Thermal, 1960
This painting is one of a series of works that were partly inspired by Lanyon's experience of gliding. Lanyon began gliding in 1959 and the sensation of flight added new dimensions to his landscapepainting. He gained a much stronger feeling for the elements. He later explained: 'The air is a very definite world of activity as complex and demanding as the sea.. The thermal itself is a current of hot air rising and eventually condensing into cloud. It is invisible and can only be apprehended by an instrument such as a glider.. The basic source of all soaring flight is the thermal'.
Zennor Storm, 1958
He painted places or, as here, the experience of being in a particular place in certain conditions. So, he used his paint to evoke the experience of being in a storm near the Cornish village of Zennor, which sits between the high moorland and the sea-cliffs.
Rosewall, 1960
A "dynamic vortex"http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts-and-culture/featured/6370178/part_3/taking-to-the-skies-.thtml
Solo Flight
"By untethering himself from the earth to fly above it, he discovered a new way of understanding terrestrial features and their interaction with the ever-changing sea and ambient light.” Simon Allen.
Lanyon's perspectives
It is impossible for me to make a painting which has no reference to the powerful environment in which I live.’
‘Paint represents experience and makes it actual.’
Lanyon described landscape painting as 'a true ambition like the mountaineer who cannot see a mountain without wishing to climb it or a glider pilot who cannot see the clouds without feeling the lift inside them. These things take us into places where our trial is with forces greater than ourselves, where skill and training and courage combine to make us transcend our ordinary lives.'
Gliding gave him the chance 'to experience my county from outside returning to land rather than emerging from inside.'
‘Paint represents experience and makes it actual.’
Lanyon described landscape painting as 'a true ambition like the mountaineer who cannot see a mountain without wishing to climb it or a glider pilot who cannot see the clouds without feeling the lift inside them. These things take us into places where our trial is with forces greater than ourselves, where skill and training and courage combine to make us transcend our ordinary lives.'
Gliding gave him the chance 'to experience my county from outside returning to land rather than emerging from inside.'
Turner, Snow Storm, 1842
Struck by the similarity between Lanyon's "vortex" paintings and those of Turner. Both artists "step inside "nature to paint; in both, the subjective view of the artist is everything. Elemental!
Barbara Hepworth, interviewed about Lanyon's death, described him as 'a unique spirit - a spirit that was perhaps airborne.' http://some-landscapes.blogspot.com/2010/05/soaring-flight.html
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Drawing for Orpheus, 1960
Not relevant to gliding, but I found this drawing on-line and loved it. The loose vigorous quality is very expressive; also the nude subject matter is somehow merged with landscape. In the same way, I found drawing from life to have many similar qualities and lines to landscape drawing.
To conclude, another trip to the sea is needed, this time alone, sans famille (!) and lots of drawing of clouds, sea, cliffs, kites, boats...
I feel I've got stuck in a rut with my sculptures now and need some expressive mark-making, maybe from different perspectives, like the cliff-top.
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