light touch, Judith Ryrie (1934-) records an afternoon by the river at Maitland in a style she terms ‘graphic rural realism’. Ryrie is a Sydney-based artist, but she was born in regional Dubbo. Alongside eleven other artists, Ryrie painted this view for the exhibition View of Maitland from the […]
The Painted River
Perhaps Leo Robba’s (1962-) view of the Hunter River at Maitland was a presage of his future research. Since painting this view in 2006 for the exhibition View of Maitland from the riverbank (with apologies to Jan Vermeer and View of Delft) at Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG), Robba has gone on to complete a […]
A Different Perspective
In his avowedly ‘selective’ view of Maitland from the riverbank, Peter Pinson (1943-2017) has created an abstract rendering of the natural and built forms of the city that simplifies them to their essence. Using acrylic paint, Pinson divides his composition into black-rimmed horizontals of river and bank, balanced by the vertical blocks of buildings. A […]
Business As Usual
Claire Martin (1952-) has captured the curve of the levee bank as it rises above the Hunter River in Riverbank Path – Maitland (2006). The painting was commissioned for the exhibition View of Maitland from the riverbank (with apologies to Jan Vermeer and View of Delft) at Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG) in 2006. Martin […]
The Painters in The Painting
In his view across the Hunter River, Maitland – John and Leo (2006), Euan Macleod captures the energy of a gathering storm about to unleash its fury on two fellow artists painting the same view. Macleod paints the moment with an expressionistic spontaneity, using his palette knife and brush to capture the sky darkening over […]
Maitland’s Golden Age
The influence of the Dutch Golden Age of painting is very clear in Alexander McKenzie’s (1971-) Cloud cover over Maitland, painted in 2006. Dutch artists of the seventeenth century conveyed pride in their flourishing cities in paintings such as View of Delft (1633) by Johannes Vermeer, which is the inspiration for this view by McKenzie. […]
Gateways to Waterways
Emma Lohmann’s (1970-) A view of Maitland (after Vermeer) pays homage to Johannes Vermeer’s A view of Delft (1663), a masterpiece described by the nineteenth-century novelist Marcel Proust as ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’. Vermeer painted the waterborne entrance to the Dutch city of Delft, where visitors arrived at the city’s imposing gateway by […]