‘Capability’ Brown is thought to have worked on perhaps 150 or so country houses, nearly a third of which I have painted for a A Brush with Brown. Whilst a handful are fragments of once great designs, they include many of Brown’s most important surviving works, from Alnwick in the north to Petworth and Burton Pynsent in the south. In these places, I see all the hallmarks of ‘Capability’ Brown’s legacy – the park grazed by sheep or deer, serpentine lake, undulating hills whose contours are softened by clumps of trees, distant house – but all of them seen through my eye as a painter.
It seemed to me appropriate that I, as an artist, should illustrate and write my first book about Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth. Tim Scott Bolton
‘A Brush with Brown, The Landscapes of ‘Capability’ Brown’ features full-colour illustrations of this extraordinary body of work and is available in hardback. Find out more…