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Between 1941 and 1945, before I went to Greece, I drew
and occasionally painted many pictures of landscapes
with shepherds or poets or
single figures. The landscapes were entirely imaginary;
the shepherds were also invented - I had never seen
a shepherd - but in addition to being projections of
myself they derived from Blake and Palmer. They were
my means of escape and a sort of self-projection. A
shepherd is a lone figure, and so is a poet. I wanted
to safeguard a world of private mystery, and I was drawn
to the idea of bucolic calm as a kind of refuge.
Conditions are very important to the way in which art
is made. By 1945, circumstances had changed with the
end of the war, and I no longer needed this self-protective
imagery. But in wartime I went to St David's Head, in
Pembrokeshire, with Peter Watson and Graham Sutherland,
in 1943. There were cloudless days and the land was
reduced to basic elements of life: rocks, fig trees,
gorse, the nearness of sea on all sides, essential sources
of existence.'
John Craxton, Whitechapel Art Gallery Catalogue, John
Craxton: Paintings and Drawings 1941-1966, 1967
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