Racist Countryside Art

[Vixen]

It's an art.... EXHIBIT. Including a little background and discussion is a normal part of that kind of thing these days.

If I went to a museum exhibit of Ford or Volkswagen cars of that era, yes I would expect at least one peice of signage to mention or discuss those points.

Nobody will make you read the signs.

What about the guy who founded IKEA; should all Billy bookcases carry a sticker saying, 'This is the all-time bestseller of an anti-Semite'?

In the context of art; people are stirred by English artist William Blake and a section even want to adopt his lines, 'Jerusalem' as the national anthem. But Blake was actually a socialist and would turn in his grave at a bunch of flag waving Tories wanting to appropriate his version of love of land but pointing at the social injustices. For example, the 'dark satanic mills'.

 

[Vixen]

To give a sense of the truth of LPlus' statement, or how completely ****** up the UK is becoming, Scotland is about to introduce a law that will allow anyone to be charged with a hate crime for "behaviour which is intended to stir up hatred against someone who possesses, or appears to possess, certain characteristics".


Under the new "Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act" merely stating in an internet post that a transwoman is actually a man, could get you charged with a hate crime under that new act. In effect, Scotland is criminalizing free speech. Its not a big step to go from banning free speech to banning free expression such as in art.

Appropriately, this new law comes into effect on April 1st.

The criteria should be that such a statement, which might be absurd to your eyes, is a hate crime if it causes psychological injury to the person on the receiving end.

 

[Vixen]

Some of their claims I do agree with. For example I do think that such paintings can and do for some people (as I’m one of them) inspire a “pride towards a homeland”. We have a wealth of art by British artists, I mean OK we don’t have a Rembrandt, but we have many, many artists that have created stirring works of British life. I’m not that keen on the Constables’ I’ve seen in real life, he’s no Turner, but his art is pretty.

Ah, but are such feelings ["......paintings of the British countryside evoke dark “nationalist feelings”.] necessarily 'dark'. Is it possible that not only far-right bounders and natives are moved by such scenes but anybody can be?

After all, painters paint whatever inspires them so if what inspires Constable also inspires the viewer, I am not sure why it is a 'dark feeling' or even a particularly 'nationalistic' one. It could be a local one. Someone in love with the Norfolk Broads or the Pennines or even the slagheaps of the Valleys.

 

[Vixen]

No, this is about you accepting the Torygraph’s biased version of what the museum’s claims are.

Well, there is a large part of the population that names Constable as their favourite artist simply because he's English. They know nothing about art but they know what they like.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

“Racist countryside art”, indeed.

6 degrees of separation?

Your attempt to link the museum itself to rural racism just shows how pervading it is, which makes their commentary even more relevant.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Therefore such art must be isolated and labeled as the evil art that it is. Because we cannot have people looking at pretty natural scenes of their country, its to dangerous.

Nobody's stopping anyone from viewing these paintings.

What is the connection to "colonialism" though?

Come to New Zealand and you might see. The colonials came here and tried to turn the countryside into an English rural landscape, by cutting down the forests and burning the bush to make way for rolling hills populated with sheep and rabbits. The results didn't look pretty - unless you were English.

“Down to the sea in slips”: soil erosion in New Zealand

New Zealand loses between 200 and 300 million tonnes of soil to the oceans every year... This rate is about 10 times faster than the rest of the world, and accounts for between 1.1 and 1.7 percent of the world’s total soil loss to the oceans, despite a land area of only 0.1 percent of the world’s total.

The reasons for these rather worrying statistics are linked to both human and non-human factors. New Zealand’s mountainous terrain and maritime climate makes our hill country in particular more susceptible to erosion. But land management practices since the arrival of European settlers a century and a half ago have greatly exacerbated this susceptibility: forest clearance, particularly on hill country, grazing on steep slopes and over-stocking of unsuitable country have all contributed to accelerated erosion.

Since the 1980s, the market for sheep products (wool and meat) has weakened significantly, seeing the continued withdrawal of sheep farmers from hillcountry, and the move to forestry or, on flatter to rolling country, dairy farming (the latter of course leading to a whole set of other consequences).

And where did all that wool and meat go to? Why back to Mother England of course!

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Cuz Hitler painted it. Not reason enough?

Until a few days ago I would have wondered what you were talking about. But from previous research for this thread I already knew that painting was done by Hitler, so your attempt to trivialize it fell flat. I cannot look at it without being reminded of its connections to fascism and genocide. And that makes me wonder about the subject matter too.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I think it better not give those filthy Normans any ideas about crossing the Channel and colonizing Angle lands!

You might be interested to know that Constable's paintings were very popular in France. If created a few centuries earlier they might well have given those filthy Normans ideas.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Constable also lived in "interesting times". While he was painting, some of the damned colonials decided they would throw tea-chests in Boston Harbour ...

