Book Reviews Roly Smith
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David Bellamy ’ s Landscapes through the Seasons
David Bellamy Search Press £ 9.99 ( pb )
Another beautifully detailed , howto-do-it guide to painting seasonal landscapes by ace watercolourist David Bellamy , long-time Guild member and the artist of our annual Golden Eagle award . The difference between Bellamy and most other watercolourists is that the majority of his work is done plein-air , so it ’ s not uncommon to see real raindrops splattering his pictures . While he explains that working outdoors in the cold of winter has never been universally popular with artists ( with the possible exceptions of Claude Monet , Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley , perhaps his closest inspiration ), he believes that is the season when there is normally a greater variety of colour , and the light gives the hardy artist more opportunities for dramatic mood and heightened accentuation . But while Monet had to resort to wearing three overcoats and gloves while working in deep snow in the harshest of winters , at least Bellamy has the advantage of Gore Tex and more ef�icient , modern outdoor protective clothing ! Bellamy ’ s mastery of capturing those winter moods is certainly proved in his latest offering , with stunning images of mountain , lake and moorland delicately and expertly created with wash , brush , spatter and stippling . I particularly liked his depiction of the crags of High Snockrigg above Buttermere in the Lake District , and the fairy tale towers of Alton Castle in Staffordshire , looming over some of the artist ’ s signature skeletal trees in the foreground . Bellamy ’ s position as one of the premier landscape watercolourists of his time is surely assured , and this handsome volume will certainly go some way towards enhancing his already peerless reputation .
500 Walks with Writers , Artists & Musicians
Ed . Kath Stathers Frances Lincoln £ 20 ( hb )
Although titled as a walking guide , this handsome volume would surely be much better categorised as a travelogue , because the walk descriptions provided are minimal , and the mapping even more so . To be fair , that ’ s probably all that might be expected in a 400-page book ambitiously attempting to describe 500 walks associated with writers , artists and musicians throughout the world . Although handsomely designed ( apart from the intrusive abstract patterns which are scattered across and spoil the opening pictures in each chapter ), the coverage is very uneven . There are 260 walks in Europe and 131 in North and Central America for example , compared to only 42 in the whole of Russia and Asia , and only 15 for Australasia , including New Zealand and Tahiti . I found the choice of locations for some of the walks also a little arbitrary . You might expect to �ind the LS Lowry walk around his home territory of Salford , but it ’ s in Berwick-on-Tweed , where he took his holidays . The two Yosemite walks are attributed to photographer Ansel Adams and landscape artist Albert Bierstadt , rather than the man who surely its literary and spiritual muse , John Muir . However , it ’ s good to see Dorothy , rather than William , Wordsworth associated with the Scafell Pike walk ( no map ) as it was she who �irst described it . Other female writers are acknowledged with Nan Shepherd in the Cairngorms and Elizabeth Gaskell in central Manchester . But it is the totally inadequate mapping really lets the book down . The 4½ mile route through the Atlas Mountains between the Djurdjura campsite and the town of Tikja , allegedly followed by composer Gustav Holst on a restorative holiday , is merely a squiggly line between diagrammatic mountains . Likewise , the 139 miles of the Larapinta Trail , attributed to the Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira , between Alice Springs and
14 outdoor focus / summer 2021