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Art and Landscape Unit

Page 1

Peter Lanyon knew the Cornish fishing town Porthleven well. He made a painting about
his knowledge and experience of this place.

Page 2

Lanyon had a special way of looking at the landscape. He has not painted the town in a
direct way. Instead he has included many different views and ideas about the area.

As you look at the painting of Porthleven consider how the artist explores the links
between himself and the world around him.
Page 3

Instead of standing in one position to look at a view, Lanyon would explore a place in
different ways such as climbing the cliffs, cycling in the wind or driving fast along the
coast roads. He talked of ‘moving in a dancing sense within that place', and he would
say to his students ‘draw what you hear'.

Question: Why do you think Lanyon explored a place in so many different ways?

Page 4

Porthleven is famous for its elaborate harbour which faces southwest, directly into the
prevailing winds. The harbour has three basins of formidable structure to withstand
violent storms.
Page 5

Instead of a fixed horizon line, Lanyon includes a number of different views; abrupt
shifts of angle, scale and distance. He creates a sense of movement and instability, or
flux. Just as the sea dominates the town, so his painting seems to suggest the push and
pull of the tide.

Question: Why do you think he was so interested in creating a sense of movement?

Page 6

Porthleven is almost life-size and its scale implies Lanyon was thinking of his own body
in relation to the landscape. It is as if he wanted to suggest his own movement through
the town. During a talk Lanyon gave in 1963 he discussed Porthleven in detail.

Porthleven was painted in 1951 using oil paint on masonite (see glossary at end of document), and
measures 244.5 x 121.9 cm.
Page 7

Lanyon said that when he had finished painting this picture he noticed that there were
two figures in it.

If you look carefully you might just be able to make out the shapes of two figures. Start
at the bottom of the tower at the top of the painting, and look for either of the two head
shapes which appear to be facing sideways on.

Page 8

Lanyon was interested not only in what he could see and experience but also the history
of the place. He explored what the landscape of West Cornwall could reveal about both
ancient and modern times. The figures he saw within 'Porthleven' symbolised the town
and its history.

The images below are of fishermen on the quayside, Porthleven, and a fisherwoman,
hand-coloured postcard, date unknown.

Question: Why do you think Lanyon was so interested in the history of the place?
Page 9

Porthleven looks back to the Newlyn School painters who dramatised the work and lives
of the fishing community at the end of the nineteenth century.

Have a look at an example by clicking on this link.

(A window will appear with a new website. After you have seen the image, close the
window to return here.)

Page 10

Porthleven can also be compared to Alfred Wallis’s paintings of St Ives. Wallis’s

treatment of space within his pictures was based on lived experience rather than single
viewpoint perspective. Wallis’s changes of scale and viewpoint create a sense of
movement within the painting. Have a look at an example of Wallis’s paintings by
clicking on this link.

(A window will appear with a new website. After you have seen the image, close the
window to return here.)
Page 11

Porthleven was painted for an Arts Council exhibition for the Festival of Britain in 1951.
It took over a year to make. Lanyon reworked the surface so much that he damaged the
canvas – repainting the final work on masonite (see glossary at end of document) board in a
few hours.

Below are details of Porthleven.

Page 12

Lanyon made numerous drawings and three-dimensional constructions in preparation

for Porthleven. He said the constructions (see glossary at end of document) were like
‘scaffolding’ for his painting. They helped him to work out problems and to ‘test how the
image was cooking’.

Question: Why do you think he made so many different types of preparatory work?

Page 13

Porthleven is dominated by strong black lines and sweeping brushstrokes. The earthy
greens, browns and blues reflect the Cornish environment and suggest a dull winter
day.
Page 14

Lanyon described himself as a ‘placeman’. Porthleven demonstrates how he evolved a

painting by gathering material in different ways to create a complex, multi-layered
experience of place.

Question: How would you describe Lanyon’s approach to picture making as discussed here?

Page 15

Now that you have looked at 'Porthleven' you will soon consider how other artists
explore the links between themselves and the world around them.
Page 16

Composing a Porthleven collage (you will need to be online and logged into the
course).

Click and drag the photographs on the right into the middle frame. The photographs are
of various scenes from around Porthleven harbour and the dimensions of the frame are
similar to Lanyon's painting of Porthleven.

You can reorder any of the photographs at any time and you can also overlap them.
The middle frame is only a guide that you can ignore whilst your are composing your
collage.

