Eclogue VI: forests grow, and beasts roam the wild land, etching, 16x20cm

This etching was made in response to Samuel Palmer’s etchings of Virgil’s Eclogues. I was interested in its themes of displacement and immigration and nostalgia for the land. Palmer brought his idealised Kentish fruitfulness to the series and I wanted to make a Welsh version. The landscape of course is very different and I chose lines from the Eclogues to bring that out. I drew this plate after a drive up to North Wales...I passed a stunted little oak wood walled off from the sheep that nibbled the mountainside around it. Of course it reminded me of the walled orchard on the green hill amongst the mountains in The Magician’s Nephew by C S Lewis. To grow anything in Wales you have to fence it off from the sheep, and I imagine it was the same with the goats in Virgil’s time.
Etching on Hahnemuhle Natural heavy etching paper.
Edition of 120.