Giant Oak Tree on Green Sky on Fields
- Artist: Ivon Hitchens
- Date: 1978
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The Courtauld Gallery
- Collection record: The Courtauld Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the Giant Oak Tree on Green Sky on Fields painted by Ivon Hitchens in 1978. The canvas bursts with a towering oak that dominates the foreground, its bark textured by Hitchens’ deliberate brushwork. The sky above is a lush green, almost like a dreamscape, creating a striking contrast with the dark trunk. The fields below are a wash of muted greens and earth tones, hinting at a quiet rural landscape. Hitchens used oil on canvas, which gives the painting a rich depth of color and subtle layers that seem to shift as you move closer. Notice how the light falls from the left, illuminating the upper bark and giving the tree a sense of weight and solidity. The green sky suggests an otherworldly calm, a feeling of endless possibility. The composition balances the vertical strength of the tree with the horizontal sweep of the fields, inviting the viewer to stand between nature and sky. It’s a work that captures a quiet moment of reverence for the natural world, a hallmark of Hitchens’ late 1970s period.
See it in person
Giant Oak Tree on Green Sky on Fields hangs in The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House, London. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
