Observations placeholder
Spencer, Stanley - Landscapes 03 - Wisteria
Identifier
019386
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
It appears that Spencer treated his landscape painting as a form of meditation – the ‘now’ moment and what is currently called mindfulness, total concentration on the task in hand and nothing else.
The Art and Vision of Stanley Spencer - Kenneth Pople
Stanley's instinctive precision of mind … was reinforced by four years' study between 1908 and 1912 at the Slade School of Art, part of University College London (he commuted by train each day from Cookham.) It shows up particularly in his observed drawings and paintings. In observed work, and especially in his many down-to-earth landscapes and still-lifes which he sometimes called his potboilers because they provided ready income, he trained himself to record what he saw in exact detail, whether it was a glorious tree in full blossom or a dismal heap of scrapiron in a shipyard (both had equal identity in his view.) Moreover he did so with intense absorption, displaying a notice asking not to be disturbed when painting in the open.
A description of the experience
