Audio Version
Read by Verity Babbs
Text Version
The Courtauld’s Witt Library is a large collection of photographs, reproductions and cuttings of paintings, drawings and engravings of Western Art from c1200 to the present day. Within its 19 thousand boxes sit just over 2.15 million images depicting many diverse themes and subjects. The complete archive of 160,000 black and white prints and over 40,000 negatives by architectural and landscape photographer Anthony F. Kersting was bequeathed to the Courtauld’s Conway Library on his death in 2008.
As a Digitisation and Digital Media Intern, I decided to take a look at these contrasting and yet extensive collections to discover how landscape was, and still is, a theme within creative expression. From the work of Édouard Manet, Federico Barocci through to the many unpublished photographs taken by Anthony Kersting we see a reflection of the spirit of nature that continues to creatively saunter through human history.
Nature seems to have its own distinctive way of projecting different subject matters and visual habitats. Before the 17th century, the concept of landscape was limited to the different narratives of historical, religious and folkloric fields. However, today landscape has become one of the ruling themes within the bounds of artistic expression and documentation. A large number of great artists use landscape as a form of artistic authority; an impression to record the different impacts we have on our grounds, territory and the scope of the earth.
To start off this reflection on the crowning charm of nature’s picturesque scenery, I chose Federico Barocci’s simple yet spiritual approach towards landscape. During his lifetime Barocci was a celebrated figure of the Italian Renaissance, due in part to a notable commission received in his early 20s to create frescos at the Vatican.
His sketches, which I discovered in the Witt Library, include a delicate study of trees and space showing his respect for nature, in what I consider to be an ethereal and docile interpretation. His use of chalk typifies the ‘Italian light’ that many artists around that time idealised.
Moving on from the Italian Renaissance, I explored the French School of the Witt Library, specifically the word of Impressionist painter Édouard Manet. Although many would consider Manet to be a realist painter, there is a crucial moment in which he evolved into an Impressionist, a style celebrated by fairly small, yet undisguised brush strokes, clear composition, and the study of light in its adaptable qualities. The two paintings depicted here give a recognisable sense of movement as a crucial abstract of experience, human realisation and demeanour towards the flora and fauna of consciousness.
Finally, nothing describes the work of architectural and landscape photographer Anthony Kersting more than saying that I find it very difficult to be around all the archived photographs, which are shelved right behind my office chair (lucky me!) in their respective boxes, without wishing I could take one home! I chose his photographs not only for his sense of narrative, which you can easily pick up from his extensive travels around the world, but for the magnificent way in which he captured the many regions and seasons that he journeyed through and experienced. From sea stretches in Mahabalipuram in India to the Mountainous plains of Jordan, Kersting’s talent in photographing landscape is evident. His sharpness in photographing the most minute detail of space is immaculate. This was particularly evident in one of the photographs I luckily stumbled upon, of the Gulf of Aqaba seen from the Transjordan mountains to the East. Kersting perfectly instils this hazy and yet earthly view of the desert landscape.
The subjectivity and artistic tendencies of these three very different charcoal sketches, paintings, and photographs are clearly evident. However, as time drifts away, nothing can take away the essence of nature that is willing to adjust towards maybe a whit of artistic creativity and interpretation. These three artists, which I am fortunate enough to write about in a non-critical nor comparative approach, give us reason to celebrate their life and genius, for their remarkable ways of catching the embodiment of the true nature of landscape in its different thematic guises.
Alia Ahmad
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Placement
