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MAENHIRS, MENHIRS,
MONOLITHS, STANDING STONES
THE SELF SIMILARITY OF NATURE
John Hewett
Down the western edge of Europe exist the
remains of our Neolithic and Bronze Age ancestors. Still cloaked in
mystery, these monuments of stone are among the oldest existing sculptures
on the planet. The study of Megaliths touches on such fundamental matters
as the origins of Culture and the first principles behind the development
of modern civilisation and science. The monuments themselves, and the
way they relate to their natural surroundings, give evidence that their
creators combined many different skills and knowledge.
The production of the painting of these monuments began as part of a
pursuit of the Divine or Nature after rejecting the Self as a result
of disenchantment with egocentric flag-waving. The process began with
a standard format flooded with colour and allowing nature to take its
course in evaporation. The resulting abstractions opened up a universe
of possibilities with the omnipresent look of nature. The next step
was to place this look onto simple images of trees, putting life into
representations of living things. These pictures turned out too symbolic
and so to purify the idea the symbol of a pair of concentric rings became
the platform for the colour. These pictures then became about the relationship
between pairs and the inner and outer both pictorially and psychologically.
This seemed too deep and difficult although very beautiful but the need for
simplicity remained. Then one Christmas while walking with my sister we saw
the Men-an-Tol (stone of the hole) in Cornwall. This is a neolithic carved ring of granite with accompanying menhirs.
Here are all the textures of
nature in the rock and in the mosses and lichens upon it and there was the
realization that this was the format needed. It is ironic that a process
that started with the rejection of the self ends up using the earliest marks
of man.
Within the confines of the shape of the stone, colour is seeded and tended in its growth until
the life giving water is evaporated, and what remains
is a record of its own unique existence. Every stone is individual and every
version of every stone is unique. The life history of the actual stone is
held in the grain of the rock as it was laid down millions of years ago.
Then thousands of years ago a piece was lifted from its age and placed as a
marker of life standing upright with reason. Now mosses and lichens grow as
the stone weathers and continues to change just as the watercolour fades in
strong sunlight and the paper dissolves in time. Our descendants will be
able to see our reasoning as we can see that of our ancestors. The self
similarity of the appearance of life is universal and the mark of our
understanding is placed there only for our own contemplation.
"It is only after you have come to know the surface of things, that you
venture to seek what is underneath. But the surface is inexhaustible."
said Mr. Palomar in the book by Italo Calvino.
Beyond this world is another world, and beyond that another, and so on,
etcetera, ad infinitum. "To infinity and beyond."
AFTER LOOKING AT WATERCOLOURS
Primal knowledge, sightless, outside like
inside, devoid of skin, weather-beaten flesh of the earth: stone creatures. Each one visited and
studied in its particular place, in a particular moment of coincidence. Studied with voyant
eyes not wired to the brain but to earths intelligence, wired to a deeper human mode of
being whose language is art.
I look at you, and in my imagination there arises your picture, shaped by my
uncontrolled but well trained hands, your portrait. My hand finds the right colours, puts them correctly on
paper -your portrait flows on the white expanse, and I can take you home with me.
You are still standing in your place, with day
and night passing overhead, solar powers, lunar powers, the power of planets and
constellations. You
were positioned into the powers of time by people long before us. You bear a
meaning of your own although we are no longer able to read it. The dew and the rain
leave you moist, encouraging moss and lichen to settle down on you.
Lively you glitter with them, loving their touch, and yet you remain unchanged. You let them go again.
I put down on paper your shape, your face, your being as it has impressed itself on me.
But I cannot decipher your features - it is into painting that I transfer your riddle. I paint it all
with care, leaving nothing out, adding nothing - while time is flowing by. Within it my
imagination is flowing, causing me to see you differently at each given
instant. Your picture, shaped by the moment, becomes already obsolete in the face of the
new picture which is slumbering in the heart of the next moment. Desperation?
There is a connection in our spirit. Wordless messages arrive wherever I am:
the truth of time, truth of your mystery, truth of my own existence - and of
my work.
Monik Eva Herchenröder
After looking at watercolours of menhirs by John Hewett
Translation from the German by Roland Held.
LIST OF WORKS
01 - The Pipers of Boleigh: 1 of
2. (One of each, regarded as a pair, diptych).
Date:
09/09/97
Size: 31 x 41 cm (12" x 16")
Price: £500 the pair.
02 - Maen Mawr Maenhir and stone circle at Trianglas, Fforest Fawr, Dyfed, Wales.
Date: 12/8/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
03 - Maen Bradwen or Carreg Bica on Mynydd Drumau, Clydach, Glamorgan, Wales.
Date: 1/10/98
Size: 55.6 x
75.6 cm (paper size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
04 - The Battle Stone, maenhir at Battle, Brecon, Wales. No.2 of 2
Date: 7/10/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper
size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
05 - Kenidjack Holed Stones, Kenidjack common, St. Just, Cornwall, England.
No.1 of 7, No.5 stone from Belerion guide.
Date: 1/10/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper
size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
06 - Maen Madoc, maenhir at Plas-y-Gors, Ystradfellte,
Dyfed,
Wales.
Date: 1/8/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper size 70 x
100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
07 - The Pipers of Boleigh, the menhirs at St. Buryan,
Penwith,
Cornwall. No.2 of 2 (One of each, regarded as a pair, diptych).
Date: 09/09/97
Size: 31 x 41 cm (12" x 16")
Price: £250
08 - Callanish, Heel Stone One of the stones of the
array at
Callanish, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
Date: 1/8/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
09 - Minchinhampton Long Stone at Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, England.
Date: 1/11/98
Size: 55.6 x 75.6 cm (paper size 70 x 100 cm)
Price: £300
Currently on exhibition at Ypsilon, Frankfurt, Germany.
10 - Tresvennack Pillar, the menhir at Drift, Penwith, Cornwall. (1 of 2).
Date: 16/8/97
Size: 31 x 41 cm (12" x 16")
Price, £250.
E-mail the
artist at:
john.hewett@ukonline.co.uk
The text and images featured in this article are © copyright John Hewett 2000.
They may not be copied or stored in any archive or retrieval system.
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