Peter Lanyon in a glider
Peter Lanyon: ‘Soaring Flight’, 1960
Finding a new way in to your subject can make all the difference. After the war, Peter Lanyon (1918-64) emerged from constructivist roots to an engagement with Cornwall which sought to use abstract painting as a method to capture his bodily experience of the landscape – in his words, ‘I paint placeness’.
His 1950’s work is often alluring, but that agenda really took off only when he discovered gliding. He was able to find equivalents for air streams, flight paths and weather conditions which operate lyrically as abstractions but can also be read back to what they represent. Now the sky could be all around, and Lanyon could imply movement and change. He could use the contrasts of assisted ascent, stalling, falling; turbulence and calm to stand in for sexual abandon. existential states or social concerns.. By the time Lanyon died following a bad landing, his four years of unpowered flight had a powerful sequence, now celebrated in paintings (Courtauld Gallery 17th January) and a complementary exhibition of his drawings (Gimpel Fils to 30th Jan).
Not only that, but his fellow founder member of St Ives’ Crypt Group, Bryan Wynter (1915-75) has a centenary show (Jonathan Clark 5th-27th Nov). He was closer to ‘psychonaut’ than astronaut, using first mescaline and later diving as his means of achieving a fresh take on landscape-originated semi-abstraction in the 1950’s. The 28 work show concentrates on that best-known style, but also includes a fine 1962 painting inspired by aqualung diving.
Bryan Wynter: ‘Blue Deep’, 1962
Bryan Wynter: ‘High Country’, 1956
Most days art Critic Paul Carey-Kent spends hours on the train, traveling between his home in Southampton and his day job in London. Could he, we asked, jot down whatever came into his head?
