''Since 2016, I have travelled the countryside in winter in the footsteps of painters and writers Constable, Gainsborough, Emilie Brontë, Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphné du Maurier…''
French photographer Jean-Pierre Gilson is recognised as one of the leading European landscape photographers and over the past forty years, more than a hundred exhibitions have been devoted to his work. In this new book he explores the English landscapes that have influenced many of the most famous British artists and writers.
Gilson has a sharp sense of composition that he deploys, with rigour and poetry. In his photographs he exploits the light, and the mist and cloud of the winter landscapes to reveal a vision of England which appears timeless, even backward-looking, yet is nevertheless very real and contemporary. This is a rural England that still exists – often little changed over the centuries.
Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire © Jean-Pierre Gilson
Keswick, Cumbria © Jean-Pierre Gilson
Keswick, Cumbria © Jean-Pierre Gilson
Jean-Pierre Gilson is the author of numerous books, including: Les Carmelites (1989); Scotland (1991, 2004 & 2019); Rivages (2006); Ireland (1998); Territoires de France (2002); Claude Monet, Giverny (2013); Somme 1916, (2016).
William Boyd introduces the work. One of the UK’s leading novelists and screenwriters, his first novel A Good Man in Africa was published in 1981. He has won several literary awards and has been both longlisted and shortlisted for the Booker Prize.