![]() The exhibition began before Christmas and reopens today for an extended run until February 14. “I am under no illusion that my sketches represent great art or a burgeoning talent! They represent, more than anything else, my particular form of ‘photograph album’ and, as such, mean a great deal to me.” In fact, in my case, I find it transports me into another dimension which, quite literally, refreshes parts of the soul which other activities can’t reach. “It all requires the most intense concentration and, consequently, is one of the most relaxing and therapeutic exercises I know. The obligation for him to sit down and carefully observe allowed for a richer discovery of details, such as the quality of light and shade, tone and texture, and the shape of buildings in relation to the landscape. The largest exhibition of work by the heir to the British throne is on display at The Garrison Chapel, at Chelsea Barracks, in Belgravia, London. 'View in South of France' by the UK's Prince Charles. “Looking back now at those first sketches I did, I am appalled by how bad they are,” he says. Though, he admits to being unimpressed by the quality of his early work. Painting, he says, enables the artist to make their own individual interpretation of the chosen view instead of simply “pointing a camera and arriving at a result probably almost identical to somebody else’s photograph”. “I very quickly discovered how incredibly difficult it is to paint well in such a spontaneous medium, and the feeling of frustration at not being able to achieve on paper the image that your eye has presented you with is intense!” “I experienced an overwhelming urge to express what I saw through the medium of watercolour and to convey that almost ‘inner’ sense of texture, which is impossible to achieve via photography,” he says. Prince Charles painting in Paro, Bhutan, in 1998. The prince goes on to reveal that his passion for the medium began because he found little joy in photography, though he “is under no illusion that the sketches represent great art or a burgeoning talent”. In a display panel, Charles describes how the relaxing and therapeutic act of painting transports him “into another dimension”. Other scenes depicted include several from Tanzania, which is one of the prince’s favourite places to paint, Turkey, Greece, the Scottish mountains and Provence in the south of France. The 79 watercolours, representing the first full exhibition of Charles’s paintings in the medium, are hanging in The Prince’s Foundation exhibition space at The Garrison Chapel in Chelsea for a fortnight. A view of the Moroccan village of Taddert painted by Charles, Prince of Wales, during a royal visit in 1996 is among the largest exhibition of his artwork on display in London.
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