Clicking on the 'reset puzzle' button will place the photographs back to their original
positions. If you have access to a printer you may like to print your finished composition.
Page 17

This large sculpture by Barbara Hepworth is composed of six parts; three vertical parts
which she called ‘figures’ and three horizontal parts she called ‘stones’.

Page 18

Hepworth intended it to be displayed out of doors and she positioned it carefully in her
garden (in St Ives in Cornwall) where it is today.

The image below is a detail of one of the central objects.

Question: Why do you think she wanted to place the sculpture out of doors?

Page 19

Hepworth’s work was strongly influenced by her experience of the natural world. In a
letter to a friend in 1943, she said:

‘…all my sculpture comes out of landscape – the feel of the earth as one walks over it,
the resistance, the weathering, the outcrops, the growth structures … no sculpture really
lives until it goes back to the landscape’.
Page 20

Hepworth wanted visitors to move around and in between the six parts. She made it
large scale so that people would have to respond physically to the work. She called it
'Conversation with Magic Stones' and completed it in 1973.

Question: What do you think she meant by ‘conversation’?

Page 21

Like Peter Lanyon, Hepworth was interested in history. Her reference to magic suggests
that the geometric stones carry some sort of symbolism or reference to ancient cultures.
The ‘figures’ might remind you of the Easter Island statues, totem poles or Neolithic
(standing) stones.
Question: Or can you think of anything else that the figures remind you of?

Page 22

The arrangement of the shapes suggests a group or circle of stones similar to the
ancient sites in West Cornwall where Hepworth lived for many years. The sculpture
creates a tension between human presences, magical shapes and the landscape
setting.

Question: Why do you think she was so interested in figures in the landscape?

Page 23

This sculpture is made out of bronze (see glossary at end of document). Each piece was
hollow-cast (see glossary at end of document) from a plaster original. The wet plaster would
have been laid onto aluminium sheets wrapped around a frame support. Hepworth
worked the plaster while it was wet and also carved it when it was dry.

(You may like to read a biography of the artist, which is available on the Tate website.
Click here and a new window will appear with the biography and a reading list of books
on Hepworth.)
Question: Describe how Hepworth relates her sculpture to the world around her?

Page 24

Patrick Heron said he saw the world in terms of colour. He liked to explore how areas of
colour respond when placed next to each other. He once said ‘I live through my eyes’.

Page 25

Like Peter Lanyon and Barbara Hepworth, Patrick Heron was always interested in the
natural world around him. He especially liked the colours and light of Cornwall - as a
boy he lived in St Ives and in 1956 he returned to live nearby.
Page 26

Heron was commissioned (see glossary at end of document) by the architects to design this
window for the new Tate St Ives Gallery in 1993. It is a permanent installation in the
Gallery Mall. At 4.6 metres high by 4 metres wide, the window completely dominates the
space.

The photograph on the right is the mural seen from outside the gallery and was taken by
the photographer, Bob Berry.

Page 27

But unlike in Hepworth or Rachel Whiteread’s artworks, in Heron’s window painting it is

not so much the physical object that affects us, but rather it is the colour and light that
we are most aware of.

Question: How does each artist transform the space?

Page 28

Unlike most stained glass (see glossary at end of document) windows it does not have black
lead lines around each colour. This is because Heron wanted the colours to be right
next to each other.
Question: Why do you think he wanted the colours next to each other?

Page 29

Heron started by making a small gouache (see glossary at end of document) study using
Japanese watercolour brushes. A company in Germany then translated his design into
glass. It was made using coloured stained glass sheets laminated onto two large panels
of thick clear plate glass.

Page 30

The colours create a reflection of purple light within the space that changes as the light
changes throughout the day. It is as if Heron has brought the landscape into the gallery.
Do you think that Heron’s window is an appropriate design for the building at Tate St
Ives, bearing in mind the location and Heron’s interests?

Page 31

This black and white photograph was taken in a remote part of Bolivia in South America.
You will see a line of stones.

Page 32

Richard Long, the artist who took this photograph, ‘kicked’ these stones into a line
during a walk he made.

The title of this work is A Line in Bolivia, Kicked Stones and was made in 1981.

Question: Why do you think he put stones in a line?

Page 33

Much of Long’s work is created as the result of walks he has taken in remote and
uninhabited parts of the world. For Long, the walk becomes the art and rather like Peter
Lanyon he is interested in ideas about time, movement and the environment.

Page 34

This photograph is simply a document or record of Long’s walk and the sculpture he
made along the way. Long uses the photograph to bring his experience of nature back
into the gallery. In an artist’s statement he made in 2000, he said it is to ‘feed the
imagination’.

