I want you to take a hard look at this painting. It is by Francis Towne. What do you notice as different from the work of the other two artists I have written about.

You will no doubt have noticed the colour scheme a mixture of ochre sepia and browns washed with grey. That was the basic pallette of Topgraphical artists of the day. Towne used it to great effect. To make his mark on English watercolour painting, though not in his own lifetime.

I want you briefly to visit the website  shown below

http://www.bonhams.com/cgi-bin/wspd_cgi.sh/pubweb/publicSite.r?sContinent=EUR&screen=lotdetailsNoFlash&iSaleItemNo=1488264&iSaleNo=11334

The painting is by Roland Hilder  1906 - 1993 and was painted some 200 years after Towne painted his painting. It is very much in the Modern vogue for watercolour landscape painting. It uses what is known as a  broad wash technique to produce the effects of clouds,  shadows etc Just as Townes watercolour did in 1790.

In 1790 however Townes technique was considered competant but amateurish in contrast to  the  techniques of the much more populist techniques of the  Sandby brothers, and other Topographical draughtsmen.

Townes was baptised in Middlesex at Isleworth, the son of a wealthy corn merchant. At age 13 he was apprenticed to Thomas Brookshead  a local Coach painter.
It was a  trade that would eventually take him to Exeter and provide him with his first accolade when at the age of twenty he was awarded first prize for an original desighn by 'The Society of Arts'. As a result he undertook further study at St Martins lane  Acadamy and began exhibiting his oil paintings in earnest bith at the Society of Arts and The Free Society.

He was primarily a painter in oils then and had a painitng accepted by the Royal Acadamy for its summer exhibition. In 1763 he visited Exeter as part of his duties whilst working for A Thomas Watson a coach painter and for the next two decades Exeter became the centre of his activities.

He set himself up a a drawing master and attracted a number of local dignitaries as his pupils.

During this period he began touring Wales and the continent on drawing tours and the painitng shown is from one of those tours. Following ten unsuccessful attempts to become an associate of the Royal Acadamy Town began to re evaluate his work.

The formation of the of the Society of Painters in watercolours in 1808 gave added impetus to his carreer. He began to exhibit freely and even held his own exhibitions but with scant attention from the Art establishment.

He was somewhat of a recluse and perhaps his lack of self promotion ruined any chance he had of fame in his own lifetime.

It is now belatedly recognised that his broard flat wash style was the forrunner of Modern day water colour landscapes such as those painted by Hilder and others.

I want you to look at how effectively Town produced the efects of shade and shadow with thos washes.

He would sketch roughly in pencil and then wash in with greys and sepias to give the semblance of light and shade.

Se how efectively he has produced the effect of light coming over the mountain to the left of the picture and illuminating the mountain top of the range in thecentre of the picture. Notice the group of figures in the foreground to the left of the bridge perfectly suggested with a touch of the brush.

I want you to see how Towne has given the valley that  allmost  diminutive scale by making the mountains Tower so effectively above the valley floor

this could almost be an Alpine scene. Please enjoy what I see