Book Design - South African Wildlife Artist by Eric Taylor

The Light Fantastic THE WILDLIFE ART OF DAVID LANGMEAD

The Light Fantastic

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The Light Fantastic Wildlife Art of David Langmead

The

Published

By David and Bronwen Langmead by Sporting Classics and Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries

2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book my be reproduced, or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Printed in Canada. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019911669

THE LIGHT FANTASTIC The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

ISBN: 978-1-935342-22-9 COLLECTOR’S EDITION ISBN: 978-1-935342-23-6 DELUXE EDITION

Edited by Chuck Wechsler, Ross Parker, Mel Lenet and Bronwen Langmead. Book design by Eric Taylor.

This book is dedicated to the natural world that continues to astonish and inspire, reminding us that there is always the capacity for reverence of our Universe.

— David Langmead Dedication

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The continent of my birth is not one thing; it is many, and one day is never the same as the next. The ever-changing visual drama begins at sunrise and ends with almost indescribable sunsets—the incredible colors and nuances and softness of it all.

vii Most people visiting Africa are in awe of the diversity of its wildlife. The majesty of the great elephant or the unforgettable roar of the lion. But for many of us born there, it is the smell of wildness.

— Ross Parker Founder, Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries

Preface

The colors are not like the American West where it is so “loud” and shouts out at you with bright yellows and mauves mingled with greys and the brightest of blues. The African palette has an understated quality about it. Especially in the southern tip of the continent where the light of the southern hemisphere is so different than what we see in the north.

For me, it’s the authenticity of wildlife paintings and the depiction of the landscape that is so important to the artists that I choose to show in my galleries. Of course, it’s the genius in design, layout and technical ability (how the medium is applied or worked) that is paramount in my decision as to whether to carry an artists’ work. One cannot hang the artwork of an inferior quality next to that of an artistic genius as the difference can be overwhelmingly obvious! At Native Visions Galleries, the works we exhibit have to complement one another on the highest level. This is why I am still impressed by the “oohs” and “aahs” of first-time visitors to our galleries. I think you will be hard-pressed to find a collection of works similar in genius to the family of artists we exhibit. That is what has helped pull us through downturns in the economy for more than three decades. In 2002 I received several photographs from David Langmead, an ex-Rhodesian artist now residing in the Karoo in South Africa. I must admit that I had to look twice. Here was a collection of landscapes like none I had ever seen. Wind blowing through highland grass, capturing soft light off the grass heads and soft hazy depictions of tree lines in the background. However, there was one image that remains in my mind for an eternity. That was of a golden-drenched scene of the African sun settling through the background of an acacia tree. I had a lump in my throat. All of sudden I could almost smell the grasses and hear the call of a turtle dove, or the hub hub drone of the ground hornbill. This was home; my home. Africa, as I had never seen it painted. This was as authentic as you could ever recreate it. It was the work of the young David Langmead, a fellow countryman that I had never heard of! And of course, the rest is history. Meeting David was like meeting a long, lost brother. But my most impressive experience with him was going into the bush. Here was a young man who reminded me of myself. Born on the land with a passion for everything living in it, I quickly noticed his bush skills and familiarity with the wild surroundings. And a tree climber of note! His passion for the smells, sounds, trees, fauna and flora — the colors of it all — was like no other artist I have met. That was the start of a two-decade-long relationship, which includes a friendship that I treasure like no other. Langmead still lives in the remote area of the Karoo in South Africa with Bronwen, his incredible, supportive wife (also a great painter), and their three beautiful children.

W hat I discovered when invited by Ross Parker to spend a couple of weeks together with David Langmead to navigate down the Peace and Saint Johns rivers in Florida, was how David assimilates his surroundings through his personal lens.

