Filozofski vestnik Letnik/Volume XXII • Številka/Number 2 • 2001 • 179-198 
ALTERED LANDSCAPES: 
A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS BY 
J. H. PIERNEEF AND JOHN CLARKE 
ESTELLE A . MARÉ AND N . J . COETZEE 
All the artifacts of human culture, more especially works of art, stand in need 
of interpretation. Since there are many critical approaches available to the 
art historian it is imperative that he or she pauses at the outset of any 
hermeneutic venture to meditate upon the essence of the work of art, which 
should not be understood as its sole meaning but as a core of possible meanings 
which can be inferred from it. 
When interpreting an work of art the art, historian is tempted to exploit 
it as an object which will yield meaning if subjected to analysis. So it is 
appropriate that some common misconceptions concerning art should be 
dealt with at the outset: 
Firstly, that art is a closed system which finds its meaning within itself. 
A.denotative theory of meaning should be introduced as a bulwark against a 
formalist or purely aesthetic approach. The reason for this assertion is that a 
denotative theory of meaning "grants art a referential function and forbids us 
to say with the formalists that art refers only to itself' (Dufrenne 1983: 209). 
Secondly, that a work of art is representational. Truth in art is not a 
correspondence; therefore, representation should not be considered the 
essence of art. For example, the meaning of Vincent van Gogh's painting of 
peasant shoes,1 to which Heidegger (1950) refers in his discussion of the origin 
of the work of art, cannot be interpreted adequately in terms of a mimetic 
relation between the shoes and the image. Therefore Heidegger discusses 
the shoes depicted as denotive of the woman to whom they belonged and 
situates them in her life world. 
Thirdly, there is the view that a work of art is an object. Turning a work of 
art into a mere object reduces it to something one can sell or otherwise 
man ipu la te by subject ing it to theoretical investigation, analysis and 
interpretation form a biased point of view, which may falsify its meaning. We 
concur with Friedrich Schiller's insight that "the world which is subject to the 
ESTEI.LE A . M A R É AND N . J . COETZEE 
scientific method of understanding is a soulless world" (Von der Luft 1984: 
267). Thus it may happen that works of art which have their source in the 
cultural sphere of a particular historical people at a particular time, such as 
Pierneefs landscapes and Clarke's place images, lose their vitality when they 
are removed from their context and placed in a museum or gallery in order 
to be optimally viewed as art objects. 
Stated differently, a work of art can be said to be created by an artist at a 
specific time and place, and an interpretation can be "correct" only if the per-
ception of the interpreter is "direct", not influenced by other preconceptions, 
and provided that the work of art is not reduced to an object which can be 
subjected to manipulation which, of necessity, would violate its integrity and 
alter its intended meaning. 
According to Megill (1985: 156), Heidegger's "phenomenological pre-
occupation" is concerned "with letting things show themselves as they actually 
are". This is especially true of a work of art. Heidegger called the "correct" 
interpretation of Being (Dasein), hermeneutics. This method of deriving 
meaning is actually a combination of phenomenology and hermeneutics 
(Richardson 1963: 631). Heidegger furthermore connects art to ontology since 
all things, among them a work of art, aspire to be themselves. The reality of 
the work of art is to be itself, bound only to its origin.2 About this origin he 
reasoned as follows: "The origin of the work of art - that is the origin of both 
the creators and the preservers, which is to say of a people's historical existence 
- is art" (1977:187). If art is created in a specific place and at a specific time, 
we encounter a normative choice of interpretation which excludes talk about 
meaning on the basis of a cultural field in general. 
To define art is impossible. However, by following Heidegger one arrives 
at the insight that a work of art creates "a world". If this world comes into 
being by an openness opened up by the work of art itself, the more simply it 
snatches us away from the realm of the ordinary. In this sense the cultural 
field of the work of art comes into a mimetic relationship with its specific 
origin. 
In the following discussion it is our aim to present the worlds created by 
two artists who presented the South African landscape in ways that reveal the 
expectations of two different generations of viewers. The psychological impact 
of the two sets of place images can only be explained in the context of a 
1 Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), Old shoes, Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. 
2 "Das Ursprung des Kunstwerkes" in Holzwege (1950). This essay has been translated in 
various editions of Heidegger's work in English as "The origin of the work of art". See 
Heidegger (1971). 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS ISYJ. H. PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
country in which political strife has to a large extent centred on the ownership 
of land, the "land" referring to the country as such, as a geographical and 
political unity. 
J. H. Pierneef s altered landscapes 
In the "Foreword" to Nicholaas J. Coetzee's catalogue of the so called 
"Station Panels" by J. H. Pierneef, entitled Pierneef, land and landscape, C. M. 
