acrylic on canvas, 150cm x 100cm
Iain White, 2009
£1750 SOLD
Like "Marks and Traces V" this work is derived from a real landscape in the Isle of Lewis and it too shows the pre-clearance pattern of rigs or lazy beds. Again in parts of the canvas the pattern is distorted and obscured sometimes almost obliterated by the imposition of the crofting system that succeeded it. Here the long narrow fields of the new crofting township are clearly seen. Sometimes there are narrow rigs aligned along their long axis showing that hand cultivation persisted initially, but the introduction of the tractor and plough later destroyed much of the earlier pattern except where field were largely used as permanent, albeit improved pasture, rather than arable.
