Page 202 - sarah-simblet_sketch-book-for-the-artist

EARTH AND THE ELEMENTS202 Nature Profiles
THE PROFILE OF A HORIZON is a line we immediately recognize Opposite below, Clare Bryan took panoramic photographs of
and respond to. Whether land-, sea-, or cityscape, it is the the English South Downs, and after tracing her captured
unique calligraphic signature of the place in which we stand. line, transferred it to a scroll. Drawing with a scalpel, she
Claude Lorrain drew directly on location, and we can imagine teased away fragments of paper to illuminate her view. In
standing over his shoulder, watching his hand and eye at a very different work (opposite above), made inside a book,
work together, rapidly layering contours to shape place, Bryan cut the profile of a city. She was inspired by her
atmosphere, and mood simultaneously. Even distilled from research of aerial plans of London and the story of an
all other detail, a horizon line can trigger our recognition. alien map butterfly (see caption).

CLAUDE LORRAIN Segments The top half of the drawing is a view as we enter the Views from Velletri
valley. Claude has used a fine nib to delineate segments of land as c.1638
French classical landscape painter draftsman, and they recede into space. In the lower half he has walked downhill 85/8 x 121/2 in (219 x 320 mm)
etcher who lived most of his life in 17th-century a little, and across to the right. Over first lines, rich, thick, and dry CLAUDE LORRAIN
Rome. Claude is distinguished by, and famed for, marks in the foreground appear to be made with his finger. Paler,
his unsurpassed handling of light, which he used cooler tones receding into the distance are applied with a brush.
to unify his compositions.