For centuries, landscape was usually seen as a backdrop in history or religious paintings, but British Landscapes: A Sense of Place at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester shows how it evolved as a genre in its own right. And in particular, how artists in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries were not just reproducing a scene before their eyes but trying to convey in their pictures the emotions and feelings evoked by the land and countryside: the sense of the place, as Pallant Director Simon Martin, who c urated this exhibition, aptly describes it. The show's not on for much longer, but here's a few of our impressions, and let's start with a painting that's a fine example of how an artist puts current events and concerns on canvas. It was December 1916 when Mark Gertler painted this view of the South Coast Near Swanage . It looks so peaceful, the sea is smooth, the distant cliffs of the headland appear soft and even the nearby greenery is out of focus. But W...
How was it that all but a few women artists became excised from art history? It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of them around, making stunning paintings, and lots of money, particularly in the Low Countries in the 17th and 18th century. Art history is of course now being rewritten, to rescue the forgotten from oblivion. To find out what happened and how the record is being put right, you should go to Ghent to see Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750 at the Museum of Fine Arts. Michaelina Wautier is a case in point: a woman who could compete on her own terms with the Baroque masters of the southern Netherlands, but whose work was disregarded or attributed to men until the last couple of decades. Wautier may well be the biggest rediscovery among forgotten women painters in recent years -- she's got an exhibition of her own on now at the Royal Academy in London -- and one of her pictures is among the stand-out works at this show in the heart ...