The Hay Wain, 2015

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  Masked (2015) | 2015

Sections of sky are appropriated from landscape paintings, with a preference for those which exhibit pure landscape: excluding references to genre or history painting. The revealed section is a continued thematic motif and is a reference to the shape of the sky when viewed from city streets; the final shape is a culmination of two directional views. To depict nature during the Byzantine era was thought to be pagan and heretical. Man and God were the favoured subjects, as paintings sought to bring the biblical stories to an illiterate public. The sky was a battleground for these ideals, and was obscured for 1000 years by gold leaf, which represented the divine light of heaven. Reflected paintings offer a window into two eras of art history; one in which nature was shunned, and one in which nature is celebrated. However, nature was often still posed and "improved" at the whim of the artist. The history of the sky in art shows us an anthropocentricity and a disregard for nature which continues today, where our relationship with nature is becoming an increasingly important subject.