Welsh Journals

FAMOUS AMONG THE BARNS: THE CARDIGANSHIRE LANDSCAPES OF JOHN ELWYN1 Romanticism has always been a predominant force in British land- scape painting and its expression has produced stylistically differing results. Artists have commonly used landscape not merely as a portrayal of their environment, but as a vehicle for the expression of emotions; a mirror of the artists themselves, reflecting their spiritual and religious ideals. Simply looking at the landscape was not enough; Romantic artists projected some- thing of their character into the landscape and as a result its physical appear- ance was transformed. Artists looked into the landscape and also within themselves; there is in their work a sense of probing for a deeper experience than that offered by exact topographic recording of natural phenomena. Wales has played a significant role in providing inspiration for twentieth- century British landscape painters, especially for artists whom we now asso- ciate with the Neo-Romantic movement that flourished during the years between the two world wars. In 1934 Graham Sutherland visited Pembrokeshire, and was to return there on numerous occasions to paint. Inspired by Sutherland's landscapes, younger painters such as John Minton, John Craxton and Michael Ayrton also turned to the Welsh landscape. In the 1940s John Piper visited Snowdonia and there he encountered the theatri- cality of nature; its dark forces appealed-it was rough, untamable and bleak and a completely different aspect of the Welsh landscape from Sutherland's gentle rolling hills. Whilst painters have found inspiration in the sublime mountains of Snowdonia, or the romantic coastal scenery of Pembrokeshire and industri- alised landscape of south Wales, few artists have been drawn to the isolated farming communities in west Wales. There was one exception in John Elwyn, for variations on the rural landscape of south Cardiganshire sus- tained his painting for more than six decades. John Elwyn was born in 1916 into a close community of farmers, weavers and local craftsmen. His child- hood memories of playing by the river that fed his father's woollen mill in Newcastle Emlyn, and in their smallholding and dairy pastures nearby, were among the early experiences that shaped his art and his attitude towards the landscape and its inhabitants. He drew consistently from his own observa- tions, experiences and memories-inspired by a love of the landscape, a love of painting and an empathy with the Welsh people. In Welsh there is a word to convey this affection for a community, the love of a locality and regional character, Brogarwch.