Repetition

Snow recently prompted me to take a different route through local woodland; what was familiar from my regular walks had become strange, with landmarks out of sequence or no longer evident. But even these relatively minor disruptions to a familiar pattern were disorienting.

Repetition does matter in artistic endeavours, most obviously in music. The Listening Service suggests repetition (and any disruption to it) is essential to music https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078n8p2. Repetition matters too in landscape-based art too: some of the most familiar and literal repetitions are evident in the many representations of the Stour Valley in John Constable’s painting, as in Barges on the Stour at Flatford Lock (c. 1811) and Flatford Mill (1816-17). Similarly, Peter Lanyon’s walks in and flights over West Cornwall- are evident in the forms, colours and labelling, as in Porthleven (1951) and Haseltown (1961)- even if the figurative cues are less clear. More recently, John Virtue’s multiple paintings of isolated features observed and recorded on repeated walks have become the substrate for much larger pieces- such as Landscape No 75 (1987-89).

Repetition took on a new significance for many in the spring of 2020, with pandemic-related travel restrictions. No single body of work could hope to capture the pandemic and all its implications. However, for many, the most immediate and obvious consequence was severely curtailed opportunities for movement. In response, I soon narrowed down my regular journeys to the same few local routes, which I documented in photographs and sketchbooks.

From these walks, I built up a knowledge of these few local paths, the surrounding trees, the valleys they traverse and the stream that runs through them. Having this insight means that other changeable factors- the seasons, weather and time of day- become more obvious, and available to explore. Disruptions to these walks do not, of course, arise only from the external environment (nor are these necessarily the most important). Haste, distractions (from wandering dogs and other walkers) and preoccupations (on private or public matters from grief to food supply and the onset of war) all disrupted these repeated walks as much as changeable weather (even snow).

Understanding and observing both the repetition and the disruption means there is much more to explore from these short journeys than is immediately obvious- particularly if the disruptions are explicitly admitted. What then emerges depends on the repetition and what is revealed through it.