VISUAL ANALYSIS - Fred Williams Gorge Landscape 1981.
In 1979 Williams visited Pilbara and in the succeeding years created a series of oil paintings and gouaches based on the experience. Pilbara tired and excited him profoundly so, natural painter that he was, he longed to paint it, to get it down in order to share his own excitements and sense of discovery. This series went on to be internationally acclaimed for the captured colour, beauty and spectacle of the Pilbara landscape in north-west Western Australia. In the Following essay I will be analysing Fred Williams's oil painting Gorge Landscape 1981 - one of his final landscapes and part of The Pilbara Series.
Gorge Landscape 1981 is a large, confronting oil on canvas landscape. Williams's handling of the oil paint on the work ranges from thin layers to thick worked up areas. The majority of the surface area is built with up rich layers of colour applied in a chalky dry brushing way. The trees, leaves and shrubs in the painting are all formed on top of the brushy base, the texture makes these appear to advance from the painting creating a floating' feel that sets an energetic atmosphere. This feeling is perhaps the only sense of 3D in the work. This is as, where there is arguably a sense of depth in the painting created by the vertical band of orange across the bottom of the canvas, the use of chiaroscuro has been completely neglected.
The representational dots and dashes of highly saturated colour produces activity and rhythm which drives the flow of the work - our eyes follow this pattern and we are drawn into the centre of the Gorge', only to be led out again, thus, creating a repetitive wave like effect that feels almost like we are following the breeze. Williams seems to layer on his paint with a reckless abandon, using visible painterly sweeping strokes across his canvas. The effect of this is a more rustic, natural and organic feel to the painting, a landscape that is an embodiment of these values - the Australian outback'.