Note4th February, 2022 / art
Genius loci
I’m reading The St Ives Artists, by Michael Bird, which is, so far, one of the better books on the subject because it puts place and time at the very centre and works outward to the artists. Early on, Bird wonders whether it’s possible to enjoy what artworks have to offer without being wholly seduced by the stories behind them? He considers Lanyon’s Thermal.
If you came across this painting unlabelled in, say, Moscow, you might guess from the shapes and colours that it had something to do with sea or sky. Do you need to know more - that, for example, Lanyon was born in St Ives, that he was obsessed with the history and contours of his native landscape, and that in his early forties he took up gliding? Yet it is impossible to ask ‘Who was Peter Lanyon?’ without opening a Pandora’s box of personal myth-making that forever afterwards inhabits the paintings like a genius loci.
When I see unfamiliar Latin, I tend to sigh and skip past, but on this occasion, the relevance to Lanyon compelled me to look it up. Genius loci describes “the geist, distinctive atmosphere, or characteristic spirit of a place, especially when regarded as an artistic muse”. I’ve been curious about how the magic of a place can drive creativity since the Dark Peak lit something inside me as a kid, and this idea of an inherent spirit informs my Site Nonsite projects. It’s satisfying to find a neat new way to represent such a fundamental aspect of my research.
Bird also suggests something about Lanyon’s presence that I like: if his myths inhabit his paintings like a genius loci, then by definition, the paintings are place, making the artist as intrinsic to Penwith as the land, sea, light or air.