Highveld Landscape
Notes : Drawing is central to the art of William Kentridge who has contributed in large measure to a re-evaluation of the importance of drawing as a contemporary medium in its own right and not merely for preparatory purposes. For the artist, drawing is always a process of uncovering, understanding or coming to terms with the subject.
Since childhood, he has been inspired by the great landscape artists John Constable, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and Meindert Hobbema through a picture book, Great Landscapes of the World, given him by his grandfather. ¹
In contradistinction to this august tradition and to the South African canon of landscape painting, he has developed a form of landscape art that is as much about the natural environment as it is about the cultural construct of the landscape and the ways in which historical, social and political signs of human intervention intersect with the natural order.
In the total absence of idealisation, his Highveld landscapes are the very antithesis of the landscape art pioneered by artists such as Pierneef. And yet, in baring all the evidence of construction, industry, mining or agriculture, Kentridge’s landscapes map the traces of human activity that are central to the character of this country and the construction of its identity.
¹Neal Beneza 'Drawings for Projection' in William Kentridge, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 2002, p21
