AFTER the success of his acclaimed portraits of Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth, the painter Hideyuki Sobue has turned his artistic gaze to another Lake District luminary.

This time it is John Ruskin’s turn to be depicted by the Japanese artist, who lives and works in the Lakes.

The centrepiece of his new exhibition at the Blue Gallery at Brantwood, Ruskin’s home at Coniston Water, is a captivating picture of the Victorian visionary, who was born 200 years ago.

The artwork is described as a “horizontal double-vision image which promotes a visual illusion so that the portrait can be seen as a single image in another dimension, emerging from the support surface”.

Sobue, who studied in Osaka, has spent more than ten years developing his original new brush-hatching technique, using dense black Japanese sumi ink and acrylic.

His inspiration was the concept of “disegno” established in the Florentine Renaissance, combined with the ongoing study of neurology on a variety of themes.

The artist says his aim is to create “a platform bridging East and West, and our heritage and contemporary understanding, by means of drawing and painting through delving into the core meaning of the human act of seeing”.

In his new exhibition - Conversation with Ruskin - Sobue has set out to depict Ruskin as “a prophet in a period of ecological and existential crisis”.

He has drawn on the Victorian artist and writer’s original drawings for inspiration to produce an accompanying series of works.

Each piece focuses on observation of nature with the aim of “building a platform for the audience to enter into dialogue with Ruskin”.

To help visitors appreciate the exhibition in greater depth, Hideyuki Sobue will be holding two special events at Brantwood.

On September 12 he will give a talk at 7.30pm exploring "the relevance of John Ruskin’s legacy to our contemporary context" and revealing more about the Ruskin project.

A workshop will follow on October 13, when Sobue will give a masterclass on his brush-hatching technique.

l Conversation with Ruskin is open every day, 10.30am to 5pm, until November 17, 2019. For more, see www.brantwood.org.uk