This exhibition aims to show three different approaches to representing nature through painting.

It opens with pre-Raphaelite paintings, showing their highly detailed, almost photo-realistic approach to capturing the world. We move through rustic naturalistic paintings, which are still fairly realistic in style but concentrate more on character and atmosphere than fine detail. And we close with paintings by British Impressionists, who forwent the realistic to concentrate almost entirely on the wider experience of the places featured.

To give you an idea of my level of ignorance, before I went to this exhibition, I couldn’t have told you anything about the Pre-Raphaelite ideals or their approach to representing the world. I therefore felt educated by this exhibition: it was very well-curated, combining clear text with a plethora of well-chosen paintings which underlined each of the points the text made.

As you’d expect, some paintings struck me and others didn’t. I usually enjoy more abstract works, and was particularly taken with Samuel John Peploe’s On the Brittany Coast and Moses Adams’s Harbour Scene at Night, Runswick.

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition.

‘Essence of Nature’ continues at The Laing until 14 October.