超凡写实派画家 Ben Johnson | 细节之美

With dedication, concentration, and a self-admitted obsession with perfection and hard work, British painter Ben Johnson creates detailed photorealistic paintings of architecture and cityscapes that require an enormous amount of effort and time to complete. Born in 1946, Johnson has been focusing on architecture as a subject matter for over 50 years, and has even collaborated with architect Norman Foster to create depictions of his buildings (for the first Venice Architecture Biennale, 1991). Though widely known, especially for his large-scale, mind-bogglingly realistic panoramas of cities like Hong Kong, Liverpool and London, Johnson’s work resides mainly in private collections; that is why the current retrospective of his work at the Southampton City Museum and Gallery is such an important event for the artist, since it’s the first time a wider public can see so many of his works together in the same space.

Ben Johnson Room of the Niobids II 2013 Acrylic on canvas 71 x 98 in / 180 x 252 cm.

Ben Johnson Patio de los Arrayanes 2015 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220 cm.

Ben Johnson Approaching the Mirador 2013 Acrylic on canvas 89 x 59 in / 225 x 150 cm.

Ben Johnson Patio de los Arrayanes (detail) 2015 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220 cm. To achieve the accuracy observed even in the minutest details of his paintings, Johnson follows a process that involves drawing, multiple layers of stencilling and meticulous colour-mixing. The sheer effort and time required to complete these paintings is put into perspective only when one listens to the artist himself describe his process: in a recent BBC documentary , Johnson explains that no less that 25 layers of stencilling were required to complete a single column in one of his elaborate Alhambra palace paintings, and that it took ten people three years and approximately 60,000 hours of work to complete the monumental Liverpool Cityscape painting (2008) noting that if a single person were to do the same amount of work, it would have taken them 17 years to complete the massive five-meter-wide painting. Video of Ben Johnson Artist - A Retrospective

Ben Johnson Looking Back to Richmond House (progress)  2011  Acrylic on canvas  72 x 108 in / 183 x 274 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ben Johnson The Liverpool Cityscape (progress) 2008  Acrylic on canvas  96 x 192in / 244 x 488cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ben Johnson Room of the Revolutionary (progress) 2014 Acrylic on canvas 89 x 59 in / 225 x 150 cm. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ben Johnson Looking Back to Richmond House (progress) Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ben Johnson Studio Shot of ‘Roman Room, ‘Room of the Niobids’ and ‘Fatherland Room’ Photo courtesy of the artist. What strikes us most about Johnson’s paintings is their flatness: even though they depict densely-built urban landscapes and the elaborate geometry of real, three-dimensional spaces, their details are rendered with the same care and clarity whether they are in the foreground or the background. This elimination of distance and acute perception of a vast area depicted with the same intensity is something that the human eye is normally unable to do (only the eye of a god or some superhuman entity could possible take all this detail in with a single glance). It is therefore perhaps no coincidence that one of Johnson’s more recent undertakings is the study and depiction of sacred geometry in Islamic architecture, in turn an art that consciously aims to reveal the limitations of human perception and the vastness of the natural world —and therefore, God’s own infinity. Through their overwhelming detailing and unthinkable amount of labour required to complete them, Johnson’s paintings give us the opportunity to step out of our normal perception of time and space, and become, even if for a moment, divinely omnipresent.

Ben Johnson Hong Kong Panorama  1997 Acrylic on canvas 6x12ft / 1.83x3.66m.

Ben Johnson Jerusalem, The Eternal City  1999 / 2000 Acrylic on canvas 90x180in / 2029x 4057cm.

Ben Johnson Middle East Looking West 1989 Acrylic on canvas  48x72in / 122x183cm.

Ben Johnson The Inner Space 2001 Acrylic on linen 40 x 60 in / 102 x 152 cm.

Ben Johnson British Museum Great Court 2002 Acrylic on linen 59x79in / 150x200cm.

Ben Johnson Study for Far Horizons I 2009 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 in / 50 x 50 cm.

Ben Johnson Tokyo Pool 2006 Acrylic on canvas 54x81in / 137 x 206 cm.

Ben Johnson IBM North Harbour 1984 Acrylic on canvas 78x117in / 198x297cm.

Ben Johnson The Unattended Moment 1993 Acrylic on canvas 72x96in / 184x243cm.

Ben Johnson The Rookery, Chicago 1995 Acrylic on canvas  91x91in / 231x231cm.

Ben Johnson Double Doors, France 1979 Acrylic on canvas  84x56 1/4in / 213x104cm.

Ben Johnson Three Moments of Illumination 1998 Acrylic on canvas, triptych  108x170in / 2740x4320cm.

Ben Johnson Through Marble Halls 1994 Acrylic on canvas 55x72in / 139x183cm.