— Margaret Gradwell Professor and Head of Fine Arts, University of Pretoria, South Africa (alternateDREAMINGversion)

Tribute AFRICA

David is a master of ‘back lighting’ — all day he scours the landscape and then returns to those spectacular spots either early in the morning or late in the afternoon, to capture the filtered light of the sun that etches objects with striking colour and relief. The results of his efforts are truly spectacular.

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David has an insatiable appetite for dramatic hidden scenes that one only experiences when personally confronted with them. The Southern African bush stimulates his senses like an adventurer who travels through Africa. He captures with paint the thrill of up-close encounters with wildlife. He shares the intimacy of a lioness watching over her cubs or the peaceful repose of kudu at a waterhole, and then he captures the dramatic moment of a trumpeting elephant who is irritated by African bee-eaters. It is not only the scene that holds us spellbound, it is the mastery of the way in which he captures the scene with paint, and an intimate understanding of animal anatomy that astounds us. Whatever David puts his mind and hand to is successful. He is building himself a reputation as one of the very best natural life artists.

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I first met artist David Langmead in 2014 when we travelled together to Zimbabwe’s magnificent Mana Pools National Park. Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries director Ross Parker and David both grew up in Zimbabwe and invited this South African city boy along on this safari. At the time I was already a great admirer of David’s exquisite paintings of the African landscape and wild animals and even more impressed when I learned his wide knowledge of the bush and animal behavior.

We also traveled together with Ross to the North Luangwa National Park as well as the United States, where we explored the natural wonders of Florida together. I have the highest respect for David’s Artistic ability and his intense love for nature also inspires my own artistic practice.

David’s inspiration comes from his regular sketching and photographic Safaris which enable him to observe, absorb and digest subject matter, hence the tactile authenticity of his work — a true artist of Africa.

David is always kind and generous with his advice and shares his knowledge with younger artists. His passion for nature and concern for conservation and ecology give credibility to his artworks. He captures the majesty of the animal within the atmosphere of its natural habitat and fascinates the viewer with his dramatic harmonies of color, sunlight and shadow, water and foliage and the rich reflection of the African skies.

x BANNER OF HEAVEN OIL ON CANVAS24x36 Museum Showings ARIZONA-SONORA DESERT MUSEUM LEIGH YAWKEY WOODSON ART MUSEUM LINDSAY WILDLIFE EXPERIENCE MUSEUM OF THE RED RIVER MUSKEGON MUSEUM OF ART WARD MUSEUM OF WILDFOWL ART WILDLING MUSEUM OF ART & NATURE Charities CONSERVANCY OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE SHY WOLF SANCTUARY WEATHERBY FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL WILLIAM HOLDEN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION WOUNDED WARRIORS

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Introduction

Not long before I visited, Langmead said, a skittish pair of kudu and an aardvark were spotted just on the other side of theirChancesfenceline.are good that you’re reading these words in a city or suburb, far removed from what most of us would consider heartpalpitating, spine-tingling, breathtaking wildness. Yet David and Bronwen live it, absorb it into their being, seek it out and crave it.

The Langmeads and their now grown children have inhabited an old converted sheep shed in Nieu-Bethesda, population 90. From their humble porch rises an opulent view of Compassberg, a serene and sometimes snow-crowned peak that lords over the Great Karoo.

Every day, David Langmead the painter wrestles with these questions: how would you translate such wildness to someone who has never seen it, smelled it, tasted it, heard its rich ambient melodies or borne witness to its wonders?

Langmead’s work is so powerful it will make your heart swoon for it glistens with what the French call ambience. The secret, however, is that Langmead’s acclaimed portrayals of wildlife in their ancient home ranges are based upon authentic interaction. The number of miles he’s traveled on foot and off-road vehicle is dauntingly impressive. Besides his technical virtuosity, Langmead is a deep thinker but not the effete sort who ruminates about nature from some distant perch.

A cross a span of several decades, I have written about the greatest living wildlife artists on the planet, and Langmead has his own special place in the pantheon.

