Moving Mountains
Standing staring at G E Hering’s ‘View of Brodick Bay’ something is not right, a castle guide has seen the problem before and comes over to help out “the mountains are in the wrong place”. She’s right; Goatfell can’t be where he’s painted it.
Before catching the ferry, with time on my hands, I try to locate where he would have set up easel. Back home I overlay my photos with the print to investigate what he’s done.
If I triangulate shore and castle with the tip of Goatfell then the sweep of the bay and backs of the lower hills carry on well beyond what would make a nice composition of ‘a bay’; if I scale for: shoreline, height of Goatfell and headland, then both mountain and castle speed away to the right of their start locations. It’s what artists do: manipulate, re-imagine and change, but it’s curious how – as spectator – I want to see how it ‘really was’ when I know ‘really’ never was.
