Home is where the art is

A TV series took artist Julian Cooper into the heart of the Lake District landscape to show him painting on the shore of Crummock Water.

The episode of The Yorkshire Dales and the Lakes, broadcast on More 4 (Tuesday August 7) was the second TV appearance for Julian in a month this summer.

He was previously interviewed by Paul Rose while painting the Bowder Stone in Borrowdale in a BBC series which will be repeated in the autumn.

The latest programme dedicated considerable time to Julian’s place in the Heaton Cooper family of artists and to his relationship with the landscape of the Lakes, in a feature which was both lyrical in description and beautifully filmed.

Julian told narrator Ian McMillan: “The home country of the Lakes is in my head; the rocks, trees, becks are in me, in my blood, in my family tradition.”

He showed McMillan the house near Grasmere where he grew up, and from where he roamed freely on the fells. “It was here that I became interested in painting the components of the landscape.”

But first he felt the need to travel: Europe, the USA, South America, Asia. “Then the Lakes drew me back, and I realised it’s just as exotic here as Tibet or the Amazon jungle. It’s here, what I’ve taken for granted all these years.”

Julian took the film team into the archives at the Heaton Cooper studio where he was choosing paintings for the current exhibition there, Inherited Landscapes. This also features the work of his grandfather Alfred Heaton Cooper (1863-1929), and his father William Heaton Cooper (1863-1929) showing how Julian has continued the family tradition. Just four paintings by each artist are on display.

“This family has been around for three generations dealing with the same landscape,” he said. “But our way of looking at it has changed over time, and with different temperaments and differing attitudes to painting which influence how we see the natural world. I’ve chosen paintings which show the more wild and rocky aspects of the Lake District, and one can see that there are both continuities and differences between us. The more similar the subject, the more it highlights the differences between us.”

The final scenes of the programme were filmed by Crummock Water – a family favourite picnic spot – where Julian was painting the dramatic Rannerdale Knott which appears to plunge straight into the lake. “The Lake District for me isn’t so much the lakes as the mountains. They are home in a very deep way.”

Concluded McMillan: “Home is where the heart – and the art – is.”

Inherited Landscapes runs until the end of October. The Heaton Cooper Studio is open daily from 9-5. More information: https://www.wp.heatoncooper.co.uk/

Heaton cooperJulian cooperLake districtTelevision