“There is something about the air of Africa—the way that dust wafts through it and filters the sun and influences light and color— that you just know when you grow up here,” says Ross Parker who, like Langmead, is a former Zimbabwean. Parker went on to found Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries in Florida in the 1980s and is the sole representative of Langmead’s work.

BY TODD WILKINSON

Beyond the mere 30 paces it took me to cross their backyard, the bush began. It’s a landscape that could easily be mistaken for the arid American West in, say, Montana or the gaucho hinters of Argentina’s Patagonia.

How might you paint the echo of a lion’s roar or, on canvas, portray the dusty, dusky air of a Zambezi sunset, or provide the illusion that we might actually whiff the effusive scents of mopane after a rainstorm has passed? How do you enable a viewer to experience the electrical surge of adrenalin that happens when, upon covering open ground, a Cape buffalo or elephant appears and lowers its head to Morecharge?to the point, how might you invite the viewer into a scene so moving and beautiful that it brings tears to one’s eyes.

The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

xiii D avid and Bronwen Langmead live near the end of a long winding road. While this detail, by itself, may not seem extraordinary, the country lane wending past their home into the middle of nowhere happens to be located in the mountainous interior of South Africa.

Yet moving across the expansive rocky veld amid cloud shadows and ancient corridors of nomadic bushmen are troops of baboons and vervet monkeys, cobras and adders, caracals, black springboks, klipspringers, mountain zebras, tortoises, bat-eared foxes, duiker, black eagles, reedbuck and black-backed jackals.

Parker cites German artist Wilhelm Kuhnert, American Bob Kuhn, Canadian Robert Bateman and Englishman David Shepherd, whose portrayals of Africa during the 20th century, are hailed for their mastery. Before he died, Kuhn became an admirer of Langmead’s work, and he was envious that Langmead not only was raised in Africa, but that he never left. It’s one of the reasons why he is lesser known but considered a diamond in the rough among wildlife artists.

Today in Langmead’s studio, this writer found six easel paintings in various stages of completion, oils and watercolors inspired by peregrinations to a half-dozen different countries.

xiv Combined with the florid aromas synonymous with certain vistas, it’s very much a sensual experience that few artists can translate onto canvas, Parker says, adding that “David Langmead insinuates it into his paintings because he has breathed it in and longed for it his whole life.”

Langmead’s bright wildlife and moody landscape paintings have acquired a devout following among those who travel to Africa on sporting and tourist safaris. His avian pieces have been included four times in the national touring exhibition of the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum’s Birds in Art Show staged every autumn in Wausau, Wisconsin.

In time, Langmead began putting wildlife in his scenes, inspired by the works of Raymond Harris Ching and Kim Donaldson, also a former Rhodesian. His art caught the attention of Parker who invited Langmead to a meeting at Donaldson’s studio near Durban.

American Doug Van Howd, the renowned sculptor, sporting artist and veteran of the African bush, puts Langmead within a context. “I’ve seen great people rise and become popular and carry the mantle—people like Bob Kuhn, Guy Coheleach, David Shepherd, Simon Combes, others. And then a new generation appears. David Langmead is the guy of his generation,” Van Howd says. “Langmead lives in Africa and experiences it daily. That’s essential to be great. I’ve spent a lot of time traveling there and my own work wasn’t able to reach the next level until I lived over there and painted from life,” Van Howd adds. “Langmead’s work has that special quality. I feel like he is a person to watch in African art . . . someone who is making his own momentous contribution.”

What the Karoo provides, Langmead says, is “a space of mind,” a vantage largely free of the distracting hassles of modernity. Here, one can reflect with clarity on the profound pace of change overtaking his native Horn of Africa and act on the duty he feels to share glimpses of it with the outside world.

B orn in 1965, Langmead was raised on a farm in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. Never far away from the country’s famous national parks and private game preserves, he developed his observational powers by studying the behavior of animals and could identify scores of birds by their vocalizations, sight unseen.

