In the catalogue for the Graham Sutherland exhibition at Modern Art Oxford, George Shaw links Sutherland's landscapes to memories of the 70's sci-fi drama Children of The Stones.
'The Children of the Stones helped me to identify more than a passing concern with the British landscape and the ancient presence of man and beliefs....but what is most compelling is the sinister atmosphere, the sensation of a world beyond ours...'
Visiting Dungeness recently, I thought about the dark brooding landscapes of Sutherland's paintings, and The children Of The Stones. This bleak and desolate location is also full of a sense of other-worldliness through it's space, structure and the incidental remains of past human activities, pass-times, industry and creativity.
An Unfinished World
Graham Sutherland at Modern Art Oxford
works on paper curated by George Shaw
Dark Hill 1940 water colour and gouache on paper
Little Mountain Study 1944 water colour, pencil and chalk on paper
'The concluding episodes (of The Changes )- set amongst the rocks of a Welsh quarry, which uncover the power that holds nature and the progress in balance- prefigures my interest in the concerns of the Neo-Romantic movement and Sutherland's work of the 30's and 40's in particular. Similarly the ITV series The Children Of The Stones helped me identify more than a passing concern for the British landscape and the ancient presence of man and of beliefs....Sutherland himself wrote somewhat mysteriously in 1973, conjuring up the ghost of Arther Machen, the Welsh author and mystic,in whose dreams and nightmares time dissolves and the ancients come calling: 'If I could barricade myself within a ring of rocks I would be pleased.'
George Shaw from the Sutherland catalogue ( Modern Art Oxford)