Till, the Director of Culture for the City of Johannesburg writes: "Public 
patronage of the arts has not been a major part of South Africa's cultural life 
and the commissioning of the Station Panels over 60 years ago was an event 
which has shown the benefit of such action in furthering and supporting the 
visual arts" (Coetzee 1992: iv). These panels are at present housed and 
conserved in the Johannesburg Art Gallery, a necessity which detracts from 
their meaning in their original setting in the Johannesburg station building. 
What was achieved by the panoramic and monumental landscape panels in 
the largest South African station building can only be answered when these 
representations of landscape and land are placed in the South African context 
of almost seventy years ago. 
Who was Pierneef? Why did he receive the commission and what did he 
actually portray in the Station Panels? 
Jacob Hendrik Pierneef was born in Pretoria in 1886. His parents were 
Dutch and during the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) when the British 
forces took Pretoria in June 1900, his family chose to return to the Netherlands. 
There Pierneef came to the realization that he wanted to be an artist and 
received some training in Rotterdam. After his return to the Transvaal Colony 
Pierneef received lessons in oil painting from established European-trained 
artists. He worked in the State Library and taught art, visited the Netherlands 
again in 1925 and in all probability became acquainted with the new 
movements in European art there. On the other hand it is notable that 
Pierneef, who as a consummate Western artist had an influence on cultured 
people, both English and Afrikaans, also showed an interest in indigenous 
art, especially Bushmen art. Coetzee (1992: 2) is of the opinion that Pierneef 
and most Afrikaners identified rather with Africa than with England, even 
though this kind of identification was still relatively undefined, widely inclusive 
and ideologically unfocussed. It is ironic that Pierneef, who had lectured on 
the ar t of the Bushman and the "Black" man, sometimes in the most 
appreciative and complementary terms, should turn out to be one of the main 
advocates of an exclusionary "White", indigenous art. 
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ESTEI.LE A . MARÉ AND N . J . COETZEE 
In the interpretation of the Station Panels we follow an alternative or 
revisionist way of looking at Pierneef s landscape painting. His Johannesburg 
Station Panels constitute the largest single landscape commission in the history 
of South Africa and therefore merit fur ther research. Pierneef 's Dutch 
connections, personal family background and nationality enabled him (or 
perhaps compelled him inevitably) to exploit the northern European tradition 
of landscape painting. At the height of his career Pierneef lent his prestige to 
the cultural cause of the Afrikaner whose struggle for cultural emancipation 
from the British empire had intensified by 1935. By that time the polarization 
of Afrikaans and English speaking South Africans had also increased greatly. 
The government of the Union of South Africa had by 1927 decided to 
provide Johannesburg, a rapidly expanding city and the centre of the world's 
largest gold-producing industry, with a railway station which rose to con-
siderable importance in the architectural history of that city. The commission 
for the Station Panels to decorate the main concourse on a monumental scale 
was awarded to Pierneef by the South African Railways and Harbours 
Commission in July 1929. The reception of the finished work, unveiled on 31 
May 1934, was favourable. 
Pierneef finished the twenty-eight main panels described in terms of the 
commission as depictions of "historical places" or "natural scenery". The setting 
of the panels necessitated some geometrical analysis because of semi-circular 
architectural form of the station concourses. The fact that the painter could 
not work from nature necessitated in situ sketches. However, Pierneef designed 
his panels in such a way that the viewer, acquainted with the South African 
landscape, will realise that he imposed order to make the panels in their totality 
expressive of a world-view largely determined by culture and ideology. 
An analysis of the compositions of the panels reveals an underlying 
working design, for example the Louis Trichardl panel (figure 1) shows the 
point of the church spire coinciding with the exact centre of the composition 
and some of the clouds describe concentric circles intersecting the diagonals 
around that point. We have numerous sketches clearly showing that Pierneef 
planned, calculated, divided and balanced the pictorial elements according 
to geometric forms. One can repeatedly recognize his use of symmetrical 
compositional features such as the arch as part of a circle, the sectioning of 
the surface horizontally and the use of triangles on either side of an imaginary 
line. This use of geometric forms situates Pierneef in a western tradition of 
mural painting, but they often seem contrived, for example the regularity of 
the circle. When applied to representational painting most geometric forms 
transform and stylize natural forms. But, in combin ing pa in t ing and 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS I S Y J . H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
architecture, as in Pierneef s commission, it was desirable that the paintings 
support the station architecture in its monumentality. 
It should be repeated that, besides a merely technical artistic motivation, 
the clear compositional schemes of Pierneef s panels indicate a striving to 
impose order by bringing landscape under the control of architecture. 