“I was blown away by what I saw,” Parker says. “The first group of wildlife paintings we received from David in the U.S. immediately sold and we’ve had difficulty keeping his works on the walls. People love his work. But you would classify them as neither wholly

“We admire his artwork,” says Woodson Museum Director Kathy Foley. “He has a wonderful painterly style. His ability to capture watery reflection is tremendous.”

Even at an early age Langmead dreamed of someday becoming a painter of wild animals. Following high school, he left Zimbabwe to attend the University of Natal at Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. He studied landscape painting and figure drawing with master Jacques Forsythe. He also worked as a commercial illustrator in the art department of a major publishing house and met Bronwen at a high school where they were both teachers.

During the 1990s, he started to gain recognition in South Africa for his atmospheric landscapes likened to the romantic realists who painted the American West and European countryside in the late 19th century. Twice a year, galleries in Johannesburg and Cape Town held sold-out exhibitions of his new paintings.

“For any artist, certain places have added meaning and it’s how you stand by that meaning—and represent it—that defines who you are,” Langmead says.

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Van Howd once told me that Langmead is revered by both painters and sculptors because they feel the authenticity and technical virtuosity he brings; he is beloved by collectors because his works on the wall function like windows opened to corners of Africa most will never experience; and he is respected by art historians because his work is helping to enlighten the masses about what’s at stake for a continent that holds the cradle of wildlife diversity for large species.

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During a break from painting on a brisk autumn afternoon, Langmead heads outdoors, passing by the kitchen where Bronwen is cooking a supper of Karoo lamb and fresh bread.

xvii landscape nor wildlife paintings, because they are both.”

“After the Karoo, you won’t find snow again until you reach the shoulders of Kilmanjaro a few thousand miles away,” he says.

It’s ironic Langmead lives here, because he is a product of the stereotypical Africa that looms large and mysterious in the imaginations of westerners. Whenever possible, Langmead returns to his old wilderness haunts in Zimbabwe, finding both wonder and unspeakable heartache.

American collector Shawn DeRosa owns several Langmeads, including a little zebra portrait that he considers the artist’s Mona Lisa. “The power of his work resides in its authenticity,” says DeRosa. “He is pursuing his art because the motivation comes from the heart. He’s not doing this for the money and he isn’t trying to mass produce originals so that he can live in the lap of luxury.”

While parks and nature preserves across the continent are reeling from poachers and starving people who kill wildlife to survive, Langmead still clings to the hope that if, and when, the civil strife ends, there will be enough wildlife habitat left to facilitate the recovery of imperiled species. In the meantime, he wants his art to chronicle nature’s majesty.

“In my childhood, Zimbabwe fed me the narcotic that is Africa and I will spend the rest of my life pursuing it,” heWhensays. he is in need of fresh material, the family will load up their gear and drive cross-country to camp for weeks in South Africa’s Kruger National Park or make a similar extended foray into Namibia. They have traversed the Kalahari Desert and Okavango Delta of Botswana, too, and camped with friends into Mozambique, always painting wildlife along the way. Yet it is Zimbabwe that continually haunts him. The Langmeads do not think of themselves as recluses attempting to drop off the map. They’re smitten with the Karoo, seeing it as an opportunity to live closer to nature with their kids, eking out a simpler material life while using it as a base camp from which they could launch more ambitious explorations.

“I couldn’t have a better partner when it comes to getting an opinion about whether a painting works,” Langmead says. “Bronwen is a brilliant, neutral sounding board.”

With sun breaking through a squall of sleet, it causes the artist to remark with a laugh that this is not the kind of climate outsiders typically associate with Africa.

“I like to work with late-afternoon light, which is very transient,” Langmead notes. “You have half-an-hour to make your sketch, and then the sun is gone.”

On several occasions he and Parker have used Langmead’s paintings to raise money for an assortment of conservation and humanitarian causes. In one epic elephant painting, a tusker towers on a savannah knoll as a storm rages overhead. While the scene is foreboding, beams of sunlight are breaking through to highlight the elephant and suggest that this dark hour, too, will pass.

