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Lot Essay
Ivon Hitchens moved to the Sussex countryside after his Hampstead studio was bombed in 1940; the rural landscape providing him with a new subject matter for his paintings. Caves of Green, No. 4 demonstrates how, in the 1960s, Hitchens’ development in the presentations of forms allowed him to convey the subject both as a landscape and a relationship of marks, anchoring abstraction to a reality. Hitchens’ method of creating the illusion of spatial depth in his painting without applying conventional perspective demonstrates his concern with abstraction and a very modern response to the landscape subject matter.
Within Hitchens’ ‘Notes on painting’, his most focused writing upon his work, he placed emphasis upon the process of perception in order to discover the ‘truth of nature’ (I. Hitchens, “Notes on Painting”, ARK, no. 18, November 1956). In a reaction to the tradition of the landscape genre that attempted to record nature through static, representation painting, Hitchens sought out compositions that allowed the landscape to be perceptually discoverable for the viewer. Thus, Hitchens employed a long horizontal format, evident within the present work, which affords the viewer the opportunity to explore the landscape, reflecting Hitchens’ relationship with it. The format allows the eye to roam, reflecting human interaction with the natural world that does not remain focused upon a particular point. Hitchens’ approach to the landscape enables him to convey ‘truth’, not through naturalistic illusion, but through the viewer’s ability to engage with it.
Towards the end of his life, Hitchens’ paintings became ever more abstract and yet he remained unwilling to dedicate himself to total abstraction. As a painter from Sussex, he can be understood as an artist who skilfully navigated between his love for the landscape and his exploration of abstract forms. Peter Khoroche raises a pertinent question regarding this balance: ‘how far dare he go without snapping the vital link between the thing seen and the mark on the canvas’ (P. Khoroche, exhibition catalogue, Ivon Hitchens: forty-five paintings, London, Serpentine Gallery, 1989, p. 22). Caves of Green, No. 4 not only established Hitchens' enduring aesthetic but also served as a pioneering example of semi-abstract painting.
Within Hitchens’ ‘Notes on painting’, his most focused writing upon his work, he placed emphasis upon the process of perception in order to discover the ‘truth of nature’ (I. Hitchens, “Notes on Painting”, ARK, no. 18, November 1956). In a reaction to the tradition of the landscape genre that attempted to record nature through static, representation painting, Hitchens sought out compositions that allowed the landscape to be perceptually discoverable for the viewer. Thus, Hitchens employed a long horizontal format, evident within the present work, which affords the viewer the opportunity to explore the landscape, reflecting Hitchens’ relationship with it. The format allows the eye to roam, reflecting human interaction with the natural world that does not remain focused upon a particular point. Hitchens’ approach to the landscape enables him to convey ‘truth’, not through naturalistic illusion, but through the viewer’s ability to engage with it.
Towards the end of his life, Hitchens’ paintings became ever more abstract and yet he remained unwilling to dedicate himself to total abstraction. As a painter from Sussex, he can be understood as an artist who skilfully navigated between his love for the landscape and his exploration of abstract forms. Peter Khoroche raises a pertinent question regarding this balance: ‘how far dare he go without snapping the vital link between the thing seen and the mark on the canvas’ (P. Khoroche, exhibition catalogue, Ivon Hitchens: forty-five paintings, London, Serpentine Gallery, 1989, p. 22). Caves of Green, No. 4 not only established Hitchens' enduring aesthetic but also served as a pioneering example of semi-abstract painting.