River at Richmond
Diana Armfield

This little picture - rather beautifully framed - is a treat. Like so many of Armfield’s most engaging pieces, it requires that one should spend time with it, study it, remember that the artist herself insisted that, ‘I draw attention to landscape because we have this enormous responsibility to cherish nature, … (landscapes) seem as eloquent as people and needing as much care’.

Living in Kew, the Thames at Richmond is a short walk away. On both the Richmond and the Kew sides of the River - parts of the Old Deer Park - the trees gather around the water, creating a magical, wild environment, a very long way away from the heart of one of the busiest cities in the world. The painting is, like a piece of music, composed of a myriad of different notes: strokes, dabs, linear traces, impasto dots, translucent touches, each of these conveying a different tone. An arpeggio of greens carries the primary movement, accompanied by various hues of grey, silver, salmon, gold, ochre, brown and blue. This is an intense composition, compressed onto the small scale of a canvas board easily worked on the spot. Hang it at eye level, so that you can get close.

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