THE LANDSCAPE DRAWN
Inspired by 'vourli landscape', pencil on paper, 15x8cm.
Landscape drawings are nearly always tied to a stretch of recognizable countryside or some natural scene, even when these are patently invented. A landscape imagined floats somewhere between invention and blurred memory, and there is always a space in the mind for a place whose literal existence remains virtual.
Elements within a drawing pinpoint features of this mental space, implying fixed positions and links between separate things, such as houses, hedges and trees. Each thing in a landscape drawing speaks of a stretch of land, and of specific places within that stretch. The tree tied to a single spot on the drawing pad enjoys the attention of an observer who, in turn, enjoys the disposition of recognizable objects across a kind of magnetic field where small attractions support an overall system of surfaces and implied relationships, such as those of closeness and distance. These come alive in the reader's mind as he or she saunters across the page. A hedgerow may impede movement but also allow the pleasure of transcending difficulty, for the eye can equally soar over any impediment.
The drawn landscape takes on body and strength as it flexes itself and transforms the underlying page. Paper becomes the springboard for reverie, an escape from bounded existence.
The pencil crossing paper and the eye marking its traces sustain a new reality. A drawing, fervently pursued, will always announce a fresh departure.
Roger Cardinal 2015
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ROGER CARDINAL (1940-2019):
