Painting DVD: John Virtue's London Paintings

Step into the studio of the London National Gallery’s sixth associate artist, John Virtue, as he works on the paintings for the exhibition at the end of his associateship. The DVD gives you the feeling that you’ve popped in to see him at work, and have him explain to you what he’s doing. Virtue is very articulate about his paintings and working method, making you feel that you understand his paintings a lot more afterwards.

John Virtue is a landscape artist who’s worked solely in black and white since 1978, creating paintings that are a mixture of realistic and abstraction. Some are on a monumental scale (e.g. Landscape No 710 is just over 3x6 metres -- his paintings are all numbered, rather than having names). This DVD is on his time as associate artist the London National Gallery, where he was invited by the gallery to create paintings in response to the gallery’s collection, but ended up created a series of London landscapes. He talks to Paul Moorhouse, Senior Curator at the Tate, about the works he’s produced during this time, about his working process and routines, about the importance of accurate drawings of the landscape, about his favourite paintings in the National Gallery.

The DVD gives you the feeling that you’ve popped in his studio at the National Gallery to watch him at work, and have him explain to you what he’s doing. I found it particularly fascinating to watch him at work on a huge canvas -- there’s a ladder for reaching the top of the canvas, buckets (not pots) of paint and ink, huge brushes, plant misters with paint in for spraying on paint. Virtue is very articulate about his paintings and working methods, making you feel you understand his paintings, and the process by which he gets to a finished painting, a lot more afterwards. Having a love for abstraction, I found this an inspiring DVD, though I’ll need a new studio if I want to paint canvases on the scale of Virtue’s!