”That’s pretty much how I work. I’m always drawing, constantly composing. I like to explore a lot of ideas at once to avoid becoming mesmerized by only one work in progress. Moving between paintings allows me to step back and read them fresh.”

“Wildlife art is the hardest kind of painting if your objective is to avoid the tired clichés,” Langmead explains, acknowledging that he produces only a few dozen pieces a year.

In the Karoo or wherever he goes, the ever-changing skies are shaped by wind currents that originate far offshore over the south Atlantic and Indian oceans. They have trained Langmead to appreciate the impact of atmosphere.

He does not think of himself as a mere documenter of wild Africa but as an artist whose work is meant to remind modern viewers around the world that natural beauty is eternal.

“One thing I don’t want to take for granted is the privilege of being here and having this simple lifestyle,” Langmead says. “In the city, there obviously are more barriers and screens between you and what you are painting. Living here keeps you keen and honest.”

angmead’s art is often laden with symbolism that operates on a number of levels. He enjoys exploring contrasts. Wildness vs. civilization; humans vs. nature; subjects portrayed in color versus backdrops resting in shadow; and, of course, the past vs. a yet uncertain future.

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“There are fascinating things happening everywhere in Africa today, not all positive, not all bad,” he says. “Whether one likes it or not, colonialism is fast becoming a historical relic and nature is caught in the middle of a dramatic transition.”

“David is taking wildlife art to another level,” Parker says. “He is mining two veins of creativity. He continues to pursue traditional wildlife paintings for collectors who enjoy escaping into more classic scenes of wild Africa, but he is also making a contemporary statement with other Accordingworks.”toParker, most contemporary painters of African wildlife are either local artists who fled the continent or visitors who arrive for a few days at a time on tourist visas. He does not discount their ability or connection, but Langmead refuses to leave because he cannot fathom trying to assemble a body of original subject matter without being engulfed by the physical aesthetics every day.

“Not every corner of the planet has succumbed to human dominance or ruin. Fortunately, some animals are too fierce, too strong to have gone away completely. My paintings are for them.”

Equaling Langmead’s growing acclaim for his landscape and wildlife paintings, he has attracted critical recognition for his interpretations of places from a conservation perspective.

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The Light Fantastic The Wildlife Art of David Langmead Chapter One Getting There: The Apprenticeship ............................................................................ 1 Chapter Two Seat of Power: The Drylands ....................................................................................... 13 Chapter Three Pools of Paradise: Okavango Delta, Botswana................................................... 45 Chapter Four Florida Everglades: Morning Has Broken............................................................ 73 Chapter Five Carmine Chaos: Rivers and Riverine Habitats 109 Chapter Six African Waterhole: Watering Places .................................................................... 145 THE BLUE YONDER OIL ON CANVAS 29½ x 34¼

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2 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead THE DEPARTURE OIL ON CANVAS 25 x 18

Chapter One: Getting There 3

I work in layers. Here, the first color wash is being painted onto the sketch.

A crocodile nearly terminated my art career long before it began. My father, who had taken us on a fishing trip to the Zambezi River, looked down from the bank where he was fishing to see me, arms linked in a human chain with my siblings, chest deep, wading across the river to a nearby sandbank. What hadn’t crossed our little minds was that the Zambezi is infested with crocodiles! Happily, Dad sprang into panicked action and we lived to see another day. I was 6 years old at the time, and our family lived the outdoor life. The bush, rivers and gommos (small rocky hillocks) of Rhodesia were my playground as a child, and the intense sense of place, nurtured and inspired me.

