Artwork Title: Arenig
Innes discovered Arenig, near Bala, during a tour of North Wales in 1910. The mountain became his focal point and ‘his spiritual home’. He painted it repeatedly, responding to changing weather conditions, seeking the moment of revelation to be found in some transitory, glorious light effect. In 1911 Innes travelled to Arenig with Augustus John. They rented a cottage at Nant-ddu, near Rhyd-y-fen. Their relationship was mutually beneficial; John was inspired by Innes’s vision and intensity. Under John’s influence, Innes began to paint in oil on small wooden panels, using short strokes of brilliant color, a technique John developed while working in Provence in 1910. Innes’s rapid, expressive brushstrokes are clearly visible in this work. The flat, simplified composition is probably derived from Japanese prints. The paintings produced by Innes and John in Wales over the next three years represent a unique, Welsh contribution to British post-Impressionism. Innes studied at Carmarthen School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, where he was taught by Philip Wilson Steer(1860–1942). His first visit to France in 1908 transformed his awareness of color. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1909, he worked at a furious pace. His illness did not prevent Innes, however, from leading an itinerant, bohemian existence. He traveled continually, painting most frequently in Wales and at Collioure, the French coastal town associated with the Fauves Henri Matisse (1869–1954) and André Derain (1880–1954). Innes died in August 1914, aged 27. John later wrote ‘tortured by the remorseless disease … he managed by heroic effort to make a name for himself as one of the foremost figures of his time in the art of landscape painting’. (https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/arenig-116859/search/actor:innes-james-dickson-18871914/page/1/view_as/grid)
Uploaded on Oct 19, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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