Deconstructing the Grand Master,part IV - Benjamin Williams Leader

My focus of attention has happily explored quite a few genres and styles over the last week, but despite the wandering mind, I have settled it seems, on the work of Benjamin William Leader again.  I am still very much drawn to the painting Autumn in Switzerland....

Benjamin Williams-Leader, Autumn in Switzerland

CL, my year tutor, has suggested I could review the work of a contemporary Artist who uses the theme of the sublime as a backdrop to his paintings, often created with very unusual media.  That is, the work of Anstelm Kiefer,  (born 1945, Germany).  Information extracted as follows from http://whitecube.com/artists/anselm_kiefer/

Anselm Kiefer (born March 8, 1945) is a German painter and sculptor.  Works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

In his entire body of work, Kiefer argues with the past and addresses taboo and controversial issues from recent history. Themes from Nazi rule are particularly reflected in his work; for instance, the painting "Margarethe" (oil and straw on canvas) was inspired by Paul Celan's well-known poem "Todesfuge" ("Death Fugue").

His works are characterised by an unflinching willingness to confront his culture's dark past, and unrealized potential, in works that are often done on a large, confrontational scale well suited to the subjects. It is also characteristic of his work to find signatures and/or names of people of historical importance, legendary figures or places particularly pregnant with history. All of these are encoded sigils through which Kiefer seeks to process the past; this has resulted in his work being linked with a style called New Symbolism.

Amstell Kiefer,  Ill Mistero delle Cattedrali - 2010 /2011 No1.

Anselm Kiefer, Ill Mistero delle Cattedrali 2011 No. 2

I have created a simple Acrylic sketch painting of the Benjamin Williams Leader - Autumn in Switzerland piece, after doing a number of test pencil sketches.  This has allowed me to get a deeper feeling for the original painting, and I've tried to make the beauty of the original aesthetic much more barren and drab, casualty of acid rain etc, generally emulating the current global issue of global warming and climate crisis;

My plan now is to re-paint this work, spending a little more time on accuracy and placing of the principle objects in Williams-Leader's original painting.