Great Gable from High Stile

Great Gable from High Stile 1946 oil on canvas by Delmar Harmwood Banner (1896-1983).

Panoramic view of Lake District fells from an elevated perspective. In the middle distance a single figure, dwarfed by the scale of his surroundings, stands to right of composition on a rocky promontory below which lies a distant valley with a silvery river running through it. Beyond rise soaring fells beneath luminous clouds with diagonal shafts of light shining through them. There is a pronounced contrast between the dark solidity of the foreground and the almost celestial brightness of the distance.

Banner had a deep love of landscape which he recorded accurately on his walks. The finished painting, completed in his studio, was intended to express his response to the landscape, like the Romantics, rather than being a topographical study. Banner was born in Germany and studied at Cheltenham, Oxford and Regent Street Polytechnic. He married the sculptor Josefina de Vasconcellos and they lived during the latter part of their lives at Little Langdale near Ambleside in the Lake District.