Maggie Gray reviews Peter Lanyon: Cornwall Inside Out recently on view at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, London.

Gray writes: “Over the course of his career Lanyon devised a unique approach to painting that relied on his total immersion within the landscape. He would walk, drive, climb, cycle, swim and eventually glide across and over Cornwall; he learnt the history of its communities; he paid attention to its industries, its prehistoric heritage, the tides and weather fronts and the ever-changing shape of the land itself. Then, he worked out how to pack his paintings with as much of that experience as possible, throwing together multiple perspectives, obscure personal symbols, meaningful colours and expressionist marks. The resulting paintings look improvisational, but they took weeks or months to plan and complete.”