(click image to enlarge)
The Sluice, Canal-du-Midi
The present work, dated 1970, was possibly exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1972. It is one of a series of watercolours and acrylic paintings that resulted from one or more working cruises that Ernest Greenwood took with his artist wife on the Canal du Midi, in Southwest France.
Much later, in October 1990, the artist published an article in the magazine, Leisure Painter, in which he gave a tutorial on producing Canal du Midi, another of the works in the series. In so doing, he shared a number of insights into his approach. He explained that,
'my aim ... was to achieve as far as possible (a) a varied and rich tonality, (b) the preservation of draughtsmanship and (c) a structured design ... As topographical painting never interested me, I began working exclusively from drawings rather than sketching and completing a painting on location. This method of working provided more scope for invention and a greater opportunity for the rearrangement of selected material
On the Canal du Midi ... the vessel moved slowly, at a walking pace, through lovely countryside which enabled me to observe and record from a moving, rather than a stationary position. This helped to give to some sketches an immediacy, a shorthand, which helped to record only essentials. One of these small sketches, here illustrated, formed the basic material for one of a series of ten large paintings upon which I worked for more than two years.'
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