Furthermore, they represent a desire to structure the landscape, to render 
nature into culture, physically and spiritually, and to transform the wilderness 
into a collective mental vision. Landscape at its most fundamental level deals 
inescapably with man's relationship with the world and with man in the world. 
In Pierneef s world-making, his stylizations indicate a culturally determined 
set of relations. 
In the case of the Station Panels it is most rewarding to engage the content 
of this culturally determined set of relations that Pierneef presented to 
innocent viewers who were embarking or disembarking from their travels, 
during which they most probably saw the real world of nature, of which the 
panels are representations. I refer to the previous generation viewers of the 
panels as "innocent" because they uncritically accepted a mimetic relation 
between art and reality, and were captivated by the exotic romance of the 
atmosphere that was created by the scenes. 
If landscape can reveal the identity of a historic people, what did Pierneef 
reveal? 
His pleas in the thirties for the founding of an indigenous Afrikaans art 
had an exclusivist undertone, given that Bushman rock art is indigenous in 
any case. He fur thermore cultivated his own public image as an interpreter of 
the African landscape. The main features of his art, which reveal the influence 
of the Hague School, are the simplification of forms, the building up of the 
pictorial surface in planes and the dulling and paling of colours. These features 
he combined with his theory of art, which was rooted in a combined sense of 
religious calling and of calling as an artist of the people. The people had to 
be taught "that art is also a form of religion" (Coetzee 1992: 20). Pierneef 
believed that he was a "mood" painter; he specifically wanted to evoke an 
atmosphere that expressed the essence of African landscape. Seen in this 
combined religious and cultural sense, the meticulously structured and 
aestheticized landscapes of Pierneef are a response to and, indeed, a concrete 
expression of deep-seated Afrikaner cultural convictions and political 
aspirations. P ie rneefs identification with Afrikaner nationalism occurred 
gradually and coincided with his search for artistic identity. Landscape was 
ideally suited to convey the Afrikaner's sense of being mystically linked to the 
land. Afr ikaners derive their historical being and identity f rom this 
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ESTEI.LE A . MARÉ AND N . J . C O E T Z E E 
relationship; they are products of the land, farmers at heart. The inference is 
that the Afrikaners were destined to settle and to take possession of the land. 
Indeed, one of the primary aims of Afrikaner nationalism was to confirm the 
Afrikaners' claim to the land, which was already established by the time that 
Pierneef embarked on the Station Panels. In executing those panels he 
responded to nationalistic ideas and gave the Afrikaners a pictorial evocation 
of what they wanted to believe of the land and of themselves: an elevated 
expression of the greatness of the land which is theirs. In a pantheistic way 
the artist emptied the landscapes of detail and also of people. They became 
landscapes of the sublime, but also relate to the politics of expansion, of 
conquest and grandeur. Pierneef painted a low horizon line with a vast sky, 
creating striking vistas in which conditions on the ground are eliminated. In 
this respect it needs to be pointed out that in the 1930s both black and white 
farmers were poverty-stricken and sporadic labour unrest occurred. Coetzee 
(1992: 27) argues that: "Pierneef s landscapes are clearly an outsider's view of 
the land, a view of the land that was de-historicized, de-humanized, drained 
of compassion. It is a view that is at the same time informed by a sterile religious 
mysticism." He concludes (1992: 3): "The sense of form and pictorial 
organization is what appealed to the viewer of the Pierneef landscapes. The 
reasons are ideological and historical. ... [L]andscape gives the viewer the 
illusion of control, of the imposition of order on the chaotic world outside 
and therefore of the domination of the world outside." 
The station commission fulfilled an important advertising function for 
the South African Railways as the responsible authority for tourism. Pierneef s 
panels gave the Railways much more than the needed publicity material. These 
panels were painted in an important time for Afrikaner nationalism. I may 
also add that white English settlers also came to view Pierneef's landscape 
panels through his eyes. However, in his landscapes Pierneef mainly addressed 
the Afrikaners' nostalgia for the land, and helped legitimise their exclusive 
claim to South Africa.3 He achieved this mainly by presenting his work in 
terms of the notion of art as religion, thereby exploiting the strong Calvinist 
basis in Afrikaner nationalism. Far from being innocent and purely aesthetic, 
Pierneef s landscapes are in fact powerfully ideological. He not only exploited 
the conventions of European landscape painting for purely artistic purposes, 
but also transformed those conventions to suit Afrikaner ideology. Pierneef s 
3 It is a bit too strong to say that the Afrikaners were imperialists like the British empire 
builders. Only Cecil John Rhodes expressed the "Cape to Cairo" ambition, and Afrikaner 
aspirations seem rather pale in comparison with the British exploits in South Africa. 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS ISYJ. H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
influence as a self-appointed indoctrinator of the masses moving through the 
station concourse, far exceeded his artistic influence. 
