- 1975 edition. 80 pages.
- Published by A.H. & A.W. Reed Ltd.
- Hardcover, dust jacket and protective wrapper.
- Condition: Very good, minor rubbing and shelf wear.
- Signed by Don Neilson (artist) on title page
- Text by Ian F. Grant
Journey Through a Landscape: Paintings of New Zealand
The New Zealand landscape is a gift to the artist; from the broad panoramic sweep of mountain, lake and sky down to the delicate intricacies of fern frond and bush scene. There is so much to delight the eye and set the fingers itching for brush or pen.
Admirers of Don Neilson's art will welcome these paintings - his love of the landscape and its bird and animal life are self-evident in every line of this study of the New Zealand countryside. Already well-known for his work in The Art of D. R. Neilson and Wellington Harbour, he has excelled himself in this, his first full-length study of the whole of New Zealand. The paintings and drawings in this book were executed over a period of several months spent travelling both islands to capture each scene at its best - autumn in Arrowtown, the brilliant crimson of the pohutukawa in midsummer flower at Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula, the cool steely blues and ice-colours of Milford Sound with the wintry sun breaking through.
Ian Grant's observant pen is a fitting counterpart to Don Neilson's brush. Sharing with Neilson a common love of natural beauty and concern for the environment, Grant takes the reader on an investigative journey through the landscape of the country they were born in. Drawing on historic fact, diaries and letters as well as contemporary records, he writes an evocative account of the development of the New Zealand landscape from before the dawn of man up to the present day, and poses a tantalising question as to its future.
What shaped this land? How did a tangle of rainforested hills and volcanic wastelands become the "green and pleasant land" we farm so richly today? And, with the coming of man, what sacrifices did the land itself make when its rivers were tamed, forests pinned back and its minerals sluiced and prised from its rocks? The introduction of animal and plant life from overseas comes in for its share of scrutiny, too, as past successes and tragic mistakes are described.
Every New Zealander and most visitors to these shores will find this an appealing portrayal of New Zealand's greatest heritage: the enduring land.
Sixteen tipped-in color plates. With dozens of pen & ink drawings in the text.
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