Notes

Pierneef’s interest in the structure of the natural world is starkly apparent in this richly descriptive painting of a mountain landscape. This reverence, informed experientially by his love of the great outdoors, infuses great vitality in this work.

The topography surveyed from his high vantage point presents a harmoniously balanced choreography of colour, light, and form, with the valley bathed in a passage of light, illuminating red cliffs and allowing the viewer to roam among the monumental landforms and verdant fields below. Blue and purple shadowed peaks and trees punctuate the landscape, adding volume through natural architecture of these ascending forms. 

Valley in an Extensive Mountain Landscape demonstrates Pierneef’s virtuosity in establishing aerial perspective through an authoritative command of these complex compositional elements. 

Provenance

Stephan Welz & Co in association with Sotheby's, Cape Town, 17 October 2000, lot 515.

The Tasso Foundation Collection of Important South African Art assembled by the Late Giulio Bertrand of Morgenster Estate.