Either one understands them to be "propaganda" as the South African 
Railways who commissioned them required, or they can be appreciated as a 
romanticized version of a country most white South Africans feel nostalgic 
about. After this foregone conclusion, I will deal with a selection of panels 
individually.4 The panels denote a country that South Africans can never 
retrieve, perhaps they denote a country which never existed: they unequivocally 
represent a sentiment that had no basis in fact. 
The panel done of the town of Louis Trichardt (figure 1) was preceded 
by preparatory sketches showing a geometrical design. This panel may be one 
of the first painted in the series since in the left foreground the surface is left 
unresolved. Louis Trichard is a historical town, named after one of the 
Voortrekker leaders who camped in the vicinity in 1836-37. It was linked to 
the South African railway network in 1912. We know that the settlement of 
whites in this area was followed by skirmishes with the local black people and 
that the village was destroyed by the blacks during the second Anglo-Boer 
War (1899-1902). It was subsequently rebuilt and had not yet reached 
municipal status when Pierneef painted it. 
Pierneef s placing of the church at the centre of the panel is in keeping 
with the building having a social and cultural significance far exceeding its 
physical size, thereby emphasizing its symbolic meaning rather than its pictorial 
function. Louis Trichardt depicts a town situated to the far north, most probably 
thought of, at the time, as the closest to the "dark" northern regions of the 
African continent. The prominence of the church possibly represents the 
civilizing mission of the whites by means of Christianity. 
From the northernmost town to the southernmost, Cape Town, we have 
a view of Table Mountain (figure 2). By dropping away the middle distance a 
great sense of distance is created and by framing the view with trees the impact 
of the mountain is increased. While Table Mountain dramatizes the grandeur 
of a specific mountain, the panel depicting the Drakensberg (figure 3) has 
no specific place as a visual focus. It is a generic depiction of the Drakensberg, 
4 Data of Pierneef s landscapes: 
Figure 1: Louis Trichardt, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 140x149 cm 
Figure 2: View of Table Mountain, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 140x148 cm 
Figure 3: View of the Drakensberg, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 141x127 cm 
Figure 4: Premier Mine, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 141x127 cm 
Figure 5: Rand Gold Mine, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 141x127 cm 
Figure 6: Graaff-Reinet, oil on canvas pasted on blockboard panel, 140x149 cm 
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ESTEI.LE A . M A R É AND N . J . COETZEE 
Figure 1:J. H. 
Pierneef, The 
town of Louis 
Trichardt 
(Photograph 
copyright J. N. 
Coetzee) 
Figure 2: J. H. 
Pierneef, View 
of Table 
Mountain 
(Photograph 
copyright J. N. 
Coetzee) 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS I S Y J . H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
Figure 3: J. H. 
Pierneef, Viezu of the 
Drakensberg 
(Photograph 
copyright J. N. 
Coetzee) 
one of the scenic mountain ranges in southern Africa. To the Afrikaner the 
Drakensberg is a reminder the barriers they had to cross during the Great 
Trek in 1838 in search of the promised land, away from British domination in 
the Cape. 
Premier Mine (figure 4) and Rand Gold Mine (figure 5) are companion 
pieces. The importance of diamonds and gold as symbols of South Africa's 
mineral wealth is what Pierneef invokes in the panels. I will deal only with the 
diamond mine panel. 
On 26 January 1905 the world's largest diamond was discovered at the 
Premier site, near Cullinan, north-east of Pretoria. Pierneef depicts the vast 
excavation pit. It is this enormous scar in the face of the earth, reputed to be 
the biggest single pit at the time, that Pierneef chose to depict. Diamonds 
were at that time one of the main exports of the Union and the Cullinan 
diamond was used in the crown of the British monarch. Ironically the Railways 
did not make any attempt to promote this rather sleepy town and as a result it 
has very little historical significance to merit inclusion in the Panels. Totally 
dominated by the presence of the mine, one may ask why Pierneef included 
it. The only reason is the fame of the Cullinan diamond.5 
5 Most probably there was little prestige in the Cullinan diamond for Afrikaners since 
the diamond industry was controlled by British interests. 
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ESTEI.LE A . M A R É AND N . J . COETZEE 
Figure 4: J. H. 
Pierneef, Premier 
Mine (Photograph 
copyright J. N. 
Coetzee) 
Figure 5 J. H. 
Pierneef, Rand Gold 
Mine (Photograph 
copyrightj. N. 
