FLUTE MUSIC

Clarke went to Tesselaarsdal every spring from 1056 until 1960 making sure that he was back home just in time for Christmas. The sketches he made during these visits was used for many future artworks long after he stopped visiting this magical place (Hobbs & Rankin 2011:55&56). The painting, Flute Music, was created from a drawing Clarke made in 1959 during a visit to Tesselaarsdal.

In the essay, Wintery Shepherding, written by Clarke (Hobbs & Rankin 2011:56) he explained his love for this place as follows: “My heart is in this place and I love it. That is so true and so definite. There is always a place, a kind of extra-special one, that a man sees and is attracted to and loves intensely, in the same way that he sees and admires and loves one particular woman above every other woman, with everything that is in him because that particular place, like that one woman, holds everything that his soul seeks.”

1961 was a particularly interesting year because he wanted to learn the process of etching. This was exceedingly difficult because the only place to learn this skill at the time was at the Michaelis art school which was only accessible for white students under the Apartheid laws. His friend Matthys Bronkhorst wrote a petition and requested a permit from the minister of Education to allow Clarke to study under Katrine Harries for three months. Remarkably this request was granted, and Clarke could learn printmaking from one of the leading printmakers in South Africa. To capitalize on learning technical skills from Harries, Clarke decided to turn previous works where the subject matter and composition was already resolved into prints. Flute music, was one of those selected artworks (Hobbs & Rankin 2011:81).

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