One evening in the late 1970s, when renowned English artist David Shepherd gave an impassioned talk to an Umtali audience, there was one awestruck lad whose fate was sealed. When I considered the possibility of breathtaking wildlife destinations, untold beauty, championing the conservation of our natural heritage, and the romantic notion of being able to capture it all in gorgeous oil paint—and to be paid for it—I could imagine no better destiny. Of course, there was the small task of this young schoolboy getting there. Michelangelo, my favorite artist, once said: “If people knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at Atall!”age 16, I was drawing for up to six hours a day and I was ready to expand my artistic skills. I knew, however, that I would need exceptional coaching and a fair dose of good fortune along theMyway.experience with animals in the wild was supplemented only by a few dog-eared coffee-table books of African animals, which I drew from time and time again. I had no access to decent images. It was long before the age of the digital images and photography was not a craft that I was exposed to at all.

4 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

After high school, I entered an illustrating competition in the local newspaper. The prize was an apprenticeship with Longmans Books in Harare. I won the contest and, for the next two years, I worked in a studio with Lance Penny as a book illustrator for Longman. Penny, an Oxford graduate, took cognizance of my inquiring mind and upon his insistence, I applied for a Fine Art Degree at the University of Natal in South Africa.

I pay homage to Lance Penny for steering my life in the direction that it went. At the university, the world was opened to me on every level, and I relished every moment. While further honing my observational and technical skills, I learned to be expressive and to show emotion through my work. I began to see the world differently. I loved the freedom of varsity days.

Exploratory sketch for a private commission documenting a solar eclipse.

I completed ‘A level’ Art at Umtali Boys’ High under the instruction of the masterful Jock Forsythe. As a young boy, I admired the work of wildlife artist Kim Donaldson. His work inspired me greatly and, of course, David Shepherd’s life and art beckoned ever strong.

Chapter One: Getting There 5

D rawing, however, was my life and, recognizing that I was showing a talent for it, my parents were exceptionally encouraging, providing resources and lessons to facilitate my development. I am eternally grateful to them for allowing me to pursue my dream of becoming an artist and for believing in my ability. I was a private child, however, quickly ducking out when my parents wanted to show my work to visitors.

Sunset under a favorite tree in the Central Kalahari with friends and family. The camera records the fleeting light, but the heart records the moment.

6 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

On one occasion, I literally freewheeled down Sir Lowry’s pass into Cape Town and begged Gail Dorje of The Cape Gallery to buy a painting up front. I am ever grateful to her for the kindness she displayed that day. By 2002, I had produced a solid portfolio, and I took the plunge and sent photographic sample portfolios to all the international wildlife galleries that I could resource. Before the advent of email in Africa, a post took a while. Finally, days later, the landline rang and it was Ross Parker calling from the States. My life was about to take a dramatic turn. He asked if we could meet in Port Elizabeth. I was honored that he had flown out to South Africa, and it was the beginning of an excellent working journey of 30 years, I had become an international wildlife artist.

Finally,relationship.afteralittle

The landscape you grow up in speaks to you in a way that nowhere else does.

B y the early ’90s, I found myself teaching art at high school level. This dalliance, though wonderfully rewarding, did not stop me from painting and, by the mid ’90s, I was holding exhibitions, teaching and still trying to please publishers with a continual supply of book illustrations.

Chapter One: Getting There 7

In 1998, my life took a turn and I moved to a picturesque village in the heart of the Karoo, where I placed all distractions aside and put my dreams back on track. Times were tough, and I would peddle paintings to galleries and buyers throughout South Africa.

An early painting of the Karoo’s iconic Compassberg Mountain, from a time when I focused on South African landscape. The Central Kalahari is a space which triggers the imagination. All that is needed is to be still and observe.

— Molly Parker

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During the process of creating an artwork, it becomes an integral part of my day as I try and coax it to what I hope it will become. Very often when the picture is finally sound and complete, I am left exhausted and spent!

Chapter One: Getting There 9

Painting on the unfenced stoep at ‘Grootkolk’ in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Places like this fill my head and heart with ideas.