Coetzee) 
X xi-? 
• • 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS BYJ. H . PIERNEEF AND J O H N CLARKE 
Graaff-Reinet (figure 6) is the depiction of an old and historic town, at 
least by South African standards, which was granted municipal status in 1845. 
It is situated in the Karoo, an arid and stony region with dramatic landscapes. 
Pierneef chose to paint the so-called Valley of Desolation, a well-known 
landmark and scenic spot a few kilometres west of the town. The panel Graaff-
Reinet shows a group of basaltic pillars which in reality rise to a height of 120 
metres. The scene is executed in subde tones of brown; it is obviously designed, 
composed, structured and ordered to create an awesome effect of purposeless 
natural architecture. The ordered arch of the sky fitting the panel into an 
architectural form turns the representation into a strange place which vitiates 
any human interest that it may have. 
This group of stone pillars can be used as a thematic link with John Clarke's 
representation of rural places, but there is also a strong contrast in expression 
and the two artists' ideological interest in the features of the land. 
Figure 6: J. H. Pierneef, Graaff-Reinet (Photograph copyright J. N. Coetzee) 
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Es'I'K[.I.I-: A . MARE AND N . J . COETZEF. 
John Clarke's altered landscapes 
John Clarke focuses on the ordinary in his artistic endeavour. More 
specifically, in the two works under consideration, the etchings entitled Stockade 
/ ( f igure 7) and StockadeII(figure 8),° the depicted stones and stockades refer 
to ordinary and commonplace phenomena in rural areas where traditional 
Africans dwell. Therefore, Heidegger's (1971: 46-7) description of stones seems 
to be a relevant link between his theory of art and Clarke's sensitivity to places 
marked by stones: "A stone presses downwards and manifests its heaviness. 
But... this heaviness ... denies to us any penetration into it. If we attempt such 
a penetration by breaking open the rock, it still does not display in its fragments 
anything inward that has been disclosed. The stone has instantly withdrawn 
again into the same dull pressure and bulk of its fragments." 
Since Clarke's insistence on the representa t ion of concre te things 
presenting elements of the earth — such as stones - is so strong, it seems 
appropriate to inquire into the meaning of the "subject matter" of his works. 
It may be postulated that he is dealing with the meaning of "earth", which 
produces rocks and trees and is the habitat of humans. "Earth" is the natural 
place disclosed by historical habitat which merits analysis as the key to the 
understanding of Clarke's works. 
The viewer senses that Clarke himself, and all people, at least try, but do 
not necessarily succeed, in relating positively to the earth. In the two Stockade 
etchings this relationship is expressed by means of the representation of 
arranged and decorated stones and similarly spotted branches or tree stumps 
as elements of human-made environments — even though they are void of any 
visible human presence. In these works the world of art opens up through a 
representat ion of the earth whose very na tu re is to resist the world 's 
"self-opening". 
Clarke's oeuvre shows a consistency of thematic representation: he mainly 
depicts elements belonging to the earth. However, mimetic landscape 
depictions of African localities and naturalistic elements do not occur in his 
work. He composes images of places altered in a specific way in order to reveal 
a creative human presence. For the same reason, people are never depicted 
in his later works. Clarke reconstructs places and the implied presence of 
people imaginatively, since only by means of the imagination can concrete 
objects be symbolised or brought together in configurations that will reveal 
Data of J o h n Clarke's works: 
Figure 8: Stockade I, Unisa Art Gallery, Pretoria, 1982, intaglio etching, 37x55 cm. 
Figure 9: Stockade II, Unisa Art Gallery, Pretoria, 1982, intaglio etching, 36,5x55 cm. 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS BYJ. H . PIERNEEF AND J O H N CLARKE 
Figure 7: John Clarke, Stockade I (Photograph copyright Unisa Art Gallery) 
Figure 8: John Clarke, Stockade II (Photograph copyright Unisa Art Gallery) 
1 9 1 
ESTELLE A . MARÉ AND N . J . COETZEE 
their belonging-together within a greater totality. Such images are non-literal, 
like Clarke's configurations of earth elements. For example, his stockades 
and stones are endowed with the power to symbolise acts of revealing and 
concealing (or, alternatively, self-opening and self-seclusion). The artist's act 
of endowment is thus a personification which becomes an important part of 
the topic of revealing and concealing, as is evident from the "behaviour" of 
the elements in Stockadel and II. 
