One man and his dog
THE people we pass on country rambles these days are likely to be dressed in beanie hats, anoraks and walking boots, possibly wielding hiking poles. When we think of the English countryside, however, we imagine it peopled by a very different species: farmers clad in flat caps, thick woollen coats and muddy wellies, possibly carrying a shepherd’s crook.
‘Not knowing whether he was going to survive, he felt free to paint what he wanted’
That, with minor modifications, is the traditional garb of the ‘figure in the landscape’ in British art, kitted out for battling the elements rather than sitting in the heated cab of a modern tractor, and his reappearance in the contemporary landscapes of Gary Bunt
