Notes

Could any other South African landscape artist paint as spellbinding a picture as Bushveld, Pafuri? Could any other evoke as much wonder and nostalgia in a panorama, or leave a viewer quite
as riveted? Painted in the north-eastern reaches of the country, in the leafy floodplains near the confluence of the Levuvhu and Limpopo rivers, Henk Pierneef’s late-career masterpiece somehow balances a decorative complexity and powerful verticality with riotous colour. Dominated by deep-rooted and soaring Ana trees, each deliberately entangled with another, the landscape extends through numerous clearings towards an impenetrable, lush thicket. An emerald canopy shimmers high above the ground, supported by an elegant latticework of branches, and is accentuated by an indigo sky. But the drama of the scene is in the lighting: while the muted foreground is worked up with patches of maroon and olive, the veld beyond is almost phosphorescent, as if a flare has been lit over the landscape. As light catches the grasses, trunks and leaves, colours change and intensify: brown transforms to dazzling copper, yellow to neon
white, and deep green to flashing malachite.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist in 1953 by the current owners' father.