Lot 29: Alexander Cozens (c.1717-1786)

A building among trees
brush and black ink
6 1/8 x 7 5/8 in. (15.5 x 19.4 cm.)

London, Spink-Leger, Castles in the Air: Drawings by Alexander Cozens and Victor Hugo, 25 May-11 June 1999, no. 4.

with Spink-Leger, London.

VARIOUS PROPERTIES

Cozens evolved a technique of producing 'blots' in which form is conveyed through an almost 'abstract assemblage of accidental shapes'. These blots are articulate in themselves, but Cozens frequently used them as compositional bases for further paintings. The present drawing would seem to be related to Blot Nine in A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape (A.P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, London, 1952, illustrated). The main mass becomes a cottage beneath a group of trees, and the direction of the composition is reversed. Cozens explored several versions of this basic formulation. Cottage in a Wood, formerly in the collection of J. Leslie Wright, is part of this sequence, and a more fully worked version is in the British Museum.

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