Ray Balkwill

A Picture of Cornwall features the work of the following artists: John Brenton, Neil Davies, Bernard Evans, Amanda Hoskins, Ken Howard, Robert Jones, Paul Lewin, Gary Long, Neil Pinkett, John Raynes, David Rust and Richard Tuff. The introduction looks briefly at Cornwall historically as a place of inspiration for artists, and then proceeds with a few paragraphs about each of the artists. While there is sometimes a brief mention of the artists' approach to their work, it would have been interesting to learn more than is provided.

The following four chapters each concentrates on a different aspect of the Cornish landscape as the subject of the paintings; a brief introduction which discusses the landscape rather than the paintings is followed by the paintings.

There are 130 paintings featured in the book, all reproduced in colour and with the majority shown quite large, many full page. As one would expect the work is quite varied with each artist's work being quite distinct; all the work is figurative, i.e. representational, yet often quite free in execution. It provides a good overview of the work of the featured artists who are actively painting today. However I would have liked to learn more about the artists and less about Cornwall.… (más)