NUMINOUS LANDSCAPE

The Green Veil

13th August 2023

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This new painting was made in the space of approximately five weeks during June and July this year. In contrast to the pieces gradually being worked on through experimentation over the course of the past year, this was intended to capture something of a specific day and period of time. Having become well acquainted with the challenges of developing a way of expressing something, it was satisfying to find out that patience and persistence are paying off, in the sense that I was able to start from a position of knowing roughly how I might achieve the desired results, and follow the process through to completion in a focussed way.

Commissioned work is something I have only undertaken on one previous occasion, and it presents its own challenges. The mission, as before, was to walk with the person making the request to a place of deep significance for them, and then to create a work inspired by the location, and in some sense for that place, as much as for the person. There is the shared understanding that the finished work will likely not bear close resemblance to the place as it appears, but will be more to do with the skull beneath the skin of landscape. It is all too easy to second guess oneself, despite having free reign to create the piece, with thoughts of how it will be received occasionally intruding. The finished piece now lives in its new home, deep amongst the valleys of south Wales.

 The Green Veil - Acrylic on canvas, 76 x 46 x 2 cm 

 Recent ramble

Last week I walked from Monmouth (in Monmouthshire, Wales) to Ross-on-Wye (Herefordshire, England), following the Wye Valley Walk path. I have previously travelled the section between Chepstow and Monmouth on a number of occasions, and thought it was time to venture further upstream. I wasn't entirely certain of how I would return myself home, due to UK bus timetables often being something of an oral tradition, passed on only to the initiated by word of mouth and cryptic gesture.

So I made sure to start out early, arriving in Monmouth to set my feet on their way at 7am. A good place to ramble from, because in addition to the river Wye and its much adored valley, the Offa's Dyke path also traverses the town. The photo above is of St.Peter's, one of the most peaceful churchyards I have encountered, despite being within earshot of a busy road. Immediately behind me the Wye sings its song, and the ancient Yew trees stand proud.

After passing the dramatic cliffs of Symonds Yat via a section of path that could be best described as 'less travelled', this (below) is the first of many a fine Herefordshire field. There is something I find intriguing, and alluring about this county. It was never industrialised like many parts of the country, and has the third lowest population density of any county in England. At this time of year the trees in full leaf seem darker, more richly green, and even strike me as being particularly large. That seems unlikely to be statistically true, but here they possess a certain presence which evokes something of Sylvan mysteries, a resonance far down within us from ages (mostly past, at least here in most of the UK) where 'deep country' was an intensely real encounter.

My favourite field was this section of vineyard in a small valley surrounded by dense woodland. The day was quite overcast for the most part, and my slightly dim photos reflect the unseasonal - as in, a sense of no particular season at all - nature of the weather. I think this contributed to the occasionally eerie atmosphere, and perhaps also the questions marks regarding the return leg of the journey added a dose of apprehension around heading into the unknown. After around 18 miles I arrived in Ross-on-Wye, made an essential bus stop discovery, and collapsed into the very welcoming arms of The Tap House.

Further Herefordshire explorations are planned for the end of the month, coinciding with the county's Art Week.

Inspirations

This book has been an absolute pleasure. Intelligent and deep, yet also clear and comprehensible to any reader with an interest in art and landscape. One of the things I particularly like is the honesty and grounded sensibility with which Neve approaches his subject. A painter himself, the writing presented here came from conversations and studio visits, or with people who knew the artists concerned personally. Or, "when even their people were absent I could always immerse myself in their landscape while reading their letters or diaries. For this to work I made it a rule always to see every picture I was writing about in the flesh and never...just to see them in reproduction." The book assists the reader by offering a colour image of a painting by each artist mentioned, and I found that I had a much greater sense of what was being described for the artists whose work I have seen in the flesh, even if not the exact picture in question.

The essays presented here are uncomplicated, offering the refined clarity of someone without a heavy agenda to press upon the reader. "On the whole we talked of other things and this book is about other things rather than falling into the old art-historical trap of attempting to say what the pictures mean." This intrigued me, because in my work as a psychotherapist, when art materials are used to create images during the session my approach is often one of circumambulation, to value enquiry, see varying perspectives, and the chance for enlivening questions and possibilities to emerge, rather than potentially deadening 'answers.'

"There was, though, a tacit agreement that talking about something else was the best possible way of saying anything worthwhile about the paintings without including them in the conversation directly. I strongly believe that if you have to say anything at all about pictures this is the best way to do it, though the best way of all is of course to remain silent."

Thanks for reading. See you next time.