It is suggested that the essence of Clarke's art is revealed by the creation 
of an authentic world in which the artist produces, according to the ideals of 
Heidegger (1971: 54-5), a threefold form of disclosure: first, a disclosure of 
the strife between world and earth; secondly, a disclosure of the opposition 
between matter and form, and, finally, a disclosure of the breach (Riß) between 
concealment and unconcealment. Sallis (1989: 185) points out that "strife is 
not a matter simply of opposition but rather is such that the opponents belong 
to one another in their very opposition ... . The opponents belong together 
by having a certain common ground and origin." 
In the same sense, matter and form belong together. Opposition between 
them does not result in duality, nor are they identical. According to Sallis's 
(1989: 186) interpretation of Heidegger's terminology, one should "discern 
and preserve their reciprocity, thus to see a bit further into the riddle that art 
is". 
These ideas are considered applicable to Clarke's art since his works reveal 
the "happening of art". This event evokes the opening up of a world, the work 
of art itself, in which symbolic meaning is garnered by a bringing together of 
diverse elements into harmony. 
The clearings and boundaries that Clarke defines in terms of stones and 
stockades may be interpreted as signs or markings on the earth. In the 
Southern African context, these motifs have a strange magic comparable to 
that of the shoes that Van Gogh painted, or to Claude Monet's poplars. Stockade 
I and Stockade II, are fine examples of images evoking many symbolic aspects 
of the spirit of the Southern African land and people of which only one aspect 
- that of place formation and its cultural implications - will be discussed here. 
The spotted stones which Clarke depicts in his works derive f rom his 
encounter with stones decorated by a Black man called Nukain Mabusa. This 
encoun te r inf luenced the artist to represen t stones and stockades as 
transformed into spotted "beings". The spots which Nukain Mabusa painted 
on his stones transformed the self-seclusion of those particular stones and 
opened up a world of artistic creation - a sculptural rock-garden. The stones 
depicted by Clarke have already been altered by a human hand. Human beings, 
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ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS I S Y J . H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
who are open to Being, are able to create openness, a world of creation and 
order. Thus, Clarke does not represent: he re-presents and re-creates the earth 
in his art in order to create a world in which they can be recognised in the 
cultural sphere of an historical people. 
Stockade I and II are unique in the artist's oeuvre as a complementary 
pair. Both works are composed only of tree stumps and spotted stones that 
are, in the one case, spread out in a circular pattern and arranged as a boundary 
and, in the other, contracted into a dense form placed in the centre of a 
clearing. The uniqueness of these works becomes even more pronounced if 
they are interpreted as representations of earth elements at play. The play 
which is suggested transforms concealing into revealing and seclusion into 
openness. 
In Stockade I the stones form a semi-circle around a clearing in which 
the tree stumps are clustered together in a dense bundle which conceals its 
centre. In StockadeIIthe compositional relation between stones and stockade 
is reversed: the stones are contracted into one enormous stone in the centre, 
while the stockade describes a boundary around it. In turn, the two motifs 
reveal and conceal each other, disperse, and cluster closely into themselves. 
The compositional reversal also reverses the roles of opening-up and closing-in 
by means of the arrangement of the stockade and the stones so that they 
evoke each other's metamorphosis. The duality of the formal arrangement of 
the two elements in one picture complements that in the other (and vice 
versa) so that the two pictures reciprocally form a mysterious pair. By alternately 
revealing themselves (forming a circular boundary) or concealing themselves 
(forming a dense centre) the arrangements of stockades and stones imply an 
intelligent presence which guides their advance towards the opposing motif 
and its corresponding retreat into the concealment of itself. This presence is 
visible only in terms of a flow of energy which materialises in the strife of the 
elements arranging themselves into one of two possible formations in 
equilibrium. 
Stones partake of the self-containment (or self-seclusion) of the mere 
thing. They must therefore be altered (or personified) in order that they may 
involve themselves in a process of opening up, a process which generates 
strife with their earthly nature. Therefore, Clarke aspires to re-present reality. 
He re-presents stones first in a fragmented way in Stockade I, and then, in 
Stockade II, gathered together in a unity of form like some enormous archetypal 
totality, some mythical, primordial earth-navel (omphalos) at the centre of an 
African place. These stones in Clarke's works are, notably, not familiar stones 
or dead wood. Their spottedness sets them apart from nature. These markings 
signify that the stones and stockades are not primary natural elements. They 
1 9 3 
ESTEI.LE A . M A R É AND N . J . COETZEE 
have been ritualised by human hand and are no longer mere things which 
press downwards and manifest heaviness but have become mythical presences. 
