Yesterday I had the good fortune to be invited to join a trip to the L S Lowry complex. The five of us arrived in good time and entered the gallery just in time for the midday guided tour. After lunch we went down to the waterside, to observe Salford's post-industrial architecture and people. T, at my request, captured a shot with a seagull behind me over the Quays. The sun shone in a clear blue sky which could have been Mediterranean were it not for the cold wind. We got home resolving to make this the first of many trips.
This afternoon it is snowing out of what used to be called a leaden sky. L S Lowry's sky, I learned, is a dull white to highlight his hurrying and lonely figures, which I also saw for the first time have no shadows. Most of his landscapes are a composite of his industrial surroundings and have been described as dreamlike, bounded by a wall or feature in the foreground to separate them from the viewer.
The landscapes we drove through on the journey south were familiar and beloved. There was Winter Hill with the television transmission masts and Lord Leverhulme's dovecote. Bolton Wanderers football stadium came into view (Lowry painted the old one at Burnden), then the hills towards Ramsbottom with another monument and as we turned left for Salford before the descent to the Quays there were the hills of my childhood along the border with the Peak District. On the return journey as the ground rose, there to our right were Longridge, Pendle beyond, and the fells of the Forest of Bowland to the north. Y's satnav marked each twist and turn and gave us the diagrammatic view - over there, though invisible to us was Leeds.
When I sleep I dream of these hills - symbolic places that I do not always know how to interpret. When I am awake I am glad of light, landscape, and companions on the road.
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