Immersive Show Brings Kyffin Williams' Rugged Welsh Landscapes to Life at National Library

Paintings by Sir Kyffin Williams, one of Wales' most important artists, have been animated and set to music in an immersive show at the National Library of Wales. Many of the hundreds of Williams pictures held in the library's store in Aberystwyth have been animated and set to music for the experience.

The paintings of artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and David Hockney have been brought to life in all-singing, all-dancing immersive shows in recent years. Williams, known for capturing the spectacular landscapes of his homeland with layers of paint thickly applied with a palette knife, has now been given the same treatment. In the exhibition space his farmers and sheepdogs make their way through rugged landscapes, his waves seem to crash around the room, dark grey mountains spring up, and a sun drops into the sea.

Morfudd Bevan, the art curator at the library, said one of the key aims was to bring Williams, who died in 2006, and the library to new audiences, including more younger people. She said Kyffin is one of Wales' most important artists and was embraced by the public, and that his work romanticised Wales and encapsulated the meaning of the country and the idea of hiraeth, a Welsh word with no direct translation that means something like a feeling of homesickness for a place that no longer exists or perhaps never did.

Bevan said the library's connection to Williams went back to 1950, when it bought an oil painting of the Welsh mountain Cadair Idris from him for 15 pounds at a time when he was teaching art in London; it would be worth tens of thousands of pounds now. After Williams moved back to his birthplace, Ynys Mon (Anglesey) in north Wales, he would often visit the library. On his death, Williams left his estate to the library, making it the largest holder of his work in the world, with 200 oil paintings, 300 original prints and more than 1,000 pieces on paper.

The works are held in a storeroom, and visitors can make an appointment to view them or have them brought up to the reading room, where easels are set up. His palette, paint-spattered phone and a pair of boots he used to stride around the hills and valleys are also tucked away in the store. The bilingual immersive experience, however, puts the work front and centre. It is staged in three rooms close to one of the main doors, with views over the town and the sea.

The show is smaller than the ones celebrating Van Gogh, Cezanne and Hockney, and consequently much more intimate, with only 10 people allowed in at a time. It is also free. In the first room, Williams' story is introduced by the singer Sir Bryn Terfel, himself an avid collector of Williams' work. In the second room, visitors can sit or stand as the landscapes, seascapes and blocks of colour swirl around the walls, floor and ceilings, accompanied by a Welsh chamber-folk string trio. The third room includes an electronic version of a Williams self-portrait that visitors can touch to get an impression of the thickness of his paint, with the moustache especially dense.

Dennis Outten, chief executive of Focal Studios, the main designers of the show, said one of the challenges had been to project Williams' landscapes without losing any of his texture. They spent months living with the paintings from the stores, trying to work out how best to give viewers the sense of Williams' bold palette knife work. Outten said they felt the pressure of staying true to his life, work and methods while the artist is no longer around to give feedback. Sensitive decisions included how to make his farmers walk and exactly which colours to use as a Williams sun set into the sea, but Outten felt the artist would have enjoyed the show's playful feel.

The Profiad Kyffin Experience opens to the public on Wednesday 18 November. It will remain at the library for three to five years, and advance booking is highly recommended.