Green Fuse, The: Pastoral Vision in English Art 1820-2000

This book traces for the first time a length of green heritage in English art. During the past two centuries especially, English artists have envisioned the pastoral mode. Their pastoral art uses landscapes of home - often quite specific localities - to shape vision. The history begins with Samuel Palmer, who transplanted the act of vision from his mentor William Blake's heroic figures into the soil of English landscape art. Palmer's landscape vision was more influential than has yet been recognised.His tradition has been enriched by artists of every subsequent generation, from Nash via Sutherland, Piper and Minton, to the current group of artists working under the name of Ruralists. It is a history of constant challenge and renewing response - a continuing story of intensely private men and women seeking and finding materials and sustenance for their visions in the nature and climate of their country. The end of the book shows fresh renewal against internationalist odds. In a country whose art has seldom been reckoned to show any continuity at all, this history may be definitive. It shows English art drawing visionary nourishment - even as the writings of Shakespeare and the music of Elgar - from the land.