It is not always helpful to attempt to explain a painting such as this in words. It is, after all, a constructed image, and is necessarily ‘of itself’, a material, but not a literal entity and words can sometimes mislead and become counterproductive.
If we insist on interpreting visual art ‘literally’, we can easily miss the point, art has no obligation to represent
figuratively, neither is there an essential need for it to be justified in words, any more than does music or dance.
Songs and poems are usually comprised of words, but should not need additional ‘words’ to prop them up.
figuratively, neither is there an essential need for it to be justified in words, any more than does music or dance.
Songs and poems are usually comprised of words, but should not need additional ‘words’ to prop them up.
It is not understanding that really matters, but feeling and connection.
It is a risky business putting a picture ‘out there’, as it has to stand up entirely for itself, and is thus totally vulnerable – the best one can hope for, is that in some, there might be that connection.
However, when I made this work in 2012, I gave it the title Ancient Land, partly because at that time I had been thinking a lot about Eliot’s, East Coker, from his Four Quartets, and certain passages from that poem may have been at the forefront of my mind.
In that open field
If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,
On a summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire………
What does the term ancient mean?
We tend to use the word relatively, in terms of modern human history, but in that sense, ‘ancientness’ is just a few millennia, but in terms of the age of the Universe, the Solar System, and the Planet, not really very much at all.
George Taylor
April 2020
Taylor-Thwaites Studios, Stonewalls, Sturt Road, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 3EP
01608 810174
www.georgetaylorart.com www.janicethwaites.org.uk
