Unnatural Nature

He laughs, in the way you might when thinking of the challenges of disciplining a
high-spirited child. ‘Stone to some extent has a system to it,’ he says. ‘But with wood
every branch is totally different. I always look at the branches laid out on the grass
before I begin and I think, “Oh fuck, here we go.” I used to do them in a day. I can
throw them up. But I took my time with this one, three days. To start with, you don’t
know what character it will take. If the base gets too wide it can be very sort of
lumpen.’
What he is trying to bring out, he says, is something like the same quality that existed
in the original trees. ‘That effortlessness. A tree is so perfect in its profile but it is
underwritten by this enormous daily struggle over years and decades. That is the
energy I am aiming for.’
Goldsworthy is a land artist in the tradition of the great American earth-movers like
Robert Smithson who created Spiral Jetty at Salt Lake, Utah. Richard Long, who
imported that tradition to Britain, is another mentor; like them, he wants to get
away from two-dimensional representation of landscape in a frame, and give you the
thing itself. That’s the theory. But he is also strongly in the tradition of everyone who
has ever had memorable days making dens in parks or sandcastles on beaches. He
preserves such ephemeral creations, icicle statues on rocks, brilliant forest dramas
made with autumn leaves, in exquisite photographs. Goldsworthy’s books are,
reportedly, the biggest-selling art books in the country.
GOLDSWORTHY Rowan Leaves and Hole
72