John Minton’s "Time was away: A notebook in Corsica"

The paper examines the range in Minton’s approach at two levels. Firstly, it considers his dual strategies of Romanticism and Realism. Minton conflates topographical concerns with Neo-Romantic tendencies and draws on the landscape traditions of the sublime and picturesque, and the trope of the figure in the landscape. Secondly, the paper examines the images within a register of autonomy. Some images, operate autonomously, procuring primarily aesthetic responses; in contrast, others demand more literal intertextual readings; still, a further category of semi autonomous images are identified which subtly evoke elements of the text, without being hostage to Ross’s prose. These works in particular, I argue, invite the reader/viewer to re-assemble text and image so as to re-envision and re-imagine the Corsican Landscape. By examining text-image relationships, the place of landscape in post-war illustration, collaborative practice, and the relationship between fine art and illustration, the paper aims to contribute to forwarding the theorisation of illustration.

The paper examines the range in Minton’s approach at two levels. Firstly, it considers his dual strategies of Romanticism and Realism. Minton conflates topographical concerns with Neo-Romantic tendencies and draws on the landscape traditions of the sublime and picturesque, and the trope of the figure in the landscape.

Secondly, the paper examines the images within a register of autonomy. Some images, operate autonomously, procuring primarily aesthetic responses; in contrast, others demand more literal intertextual readings; still, a further category of semi autonomous images are identified which subtly evoke elements of the text, without being hostage to Ross’s prose. These works in particular, I argue, invite the reader/viewer to re-assemble text and image so as to re-envision and re-imagine the Corsican Landscape.

By examining text-image relationships, the place of landscape in post-war illustration, collaborative practice, and the relationship between fine art and illustration, the paper aims to contribute to forwarding the theorisation of illustration.