{"title":"Books by Ralph Skea","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780500239049","title":"Vincent's Trees","description":"Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) felt a profound empathy with the natural environment, and considered the spiritual essence of trees to be comparable with that of human figures. Vincent’s Trees traces Van Gogh’s development as a painter of trees in the natural landscape – from his home province of North Brabant, through Paris to Provence. Ralph Skea’s elegant prose is accompanied by Van Gogh’s vibrant illustrations of trees, which range from pencil and ink sketches to watercolours and oil. Stylistic experiments encompassing Pointillism and compositions inspired by Japanese prints give way to the expressive, painterly depictions of his later work. The book also includes quotes from Van Gogh’s letters, which convey the depth of his feeling for the natural landscape, and the force with which it affected him.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56290364326261,"sku":"9780500239049","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500239049_3b0442e1-9bed-4bce-b02a-1b48153d2dbd.jpg?v=1786013864"},{"product_id":"9780500239407","title":"Monet's Trees","description":"œuvre","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56290364359029,"sku":"9780500239407","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500239407_6987cffa-e445-4b25-8b10-0bfd34f27e35.jpg?v=1786032837"},{"product_id":"9780500238776","title":"Vincent's Gardens","description":"Vincent van Gogh never owned a garden, but throughout his career he painted and drew outdoor spaces and natural objects frequently, both fascinated and stimulated by each location’s unique character.In this book Ralph Skea surveys the gardens that were most dear to Van Gogh—from the domestic havens of parsonage gardens in the Netherlands to the romance of Parisian city parks, from the blazing flower beds of Provence to the asylum gardens that provided the artist with seclusion and calm in his final months.Whether joyous paintings of plants in bloom or the intensely beautiful studies of lilacs, roses, irises, and pine trees that he produced in the asylum at Saint-Rémy, all the oils and sketches included here are monuments to the artist’s originality and poetic sensibility.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291235561845,"sku":"9780500238776","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500238776_10727cc4-d6fb-42f4-b654-2d393db38671.jpg?v=1786013862"},{"product_id":"9780500294369","title":"Impressionism","description":"It is often forgotten just how provocative and unsettling impressionist canvases seemed when they were first exhibited in 1874. Critics, professional artists, and gallery visitors alike were shocked to encounter the unorthodox paintings on display, with their seemingly unfinished surfaces and lack of any elements of traditional composition. The advocates of this new approach rejected nearly all the established principles and practices of oil painting prevalent at that time in France.Tracing the origins and history of impressionism in a concise, introductory volume, Ralph Skea highlights the major differences between the new techniques and aesthetic principles of the impressionists and the academic art they abhorred, and goes a step further in exploring the original intellectual focus of the movement. Skea explores the impressionists’ desire to investigate their own sensory perceptions when painting, which resulted in their unique “impressions.”Impressionism","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56291309355381,"sku":"9780500294369","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500294369_d947fc94-320d-4683-b3d3-9966152c0987.jpg?v=1786014064"},{"product_id":"9780500519660","title":"Vincent's Portraits","description":"Despite his posthumous fame as a painter of flowers, still-lifes, gardens, landscapes and city scenes, during his lifetime Vincent van Gogh believed that his portraits constituted his most important works. Although as an artist he was ‘touched by so many different things’, he was nevertheless committed to the art of portraiture – a quality that distinguished him from his contemporaries. Van Gogh was passionate in his avoidance of bland, photographic resemblances, in the hope of capturing the essential character of his models by means of expressive colour and brushwork. Showcasing a dramatic set of portraits created during Van Gogh’s ten-year career, this book reflects the strong visual impact with which the artist captured the diversity of contemporary life. In his many portraits, we can discern the artist’s desire to record expressively a number of themes, from the plight of the agricultural workers in his native Brabant and the destitution of prostitutes and their children in urban Europe, to the lives of his cosmopolitan acquaintances in Paris, including café owners and art dealers. It was here that he began his remarkable sequence of self-portraits. With reference to Van Gogh’s extensive correspondence, Skea elaborates how the artist perceived his chosen subjects as would a writer, and how he felt that his portraits should somehow evoke what he considered to be the spiritual underpinning of human existence","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311781458293,"sku":"9780500519660","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780500519660_26608a8a-9d2f-4676-a156-f6f7f1ef982b.jpg?v=1786013752"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ralph-skea.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}