A Landscape With Too Few Lovers

A DigitalNZ Story by Courtney Johnston

'Oh yes it can / be dark here', McCahon wrote on the Northland panels, 'and manuka / in bloom may / breed despair'. The year before, in a piece written for Art New Zealand, he spoke of his love for the Northland landscape: 'The real Far North of New Zealand is unlike any other part of the land. I can't talk about it, I love it too much. ... Up there is like standing on a moon. Way down below is the sea and the edge of the world and the beach running to nothing and to Te Reienga Wairua: us and a lovely old lady spaniel leaping about with joy - and nothing, nothing more - and further north when you get there - all sculpted by wind and rain its there - you bury your heart, and as it goes deeper into the land you can only follow. It's a painful love, loving a land, it takes a long time. I stood with an old Maori lady on a boat from Australia once - a terribly rough and wild passage. We were both on deck to see the Three Kings - us dripping tears. It's there that this land starts.'