Summer Circle

In 1967 art student Richard Long walked a straight line across the English countryside, leaving a discernable track that he later documented. Like other so-called Land artists emerging on both sides of the Atlantic, he viewed the landscape as a canvas. For Long, this naturally followed a centuries-old tradition in British literature and painting that connected nature to the experience of reverie. “My intention was to make a new art which was also a new way of walking: walking as art.” While making epic treks through remote areas of his native England or in such far-flung locales as Mongolia or the African desert, Long subtly intervenes in the landscape, rearranging a few stones or simply leaving behind the trace of his footsteps. He records his walks with photographs, maps, and texts. Long’s practice also involves bringing elements from the natural world into the gallery setting. Summer Circle is made of chunks of Delabole slate, a stone native to the Cornwall region of England. This rough-hewn yet nearly perfect form represents one of the largest examples of the artist’s “stone circles,” whose shape speaks to the implicit sense of order in nature.