Inspiration | David Roberts
Hi all, today I wanted to share one of my favourite artist’s work: David Roberts RA RBA (1796 -1864). His work is a major inspiration for me. And I always aim to create environment work that has his level of power in an image.
One of my favourite aspects of his work is the sense of solid mass and form. Every element feels heavy and powerful. I believe this is down to his mastery of fundamental perspective principles, combined with meticulous attention to architectural details; the micro repetitive architectural elements conveying scale and rhythm. The other reason I believe Roberts achieves such success in his sense of mass and form, is the incredible sense of light in his work.
Another component he excelled at, is achieving an incredible sense of scale. A vital skill for every modern concept artist. There is almost always small human figures, or other recognisable scale elements, such as sail boats, trees, animals etc… I feel like this is why, even though his art is historical architectural study and documentation, it feels incredibly alive and ahead of it’s time.
One of the main things I really appreciate about Roberts, is his obvious reverence and passion of the subjects. I can see his love of history and the people who constructed these ancient and modern structures. I really connect with this sentiment. I think when drawing extremely highly detailed architectural subjects, it takes a special frame of mind, devotion and patience to achieve even one of his paintings.
Finally, Roberts demonstrates a principle of artwork I much too often overlook. That being well executed detail and precision. His work has a ton of detail, yet it’s incredibly beautifully balanced with his watercolour washes. He achieves stunning lighting in his work, whilst maintaining visible outlines, which is amazing to me.
Anyway, I’ve only included a small selection of his work, as I hope you’ll be inspired to search out your own.
