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In the twilight there is a field
Yosa Buson, Travels Through Mountains and Fields, c. 1765Source: Wikimedia CommonsI've been reading The Collected Haiku of Yosa Buson, translated by W. S. Merwin and Takako Lento. The collection was...
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Knowing the East
Paul Claudel (1868 - 1955) joined the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs after university, where he had begun writing poetry and attending Mallarmé's 'Tuesdays', and in 1895 was made vice-consul in...
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Untitled (Moon Image)
The oceans and deserts of Vija Celmins are monochrome patterns of pencil marks and brush strokes - no landmarks, just abstract surfaces. She may have looked at particular sites but the artworks only...
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The Succession of Strata
I was recently given the splendid Thames & Hudson volume STRATA: William Smith's Geological Maps,which has contributions from a range of experts and a short foreword by Robert Macfarlane. The book...
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Island Zombie
Last year Princeton published this collection of Roni Horn's Iceland writings. The cover image beneath the yellow titles is one of 23 visual editorials she published in 2002 for the weekly culture...
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The Fortress of Königstein
For various reasons it's much harder at the moment for me to go to exhibitions than it used to be, but I did pop down yesterday to the National Gallery to see Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited....
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From sea's wide spring out flows the tide
This is The Book of Taliesin, which I have been reading in the new translation by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams. Authors and dates for the poems it contains are impossible to identify, although they...
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Indigo fields, sun-warmth
The NYRB Poets series has a volume devoted to Li Shangyin (c. 813–858) contaiing the work of three translators. All of them have a go at his most famous poem, 'Brocade Zither' (or 'The Opulent Zither'...
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Loss of the Rhône
Jean-Antoine Linck, The confluence of the river Valsereine with the river Rhône, c. 1800-20The British Museum currently has a small temporary exhibition, 'Enticing Peaks Swiss prints from the Lloyd...
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Trees, possibly beside a lake
Thomas Gainsborough, A View in Suffolk, c.1746In 2017 Lindsay Stainton discovered that an album of 25 drawings in the Royal Collection were the work of the young Thomas Gainsborough. They are...
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Dosso di Trento
Albrecht Dürer, Trintberg - Dosso di Trento, 1495 I recently visited the National Gallery's Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist, which I had been looking forward to all year, although I...
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Path of the Wind
December's Wire magazine included an interesting 'Aeolian Harp Music 15' chart compiled by Irish experimental musician Natalia Beylis. There is no explanatory text, just the list, but a bit more info...
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The waves were like agate
Eugène Delacroix, Sunset, c. 1850I have been reading the Journals of Eugène Delacroix in a lovely, pristine Folio edition I found in a secondhand bookshop in York (the selections were originally...
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Double Red Mountain
Isamu Noguchi, Double Red Mountain, 1968 I instinctively liked this sculpted landscape in the Barbican's Isamu Noguchi exhibition because of its beautiful colour and the texture of the marble. I tried...
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Dewpond
I realise I've been a bit remiss in posting recently, partly due to pressure of work (my day job is on climate change) and partly due to a lot of other non-landscape interests that have got in the way....
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Natsume Sōseki's Kusamakura ('Grass Pillow'), published in 1906, was an attempt at a haiku-style novel, a reaction against the enthusiasm for European-style naturalism that had recently entered...
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The Sea View Has Me Again
The 'Sea View' of Patrick Wright's recent book was actually the name of one of the two pubs Uwe Johnson frequented during his final decade, living in Sheerness and almost failing to complete the fourth...
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I leave my door open when spring days get longer
I've discussed Red Pine's translations from Chinese poetry before (see 'No Trace of Cold Mountain' and 'A terrace of incense lit by the dawn'). His enthusiasm for tracking down and exploring the...
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Chessboard fields
I remembered how from the air the valleys, hills and rivers gained a certain distinction but wholly lost that quality which is perceived by a countryman whose day's travel is bounded by the earth of...
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Sea and Sand Dunes
Here's what you see when you enter the Royal Academy's new exhibition, a view of a bay with oddly sketchy waves, scattered black buildings and stick trees like Chinese characters. In Jonathan...
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