Leeds Art Gallery

It was a beautiful morning this morning! I got up early and travelled to Leeds art gallery with Cat. We Found a beautiful painting which we were both mesmerised by. It has also been voted as one of 'Yorkshire's favourite paintings'. (click to view more)

When you walk into the gallery it is one of the first paintings you see, it is placed directly facing the front doors and is absolutely huge.

Adelsteen Normann

The Sognefjord, Norway

1885, oil on canvas

We took a seat directly in front of this image and felt instantly overwhelmed by the enormity of the mountains. We were sat at the same level as the tiny boats and houses which have been exaggerated to look ridiculously small against the towering rocks. We began to discuss where we would rather be within the scene, would we rather be at the top of the mountains?, at the bottom having the view across the water? or over on the snow topped mountain in the distance.

This was one of Normann's favourite spots and in 1890-91 he had a summer house built on the fjord, he visited each year from Berlin where he lived until his death.

We are now beginning to think about a landscape/view that is special to us, what it is that makes it so powerful and how we can emphasise that.