Comparing Two Landscape Works: Material, Viewpoint, and Colonial Gaze
An Art History student is comparing two works from a touring exhibition about land. Work A is an oil painting from 1892 by an unnamed European-trained artist. It shows a wide valley with a surveyor's hut in the middle distance, dark bush on the right, and a golden light falling from the left. The brushwork is smooth in the sky and thick in the foreground ferns. A small figure stands at the hut door, facing away. Work B is a 2021 installation by a Māori artist. It includes a low mound of whenua (soil) on the floor, a panel of woven harakeke, and a single-channel video projected onto the wall showing a river flowing under a road bridge. The soil is from the artist's tūrangawaewae, and the video has no sound. The student must analyse how materials and compositional choices construct meaning, and compare how each work positions the viewer in relation to land. The exhibition label for Work A says 'romantic sublime'; the label for Work B says 'whenua as ancestor'. The student has 45 minutes and must write a structured response.
1. Analyse one material or process choice in each work and explain how it shapes meaning.
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Work A: oil paint and brushwork. The smooth sky and thick foreground ferns are a deliberate material contrast. The smooth sky suggests distance and atmosphere, while the thick ferns bring the viewer into the immediate bush. The small figure facing away from the viewer at the hut door makes the land readable as a site of occupation but keeps the figure anonymous. The oil medium allows glazing and blending, which supports the 'romantic sublime' label: the golden light from the left is theatrical, and the dark bush on the right creates a frame. Meaning: land is presented as a spectacle to be admired and surveyed.
Work B: whenua, harakeke, and video. The low mound of soil is literal whenua from the artist's tūrangawaewae, so the material is the meaning; it is not a picture of land but a piece of it. The woven harakeke panel adds a crafted, human presence that is also ecological. The silent video of the river under a road bridge connects ancestral flow with infrastructure. Meaning: land is an ancestor and a living relationship, not a backdrop. The contrast between A's painted surface and B's material presence is the key analytical point.
2. Explain how each work positions the viewer in relation to land, using evidence from the described composition.
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Work A positions the viewer outside the scene. The composition uses a dark bush frame on the right and a golden light on the left, with the hut in the middle distance. The viewer looks into the valley from a slightly elevated, detached position. The figure at the hut door faces away, so the viewer cannot meet their gaze; this makes the land available for contemplation rather than dialogue. The smooth sky and thick ferns pull attention to surface and atmosphere, reinforcing a scenic reading.
Work B positions the viewer as a participant. The soil mound is at floor level, so viewers must walk around it or look down; the video is on the wall, so they must face it. The lack of sound makes the river a visual rhythm rather than a documentary record. The harakeke panel sits between the soil and the video, linking the materials physically. The viewer cannot take in the whole work from one spot; they have to move. That embodied viewing supports the idea of whenua as ancestor, because relationship requires proximity and movement, not just looking. The two works therefore produce different kinds of spectatorship: A frames land, B stages encounter.
3. Which work more effectively challenges a colonial way of seeing land, and why? Acknowledge the limits of your judgement.
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Work B more effectively challenges a colonial way of seeing land, because it refuses the picture-frame distance and uses actual whenua as material. A colonial gaze treats land as a view, a resource, or an empty stage; B makes land a subject with whakapapa and presence. The soil cannot be reduced to scenery, and the video's silent river under a road bridge shows continuity and interruption at once. The viewer must move around the work, which undermines the single privileged viewpoint.
However, the judgement has limits. Work A is not simply a colonial document; its romantic sublime also contains anxiety about settlement, and the surveyor's hut and anonymous figure could be read critically. Without the exhibition label and the artist's identity, the student is interpreting from description, not from the original. Work B also depends on the viewer knowing something about whenua and tūrangawaewae; otherwise the soil may be read as mere texture. So the stronger claim is: B more directly resists a colonial gaze, but A can still be analysed for how that gaze was constructed. The comparison is more useful than ranking one work as morally better.