LANDSCAPE ART IN SOUTH AFRICA 



IM \Y remark at once that I have undertaken this article with ex- 

 treme diffidence. To begin with it is most invidious for one artist 

 to discuss his contemporaries in the same branch of art ; and 

 secondly, it is almost impossible to describe the greatness of South 

 African scenery and the difficulties which its representation implies. 

 It must always be remembered that South Africa is immensly large and 

 very thinly populated, and that, more so even than in other colonies, 

 painting, or indeed any art, has had as yet but little chance of showing 

 its head above the turmoil of politics and material struggle. Frankly, 

 there is no such thing as a school of South African landscape painting, 

 though there are a number of artists whose work shows the deep and 

 abiding influences of huge spaces and the strange personality of Africa 

 in artistic minds. Just as Dutch painting is most obviously born of the 

 genius of the land, so will the art of Africa, if ever there be a great art 

 in this country, be as it were a profoundly original product of the soil. 

 At present, of course, there is imitativeness, but I think we can already 

 see that the foundations are essentially national. This may be an opti- 

 mistic opinion, but unless one holds it it would be worse than useless to 

 write about our landscape art. Curiously enough, however (and this is 

 cheering, in that it bears out my theory), painting and architecture are 

 the only South African arts one could write about, because they are the 

 only ones which exist in any real sense. Literature and music are 

 practically non-existent, and such interest as there is in them is almost 

 entirely derivative. 



Before discussing any individual artist, it may be useful to describe 

 shortly what South African scenery really is. Apart from the Cape 

 Peninsula, which contains, perhaps, the most varied scenery of the 

 Union, but is not, strictly speaking, at all typical of South Africa, the 

 featuVes of our land are mainly three monotony, size, and light. It is 

 true that in the examples given with this article these three features are 

 represented solely by light, but that is practically inevitable. The 

 eloquence of vast monotony, of vast distance, is almost impossible to 

 convey on canvas, and even so might only be taken as chosen, rather 

 than as typical. But in the South African school of the future there can 

 be little doubt that something of this sombre and strange attraction will 

 steep itself in its art. The appeal of Africa is primarily the appeal of 

 distance and all that that implies, the veld has the sameness and yet the 

 moods of the sea and the veld is South Africa. This is, of course, a 

 generalization ; and though it has more truth than most generaliza- 

 tions, it is open to exceptions. Throughout South Africa, from Cape 

 Town to the Zambesi, there are wide tracts of land which are not 

 typical " veld " at all. The fruit farms of Cape Colony, the sugar plan- 

 tations of Natal, the great tropical belt of Northern Rhodesia are as 

 unlike the veld as an English lawn is ; but here also the claims of light 



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