Title: Bird in a landscape with huts
Medium: Oil on board
Signed
Unframed: 45cm x 40cm
Framed: 62cm x 56cm
All Laubser’s life she referred to herself as a simple farm girl. In a radio interview in 1963, she explained how the years abroad didn’t mean as much to her as the farm environment she grew up in: “Everything I know the farm has taught me – not study abroad.” She also explained the reference to nature in her work as follows: “Living close to nature makes one stretch out for width and depth – one responds” (van Rooyen 1974:16). As a young child her favourite time of the day was early in the morning. She loved waking up to see the sun rise and listen to birdsong (van Rooyen 1974:7).
The heron that visits the farm dams of the Swartland was an obvious subject to find their places in her compositions of the middle Thirties (van Rooyen 1974:19). In these paintings, detail became irrelevant before the overruling concern with composition and colour placement as expressive devices (van Rooyen 1974:18).