'Interesting' times is right.

Slavery and the British transatlantic slave trade


During this time Constable was being heaped with praise for his romantic paintings of idyllic British rural life, as dramatic a contrast as you can imagine.
...
The truth is, the 'idyllic' countryside that Constable painted was propped up by the slave trade. Once you know this, his paintings take on a darker tone. Of course if you are ignorant then you won't see it, which is why the gallery is pointing it out.

This may seem like nitpicking but it simply isn't factual. Constable wasn't painting idyllic landscapes while Boston was in uproar over the Tea Party as he hadn't even been born yet. None of his famous landscapes were painted until years after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

 

[Orphia Nay]

6 degrees of separation?

Your attempt to link the museum itself to rural racism just shows how pervading it is, which makes their commentary even more relevant.

It seems like you’re vehemently agreeing with me.

 

[Darat]

Do you accept the museum's claims about British landscape art?

When I know them, I'll be able to answer that better, at the moment all we have is some disjointed words, and a few sentences. ETA - see also see my post about how they do stir pride in me for my homeland.

 

[Hercules56]

When I know them, I'll be able to answer that better, at the moment all we have is some disjointed words, and a few sentences. ETA - see also see my post about how they do stir pride in me for my homeland.

Does it stir hatred and bigotry against foreigners in you?

 

[Darat]

Does it stir hatred and bigotry against foreigners in you?

Does what?

 

[Lplus]

Does what?

The pride for your homeland stirred in you by the landscape paintings you admire. But then you knew that anyway didn't you...

Frankly I don't find landscape paintings stir pride in me for anything at all. Maybe a wish to be able to stand there and look and the scenery for a while, but that's about it.

 

[Darat]

The pride for your homeland stirred in you by the landscape paintings you admire. But then you knew that anyway didn't you...

Are we talking about what the museum has displayed at its galleries? Or are we talking about a few words and a sentence or two from an article in a newspaper about an interview in another newspaper? We haven't yet been shown they are one and the same.

I've checked and I should be able to take photos in the galleries so I will do so and paste them here so we can see what the museum has written in its labels etc.

Frankly I don't find landscape paintings stir pride in me for anything at all. Maybe a wish to be able to stand there and look and the scenery for a while, but that's about it.

I do rather vainly consider myself an amateur artist, and when I look at artwork I will often look at the techniques and so on, but I will always try to look at it as a piece of artwork, and like I said I do find myself having pride in my country for producing such brilliant art and artists.

 

[Lplus]

Are we talking about what the museum has displayed at its galleries? Or are we talking about a few words and a sentence or two from an article in a newspaper about an interview in another newspaper? We haven't yet been shown they are one and the same.

I've checked and I should be able to take photos in the galleries so I will do so and paste them here so we can see what the museum has written in its labels etc.

Nope, we're talking about the landscapes you've already seen and stated in a previous post that they engender a sense of pride in your homeland...

I do rather vainly consider myself an amateur artist, and when I look at artwork I will often look at the techniques and so on, but I will always try to look at it as a piece of artwork, and like I said I do find myself having pride in my country for producing such brilliant art and artists.

Though that may not be quite the same thing as having pride in the landscape being portrayed - technique and ability as opposed to subject.

 

[Hercules56]

Does what?

The art work you discussed. Does it make you feel a sense of nationalism and bigotry towards foreigners?

 

[Darat]

The art work you discussed. Does it make you feel a sense of nationalism and bigotry towards foreigners?

Nope.

Any chance you'll be backing up your claims?

 

[Lithrael]

OK once again.. you understand we stand that's a vacuous observation, right? You don't know if the comment is valuable or cuckoo...till you've read it. So you have to read it to have any opinion at all. Are we going too fast?


OK once again.. You're not really saying anything. Yes, you can ignore super weird signage put in exhibits. You could sit there quietly never thinking of them again. All well and good.

But this is a discussion forum. We discuss ****, including super weird signage. It's kind of what we do. OK once again.. Are we going too fast?

That line of posts was in reply to

The big here is the distracting sideshow about the gallery itself and it's apparent positions on itself. This is taking away from appreciation of the works, IMHO.

so I was sharing my feelings about how I feel museum signage affects my appreciation of the works. How humble of an apology would you like, for my not discussing the content of the signage in those particular posts?

 

[Lithrael]

And is the suggestion that images of the British countryside invoke nationalist feeling a weird axe to grind?

I don't think it's a SUPER weird axe to grind, but I do think whoever wrote the copy on the one sign we've seen quoted, stated their case in more concrete terms than was beneficial for expressing their point of view. But I don't know if it was rhetoric, so I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.