James Naughton

"Mist Passing" 40x40cm Oil on Board 2010

"The Big Cloud" 31x20cm Oil on Board 2010

"The Valley and the Light" 80x60cm Oil on Board 2010

"Dark Cloud"  30x20cm OIl on Board

Something you don't often see in contemporary landscape painting is the kind of old fashioned quasi-mystical romanticism that was once the hallmark of some of the 19th centuries greatest practitioners. English artist James Naughton captures this sense of almost religious awe in the face of nature by depicting the land submerged beneath beneath a massive writhing atmosphere that seems less like mere weather and more like an immortal omnipotent presence that prowls the land. Though the paintings themselves are often fairly modest in scale the images nonetheless convey that sense of vastness, awe and wonder that was once depicted by artists like Albert Bierstadt, Caspar David Friedrich and Frederic Edwin Church. More proof that no mode of expression ever dies and that every part of art history is being made new again by somewone, somewhere in the world.
To see more tempestuous skyscapes over both land and sea, go to the artist's website: www.jamesnaughton.com

thanks to artistaday.com where I first saw his work.