Question: What is different about the way Long uses photography compared to a
landscape photographer? Long does not use colour photography. Why do you think this
is?

Page 35

At first glance you could be mistaken for thinking it was a natural formation of stones.
Long is interested in mapping, mark making and exploring - in a subtle way - the
relationship between man and nature.

Question: Why do you think Long wants his ‘sculptures’ to look like part of the natural
world?

Page 36

'A Line in Bolivia - Kicked Stones' was made using the natural materials of the place. It
remains part of the landscape and will, gradually, over time, be dissolved back into it.

For Richard Long, sculpture is not about making objects but rather the movement of the
body through time and space.

Page 37

Long says that each sculpture he makes is about the whole resonance of the place. He
says ‘sculptures are stopping places along a journey – they are where the walk meets
the place’.

Question: Do you think Long’s approach to the world around him is very different to
Lanyon’s?
Page 38

Here you can see Rachel Whiteread’s plaster casts (see glossary at end of document) of a
five-room flat and the space under a staircase.

Page 39

Whiteread brings the space of a house into the space of the gallery. She brings the
urban environment into the gallery with these huge shapes.

How different is Whiteread’s approach to that of some of the other artists discussed in
this unit?

Page 40

The gallery is transformed by this massive installation (see glossary at end of document). By
casting the space around a form she turns inside outside and transforms space into
solid form.
Question: Would you describe Whiteread’s work as sculptures or installation?

Page 41

The life-size scale of the work reinforces its physical presence. Just like Barbara
Hepworth Whiteread encourages visitors to respond physically to the work.

These massive shapes were once spaces in which people lived. Instead of being a
symbol or a representation of a flat, it is a physical impression of an indoor space that
was really lived in.

Page 42

Whiteread has compared her casting process to making a death mask. She described
another work, a cast of the living room of a deserted Victorian house, as an attempt to
‘mummify the air of a room’.

Question: Why do you think she chose to make them in white?

Page 43

Here is the fossilized interior of an entire home that holds memories of how the space
was used. We are left wondering, who lived here and how each space was used?

Question: Can you imagine who lived here and how each space was used according to
family needs such as eating, sleeping and washing?

Page 44
Whiteread has said that she particularly likes casting and the surface of plaster and has
compared her work to frescoes (see glossary at end of document). In this installation the
smooth white surface of the plaster seems to muffle or blank out the real presence of
the house.
You may like to view a special time-lapse film of the installation of Rachel Whiteread's
'Untitled (Rooms)' and 'Untitled (Stairs)' at Tate Britain. Click here for information about
viewing the film. This does not form part of the course but you may find it interesting.

Art and Landscape Summary page (online).

Art and Tate galleries Discussion area (online).

UNIT ENDS.

Glossary

Bronze (hollow-cast)
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin usually mixed with small amounts of other elements
such as zinc or phosphorous. It is a strong durable material and has been used since
Greek and Roman times for hollow-cast sculpture using a technique known as the ‘lost
wax’ process. This is a process of casting metal in a mould, the cavity of which is
formed with wax that is then heated and drained.

Cast
To reproduce an object, such as a piece of sculpture, by means of a mould; also a copy so
produced. The original piece is usually of a less durable material than the cast.

Commission
A work of art produced for some specific order or purpose and/or place. Traditionally a
patron/body of people would commission an artist or designer to make a work setting out clear
guidelines as to what was required and offering a fee. Today commissions vary enormously
according to content and patronage. Patrick Heron was commissioned by the architects of
Tate St Ives to design a window specifically for the new building

Construction
A 3-D object made of constructed parts. In contrast to a ‘carved’ ‘modelled’ or ‘cast’ object a
construction is usually made out of a number of different materials and pieces.

Fresco
A method of wall painting with water-soluble pigments over damp plaster. Many frescoes were
painted in churches and public buildings in Italy from the 13th to the 16th centuries.
Gouache
Opaque watercolour paint. Pigments are ground in water and mixed with gum.

Installation
An installation is a work of art created temporarily for a specific space or site. It exists
only as long as it is installed, although it may be recreated for different sites. An
installation can be made using any material and artists frequently combine a range of
media to create multi-dimensional works that include film, video and digital technology.

Masonite
Fibreboard made from wood fibre pulped under steam at high pressure. Peter Lanyon used it
in preference to canvas until c. 1959. It enabled him to scrape the surface.

Stained glass

Coloured glass used to form decorative or pictorial designs, usually for church windows.
Pieces are usually set in a lead framework like a mosaic.