The digital age has now opened up a world of exquisite imagery, and occasionally I buy professional photographs that my detail junkie craves to paint. The lioness leaping through the Duba marshes (see pages 60–61), are a good example.

live with my wife Bronwen and three children—Rebecca, Bowen and Jude—in the village of Nieu-Bethesda. Tucked away in the Sneeuberg Mountains of the Karoo, this tiny hamlet has attracted a fair number of artists, writers and creative types—the most famous being Athol Fugard (the world’s greatest living playwright) and Helen Martins, the creator of the Owl House. I was drawn here by the beckoning landscape, the splendid light and the tangible quiet. It is a simple life, and we live close to theMyseasons.warmly lit studio is a sanctum for a 10-hour working day. From it, I can look out onto the veld and the kopjes (rock outcrops), which are home to kudu, baboons and aardvarks. Black eagles turn in the skies overhead. It is an inspiring office indeed! During my university training, all my paintings were planned plein air. Figure paintings were from life models, and animal images drawn in zoos and parks. We worked from life. However, as my subject matter started leaning more toward wildlife, along with my fascination with light on the landscape, I began using photography to record the fleeting moment. I take countless reference photographs, and revisit inspirational ideas as I pore over them in the studio.

— Josephine Hart, Damage

10 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.

I find my inspiration in Africa’s wild places. In the bushveld, I become highly attentive and focused. During a typical trip to Mana Pools, I enjoy an almost religious reverie beneath the cathedral-like canopy of Acacia albida. I am in awe of great trees. I love their texture and presence. My favorite places are the river courses. The silvery gleam of water and the dank smell of the earth are intoxicating. It is in this inspired state that paintings reveal themselves to me. The camera is a perfect tool to capture the references until I can convert them onto the canvas, sometimes years later. I return to the studio, relaxed and inspired to revisit the moments that brought me delight and to bring them to life on canvas. Before embarking on a large piece, I sketch the composition to the same size as the stretched canvas. I sometimes cut out elements of the composition so I can move them around.

Chapter One: Getting There 11

Once I am happy with the composition, I carefully sketch the detail onto the primed canvas. For a large piece, this can take up to two weeks, as accuracy is an important element of my work. I do not project. I have a traditional respect for the mastery of good drawing. The drawing is the heart of the piece and the artistry beginsAfterthere.acareful process of color-mixing, I then work the entire piece with an underglaze of accurate color, following the technique of the Renaissance masters. This classical technique allows for a slow buildup of the painting, but also allows for the light to shine through from the base layers of the work. I put the light down first, never on top, which results in a luminescence that shines from deep within the painting.

After completing the underpainting, I place the piece to one side for drying and begin the color mixing for the next, with several underpaintings waiting completion at once. When the painting is completely dry, I remix the oils and begin the final layer of paint. It is at this stage that my work becomes painterly, the darks more intense and the texture more interesting. Smaller works take three or four days, masterpieces up to three months. When I look back on what has defined my work and passion over the years, there are a number of recurring themes, which in the following chapters, I will explore through five paintings: Seat of Power, Pools of Paradise, Morning Has Broken, Carmine Chaos and Africa Dreaming. I am reminded of a quote which my art lecturer once passed on to me, that you know if a painting is complete when it is strong and you are weak!

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— Ernest Hemingway, Green Hills of Africa

Chapter Two: Seat of Power 15

So if you have loved some woman and some country you are very fortunate and, if you die afterwards it makes no difference. Now, being in Africa, I was hungry for more of it, the changes of the seasons, the rains with no need to travel, the discomforts that you paid to make it real, the names of the trees, of the small animals, and all the birds, to know the language and have time to be in I and to move slowly. I have loved country all my life . . .

