Description
In Study Ariège – No. 2, Donald Hamilton Fraser transforms the rugged landscape of Ariège in the French Pyrenees into a striking arrangement of colour, texture and form. Beneath an expansive blue sky, distant violet mountains give way to a landscape built from brilliant passages of cobalt, turquoise, yellow and white, punctuated by bold sweeps of black. Fraser reduces the terrain to its essential forms, allowing colour and gesture to convey the character of the place rather than describing it with strict topographical detail. This approach lies at the heart of Fraser’s celebrated landscapes. He described his works as semi-abstract pictures based on landscape, frequently building their surfaces with richly applied paint and a palette knife to create an almost collage-like interplay of forms. His relationship with France was particularly important: after studying at St Martin’s, Fraser received a French Government Scholarship in 1953 and spent time in Paris, where his engagement with modern French painting helped shape his distinctive visual language. The mountainous Ariège region provided an especially natural subject for this approach. Fraser returned repeatedly to the landscapes of the Pyrenees; documented works include Church in the Pyrenees from 1996 and Study – Quillan, Pyrenees from 1997. In Study Ariège – No. 2, the landscape remains recognisable, yet Fraser’s heightened palette and vigorous handling turn it into something more immediate: an impression of the Pyrenees experienced through colour.
