John Weeks is an important figure in New Zealand art history, standing between traditional and modern approaches to landscape. He played an important part in introducing Cubism to this country.
Born in Devonshire, England in 1888 Weeks arrived in New Zealand with his parents four years later. He attended art classes in Auckland and Sydney before pivotal periods of study in Edinburgh and Paris. He taught at Elam from 1930 until his retirement in 1954 and brought not only a solid academic background to the task but also a sound knowledge of modernist developments in Europe.
Dating from the mid-1930s, Landscape is one of his more orthodox paintings. If he has put Cubism to one side on this occasion, the work does reflect his keen interest in pictorial organisation and close observation of nature.
Using flattened applications of paint to highlight design elements, Weeks creates an idyllic scene, with pleasingly choreographed clouds and vegetation in accord with other elements. Farm buildings are unobtrusive and humanity’s intrusion into nature—manifest in the form of pastures, fenceposts and cuttings—adds rather than detracts from this pastoral scene. The coiling river underlines a sense of meandering, unruffled equilibrium.