Introduction: Layered Landscapes

This Special Issue of Arts investigates a series of creative projects focused upon and sited within certain peripheral landscapes of northern Britain ..

Northern peripheries

Guest editors' introductio

On Watery Borders, Borderlands, and Tania Kovats’ Head to Mouth

With a relational view of landscapes and natural environments as continuously “in process” and formed from the over-layered and interdependent connections between nature and culture, the human and the non-human, this paper considers some recent practices by artists who have worked in the largely rural border region of Northern England and Southern Scotland. Expanding from a focus on the artist Tania Kovats’ 2019 Berwick Visual Arts exhibition, Head to Mouth, and a wider frame of non-anthropocentric ecological thought in relation to the visual arts, it explores the significance of diverse creative engagements with water, here with the River Tweed, and their potential value in a current cross-border context of social and environmental challenges and concern

Performing the Anglo-Scottish Border: Cultural Landscapes, Heritage and Borderland Identities

Recent times have seen much reflection on the nature of the Anglo-Scottish border region; its past, present and potential future. Political concerns have rightly absorbed much of the attention, but at the same time important light has been shed on the legacy of cultural engagements and forms of interaction that might be said to perform and produce this border over time and render it particularly distinctive. A soft, internal border, the territory considered in this article is one with an ancient feudal past and a heavily conserved, preserved and, in parts, still militarized present. It is predominantly rural and characterized by large swathes of forestry, agriculture, and moorland, all of which raise issues of aesthetic and environmental, as well as social and economic sustainability. The concern in the case studies presented in this article is how, through the relational and processual perspectives of border studies and cultural landscapes, we might comprehend the over layered and sedimented histories, the nature of identities, heritage and experience of place here. I consider too the ways in which recent forms of creative practice are contributing to a wider investigation of this region and re-conceptualizing the cultural significance of the border

The English landscape, modernity and the rural scene 1890-1914

This thesis is concerned with artists' representations of the English landscape and rural scenery from the last decade of the nineteenth century up to the outbreak of war in 1914. While isolated aspects of the period in relation to landscape painting have been explored in the form of individual monographs and exhibition catalogues, there have been no overall studies. Equally there has been no sustained attempt to examine the close interconnections between depictions of the rural, and experiences of modernity and the urban that characterise these years. As a result there has been no opportunity to explore the different and complex ways in which ideals of Englishness were negotiated over time amongst a diverse group of painters. This thesis is a contribution to a debate which has emerged in other disciplines and in work within other art historical periods, an investigation of the role of paintings, their public reception and critical interpretation, in the context of the contemporary production and reinforcement of ideas about race, national identity and the construction of native traditions. The paintings discussed here of Stott, Clausen, Steer, John, Knight, Tuke, Gore, Spencer and Nash have all been selected because in different ways, they exemplify the diverse strands of the debate about Englishness around turn of the century. In order to engage properly with the broader effects of these representations, this thesis explores related areas of enquiry about the significance of ruralism and the countryside, as they have emerged in social and rural history, cultural studies, as well as current investigations in the fields of cultural geography and the study of tourism. These areas establish the centrality of ideas about the rural as a focus for unity and order, and as a site upon which imaginative solutions to the problems of modernity could be developed, in ways that have been left out of art historical accounts of the period as a whole. A fundamental aim here is the study of the cumulative effects, by 1914, of a consistent commodification of the countryside and of its populations by and for urban spectators

Changing landscapes : Norman Cornish and North East regional identity

This thesis examines the work of the Durham pitman and artist Norman Cornish whilst analysing the economic and cultural climate which has promoted and sustained his career as a regional artist for over seventy years. Cornish’s depiction of mining life remains widely acknowledged by regional patrons and the local media as an iconic representation of the distinctiveness of North East mining communities. The fact that his work continues to receive considerable media attention whilst maintaining a strong patronage within the region, promotes several issues relating to the understanding of regional culture and identity. Why has Cornish’s work remained so enduringly popular and what does this reveal about the dynamics of North East regional culture? This research considers the interpretation and patronage of Cornish’s work during key periods of the region’s development and in doing so provides the first sustained study of Cornish’s career in relation to regional cultural identity. Industrialisation, economic change, concepts of community and nostalgia are all recognised as fundamental factors which have shaped the region’s cultural identity during the twentieth century. Essentially, it is argued that a sense of ‘Northernness’ is crucial to Cornish’s regional popularity. Significantly, this thesis identifies a variation between Cornish’s regional and national popularity. The artist’s strong local appeal has not been replicated consistently on a broader national level. It is suggested that the varying national interest in Cornish’s career should be considered in relation to wider artistic trends as well as patronage from organisations such as the National Coal Board. On a regional level, a large proportion of Cornish’s continued appeal to local audiences can be attributed to the sympathetic response from the regional media. Whilst the study of regional identity within the scope of visual culture is by no means a new or impoverished field, this study adopts a thematic treatment of culture, identity and representation, in order to understand the contribution of visual culture to regional identity during the twentieth century. By dealing with visual culture in its broadest and most fluid sense, this study consults both social and cultural history sources alongside art historical perspectives.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

'A bright memory to remain' : the life and works of Charles Sims RA (1873-1928)

This thesis investigates the life and work of the English painter Charles Sims RA (1873-1928). It takes the form of a monograph and examines key themes of Sims' career within a chronological framework. The study makes consistent reference to the Sims Archive — the artist's studio contents recently brought to light by the author in negotiation with the artist's family and currently in the possession of Northumbria University. For the first time Sims' working practices and motivations have been explored in detail, thus contributing to knowledge of this particular neglected painter and more generally allowing some additional insight into the problems besetting and opportunities afforded to British artists of his generation. Sims' career spanned a transitional period in British art history which is currently being reassessed by art historians: the debates surrounding the effects of European modernism on British art, the inevitable impact of the Great War and the search during the 1920s for a visual language appropriate to modern life. Sims negotiated disparate experiences and preoccupations in an interesting way, and produced a stylistically diverse body of work in his continued search, I argue, for an alternative to modern reality. He attempted the combination of ancient religions, past art and modern experience into pictorial idylls that were simultaneously familiar and unattainable. The thesis aims to explore Sims' inspiration and reassesses his career within the context of his better known contemporaries by cross-referencing information held in national and international collections, libraries and archives with the hitherto unseen material here.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Wet Paint: Visual Culture in a Changing Britain – A Round Table Debate

Political decisions and debates regarding the interregional and interna- tional partnerships that constitute Great Britain, including those over Scottish Independence, EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) and proposed legislation on an ‘in/out’ referendum on British membership of the European Union, have contributed to, and intensified, the examination of Britain’s institutions, as well as its national emblems and arche- types. In light of such a dynamic situation, Visual Culture in Britain has asked representatives of British universities, the museum sector and research centres to respond to the idea of a changing Britain through the prism of British art and visual culture, using cogent examples wherever possible, and to outline their observations, understandings and positions within this rapidly developing context