JACOB HENDRIK PIERNEEF | SUMMER RAIN IN THE BUSHVELD

Stephan Welz & Co in Association with Sotheby's, Johannesburg, 17 May 1999, lot 326

Acquired from the above sale by the present owner

J.H. Pierneef is widely-revered for not only depicting, but defining, the South African landscape, and Summer Rain in the Bushveld is an excellent and important example of the master’s work executed on a monumental scale rarely seen outside museum and institutional collections.

Pierneef was endlessly inspired by the South African bushveld, a subject he returned to throughout his career. This relatively early example was painted in 1918, a significant year in which Pierneef finally left his job at the State Library to realise his dream of becoming a full-time artist. Unlike the highly stylised works to come a decade later, early works such as this remain true to the bushveld that he saw. Choosing to make his preliminary sketches en plein air before completing his final painting back in his studio, this landscape’s ever-changing colours and wide array of shapes and textures provided Pierneef with ample inspiration, from which he would create some of his most seminal works.

Pierneef would spent hours sketching, perfecting the ominous clouds that rolled over this dramatic landscape: "His mystic towers and castles in the air above the Transvaal landscape are almost legends in themselves, they have become symbolic. They hover over the veld like mountains and bring a dramatic tension to static scenes. At times these heavy cloud masses are highly stylised or they form a stylistic unity with the landscape. On other occasions they acquire almost anthropomorphic traits" (Nel, 1990, p.149). The approaching storm clouds and arched gate-way formations would later take on a more spiritual connotation, as seen in his most acclaimed work, the Johannesburg Station Panels (1929-1932).

These early years following the end of the Boer War and the Union of South Africa in 1910 saw a period of nation-building and the creation of a South African national identity in which the artist was actively involved, and the South African landscape was central to the ideology of the emerging nation. During this period the land was claimed both physically and artistically as ‘home’, and in turn both the land and the landscape helped to define the nation. The national mythology centred on the Voortrekkers and their migration from the Cape to the Transvaal, and Pierneef depicted the South African landscape in a way that expressed its unique character as well as the Afrikaners’ connection to the land. Many of these national ideas were synonymous with religious righteousness, and Pierneef’s Edenic landscapes can be interpreted as depictions of God’s Promised Land. This dream of an idealised perfect landscape was shared by many South Africans, who came to see their country through Pierneef’s eyes.

Bibliography:

P.G. Nel, J.H. Pierneef: His Life and Work, Cape Town, 1990