Lowry

Lowry was an artist who was born in 1887. He painted things that he saw but used imagination most of the time. Some of the places he painted are actual places that he had traveled to. He also painted people that looked like 'matchstick men'. 

L.S.Lowry 

Industrial Landscape

I think the painting seems to be about industry. The building look like something you would see if you lived in a very industrial city, the kind of places Lowry would often visit. I think that Lowry drew whatever he saw. It is mostly from him imagination, but some of the places in this painting are real places (the Stockport Viaduct in the distance). The subject matter is treated realistically because Lowry liked painting things as he saw them. It doesn't look as if anything is happening in the painting but you can see the people going about their own business. Due to this the painting does look much more realistic. An article by Angela Levin in the Daily Mail said: 'Many of the drawings appear to contain some element of force, or even violence. Certainly, they pose questions. Were they, perhaps, his way of getting back at a mother who exerted a vice-like grip over him throughout his life, or even at women in general?' I think that his drawings don't create a violent feel but a lonely one. He had never gotten married or never even had a girlfriend. After is mother died he realised he had no family left and no motivation. His main aim throughout life was to impress his mother and now that she had gone he had nothing else to drive him. I think the people in the picture represent how he was feeling, lonely. They seem to be going about their business which was what he did day to day. Overall, Lowry had never married or had a girlfriend and spent his life thinking he had failed his mother.

Lowry has used 6 main colours to create this dull, drained and blackened city. The colours are quite harmonious in the fact that they all create a gloomy atmosphere in the painting. The colours seem to merge together in the horizon of the painting and fade slightly. It goes from the bustling industry in the foreground to calmness in the background. There isn't a specific composition in the picture; each shape is placed in a random place. This could be because it was painted over a long period of time and from imagination.

Lowry used oil paints and ordinary paint brushes to create this melancholy piece of work. He started his painting by looking at the buildings around him and thinking about how he could put them in a painting. He would sit on a train and let it take him to different places where he would start painting any random building. I definitely think Lowry improvised while painting as he said that his paintings are ‘Made up; part real and part imaginary’.

The houses at the foreground definitely are there to make the viewer feel as if they are being welcomed into the busy world Lowry has painted. It captures life and the hectic lives the ‘matchstick’ men lead. The fact that he worked as a rent collector for most of his life may have inspired how he drew the busy people as that may have been how he had seen them in the past.The painting is noisy and you can almost hear the thriving factories and chattering people.  

The one that I did using oil paints. I took one section of Industrial Landscape.

I used dark colours such as brown, black and grey and did a screen print onto a plain piece of card. I then tore the paper so it creates an uneven line like a horizon. I then tried tearing some shapes into it so it creates an effect. The low horizon reminds me of Lowry's work.