A creative human being has already encountered them and opposed their 
self-seclusion by means of alterations in the form of spots. Of this kind of 
encounter in which two subjects, more specifically nature and man and earth 
and world, oppose each other, Heidegger (1970: 173) says: "In strife, each 
opponent carries die other beyond itself. Thus the strife becomes more intense 
as striving, and more properly what it is. The more strife overdoes itself on its 
own part, the more inflexible do the opponents let themselves go into the 
intimacy of belonging together. The earth cannot dispense with the open 
region of the world if it itself is to appear as earth in the liberated surge of its 
self-seclusion. The world in turn cannot soar out of the earth's sight if, as the 
governing breadth and path of all essential destiny, it is to ground itself on a 
resolute foundation." 
At first glance the viewer of Stockade I and / / canno t avoid the impression 
that the earth elements are in conflict. First, the stones surround the stockade 
in a kind of ambush; then the reverse happens: the stones contract, their 
fragments become unified to gain in bulk and so withstand the siege of the 
stockade. However, the metaphor of strife can be "read" primarily in terms of 
play. The stockade and the stones mirror each other, a phenomenon which 
Heidegger explains in terms of mirror-play (Spiegel-Spiel). In this way they 
become mutually related in their play and "counterplay". Thus, the limits of 
things in Clarkes's works serve to mark themselves off against one another 
and thus define a relational context of strife through which harmony is 
manifested. This paradox is resolved in terms of mirror-play. In Clarke's works 
the earth, in the distinctive nature it attains through the alteration caused by 
strife, becomes part of a world created by the work of art. In this world, 
openness is attained because the difference or conflict between world and 
earth can be resolved in the process of mirror-play. The conflict does not give 
rise to discord but affirms that all things in the artwork - including those 
transposed - belong together and are at play in a world of harmony. In this 
sense "world" refers to an authentic creation in which all things can be uniquely 
themselves. 
Stockade I and / / thus embody a relational context of the earth elements, 
the tree stumps and the stones. Concerning the hiding or concealing of these 
elements in themselves and their revealing in the world of artistic composition, 
Fynsk's (1986: 142) elucidation is apt, particularly in understanding the play 
that is recognisable in Clarke's Stockade pair: "But what would hiding, which 
surely cannot appear insofar as it hides itself (and it must appear in art), 
disguise itself as, except disguise, when disguise appears? In art, concealment 
1 9 4 
ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS ISYJ. H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
appears in disguise or as disguise. What is art but Schein (semblance, mere 
appearance), even if it must be thought [of] as grounded within the horizon 
of truth? The work of art brings the conflictual pair earth and world into a 
unity which may be called a single differential configuration." 
Clearly, the spotted stones and the stockades in Clarke's two works appear 
in disguise personified by markings. The earth and the world assert their 
respective natures as the works trace the intimacy of their mutual and 
conflictual belonging in what Heidegger (1971: 51, 63) terms abasic design, 
or outline sketch. Heidegger terms this sketch a "rift" (Riß) or "rift-design" 
and says that "it brings the opposition of measure and boundary into their 
common outline" (1971: 51, 62). Only when the world opens up and marks 
these bounds as bounds does the "reciprocal accord" of things become a 
mutual relatedness. 
The limits of things, then, serve to mark them off against one another 
and thus to define a relational context in the manner in which they are 
portrayed in Clarke's works under discussion. The conflictual pairs world/ 
earth and revealing/concealing are drawn together through play-mirroring 
and personification, bringing out both their original differentiation and their 
articulation in a new design. "Thus", Heidegger (1977: 183) says, "art is the 
creative preserving of truth in the work. Art then is the becoming and happening 
of truth" [Heidegger's italics]. The truth contained in the world, as disclosed 
by art, is revealed by entering into the hermeneutic circle in which meaning 
is evoked. In this way Dufrenne 's (1983: 209-11) argument that art has a 
referential function validates Heidegger's insight that art discloses truth. 
In Clarke's paired images, revealing and concealing take place in a circular 
clearing and are interchangeable. Clarke's event of truth occurring in the 
Stockades is dual, but s imilar- in the way that Heidegger (1929: 39-40) confirms 
the opposites, "pure Being" and "pure Nothingness", as similar.7 One may say 
that a human being's experience of his or her existence (Being) is in terms of 
his or her continuous confrontation with death and lack of meaning. Caputo 
(1970: 29) comments on this view of Being by interpreting Heidegger's 
paradox of concealment and unconcealment as follows: "Nothingness is 
described as the finitude of Being. Being insofar as it is limited is the Nothing. 
7 Heidegger states: "'Das reine Sein und das reine Nichtes ist also dasselbe.' Dieser Satz 
Hegels (Wissenschaft der Logik I. Buch W III S. 74) besteht zu Recht. Sein und Nichts 
gehören zusammen, aber nicht weil sie beide - vom Hegeischen Begriff des Denkens aus 
gesehen - in ihre Unbestimmtheid und Unmittelbarkeit übereinkommen, sondern weil 
das Sein selbst im Wesen endlich ist und sich nur in der Transzendenz des in das Nichts 
hinausgehalteten Daseins offenbart." 
1 9 5 
ESTKLI.K A . MARÉ AND N . J . COETZKK 
The two are notopposites, as western philosophy always assumes. Rather they 
belong together in the sameness of a single, finite essence." 
Thus, in Clarke's works of art, concealment (the earth) and uncon-
cealment (the world created by art) belong together. And the meaning of this 
is to be found in the idea of art itself which reveals (mirrors) the harmony of 
play. Clarke's works re-present reality by a process of personification. Humans 
open up the earth to the magical circle of a symbolic African place into which 
the invisible and mysterious spirit world enter, according to the beliefs of 
black people. Indeed, if humans are absent in Clarke's later works, as in Stockade 
I and II, space extends into the area in which the viewer stands: he or she, too, 
is revealed to him— or herself in viewing the scene and undertaking the 
hermeneutic venture. Understanding Clarke's works is like entering certain 
archaeological ruins. What vanished people have left behind, the artefacts of 
Being, the viewer reclaims and reconstructs in his or her imagination as a 
part of the process of personal world making. 
One way of viewing the inf luence of man on earth is in terms of 
Heidegger's notion of "heaven" as the artist's inspiration, the region that is 
the dwelling place of the "god". Related to Clarke's works, the African notion 
of a spirit-world could also be taken as part of the notion of "heaven". Thus, 
the mysterious stones and stockades in Clarke's works are moved into patterns 
which reveal the spirit-world although, first and foremost, sticks and stones 
represent earth as part of nature. Even though the types of patterns depicted 
in Stockade I and / /might be encountered in nature (for example, the stones 
resemble tortoises) this appears unlikely in Clarke's work, since it would be a 
mimetic reading of animation or animalisation belonging to the African realm, 
which would exclude humanism and the notion of "world". Clearly, the 
depicted stones and stockades do not belong to a real place but rather 
represent a mental creation in which an ear th/heaven dialectic is inherent 
and each opponent enhances the other. In this sense Clarke's work transcends 
the ethnic realm and is (in a minor sense) comparable to the Greek temple 
which according to Heidegger (1977: 172) "opens up a world" which "gives ... 
to men their outlook on themselves" (Heidegger 1977: 1 69). This "world is 
the self-opening openness of the broad paths of the simple and essential 
decisions in the destiny of a historical people". However, the opening of a 
world is an event of truth with universal meaning. If art is indeed an origin, 
Heidegger (1977: 187) says that it "then must be a forward spring"; it should 
not "remain a mere appendix [which] can only be carried along as a routine 
cultural phenomenon". 
Clarke's works create worlds out of earth, or at least symbolically, in the 
sphere of art as Schein, they depict this process in which, in turn, every act of 
1 9 6 
ALTERED LANDSCAPES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN WORKS I S Y J . H . PIERNEEF AND J O I I N CLARKE 
revealing also conceals, so that the dialectic between concealing and revealing 
becomes the play of art which "has its essence in the intimacy of strife" 
(Heidegger 1977: 173). This paradox remains a mystery and in this respect 
Heidegger instructs us that our task is not to solve the "riddle of art", but to 
recognise it. We may accomplish this by contemplation of the work itself, for 
in this way alone may an artwork be gathered into its fullness, which Richardson 
(1963: 594) concludes is the unspoken that lies concealed in the spoken. 
Art is never purely self-referential. In the Siockadeetchings the essence of 
strife can be interpreted to imply the strife which has always characterised 
South Africa as a multi-ethnic and multicultural society. Strife, however, binds 
the opponents together. That is, there is a release at the same time in that 
being strife-bound, the opponents delineate themselves clearly. Thus, Clarke's 
approach of revealing the inveterate strife between the white and black peoples 
of South Africa is less romanticized than Pierneef s and closer to a solution of 
existing together in one land. 
Pierneef's concern is with a virgin land in the process of being transformed 
or by European settlers, to yield its riches and become a home for them. 
Clarke, on the other hand, shows the literal truth on the ground: that the 
landscape had been altered by the indigenous people whose technology, until 
the present, had not been such that their activities or rituals left it permanently 
scarred or transformed. With the exception of the mining panels, Pierneef s 
visions refer to a land which never existed, while Clarke's representations 
refer to place-making which is no longer practised. Both ways of expression 
are a response to a lost innocence, a nostalgia for an aesthetic and social ideal 
which cannot be redeemed. 
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