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16 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead I will love the light for it shows me the way, Yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. — Og Mandino NIGHT SKY IN THE LEOPARD’S EYE OIL ON CANVAS 24 x 18

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T he wide-open dune-scapes of the Kalahari to the north ever beckon with their secrets. The Kgalagadi, a protected national park, has been the inspiration for many of my works. Much of the South African interior is dry grass and shrubland. It is a thrill to drive northwards towardsthe first red sand dunes arching their backs through the sea of silver grass. These grasses sustain countless herbivores and screen the carnivores that stalk them. The light on this landscape can be incandescent, the drama intense and the skies theatrical. I have always hoped to harness the spirit of the Kgalagadi in a quintessential masterpiece! We sat in this landscape in the dawn for a while, photographing its subtle beauty as the sun rose and washed it in a rosy hue. It was the bark of a springbok that alerted us to the fact that there might be something more out there. A small herd nearby stood dead still, all facing in one direction. The screech of a sandgrouse disturbed from its dewy bed also made us look deeper. The reward for sitting still, listening and patient observation, was this gorgeous young leopard on the prowl.

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Chapter Two: Seat of Power 21 T he people of Africa are beautiful. I have befriended some of those who live in the wild places, and have observed the connection and understanding between themselves and their environment.

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Through magical realism, I indulge in the opportunity to dream and play a little.

In Birdman, I again dipped into magical realism, depicting a Masaai warrior serene amidst the parade of spoonbills. I long for a world where humans can co-exist with the natural world. I consider those who live in harmony with their surroundings to be the most advanced societies in the world. A far cry from the near-sighted, destructive, power-hungry humans in charge of our planet.

In Herdboy, I hoped to capture the familiar ease of this relationship with the title even suggesting an ownership of sorts.

OIL ON CANVAS 30 x 50 O ur home is a mere hour’s drive away from the small, beautiful reserve known as Mountain Zebra National Park. The drive there never takes long as the tar road leads us through a corridor of game farms where we often see sable, giraffe and many other animals. Many traditional sheep farms have converted to game farms to service the hunting industry, ensuring the survival of many species by restocking the land with endemic wildlife.

In the Mountain Zebra National Park, I have been lucky to see cheetah, elusive among the rocky outcrops in mountainous areas where they hunt. They are lithe and beautifully regal, making for fine portraiture with their fluid poses.

In the Kgalagadi, I was delighted to watch female cheetahs training their young on small springbok flushed from the long grass.

A cheetah’s spots differ from those of the leopard in that they are individual spots, not arranged in rosettes. Painting spots requires much patience. They hint at the contours beneath them and the nuance of their shape describes the anatomy below.

AFRICALangmeadDREAMING

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THE TALL GRASS Whatever stoked the tall grass a long breath a cloud’s shadow a large palm of air did it more softly than the patient hand that stroked the cat back after days Whatever passed perfectly has left the animal-earth sleeping roundly

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— R. A. Simpson

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28 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead T ime spent at the Mountain Zebra National Park is magical. This particular species of zebra was brought back from the brink of extinction in the 1930s with the establishment of this area for the animals’ preservation. When the park was first established, there were only 15 individual zebra. The park’s size was slowly increased through the acquisition of neighboring farms and the herd is now flourishing at more than 700, with an average of about 20 animals being relocated each year. The program has been so successful that cheetah and lion were recently introduced, and sighting one of these big cats never fails to thrill. It is best to languish in the last light when visiting the park, capturing the effects of the low backlighting on these beautiful creatures as they graze the savanna and long grass. DRINKING BUDDIES OIL ON CANVAS30x50

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Chapter Two: Seat of Power 31 THE LIGHT FANTASTIC OIL ON CANVAS 17 x 33 You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. — Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

OIL ON PANEL 9 x 16 C ape Mountain zebra differ from Burchell’s zebra in that they are thicker set, have a dewlap beneath their necks and their stripes extend all the way down their legs. They are a pleasure to photograph and paint because they are well habituated and relaxed in this beautiful haven.

32 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

NEW BEGINNINGS

Zebras aside, the quality of the Karoo light on the grassland and mountain kopjes is unmatched. Quite often, just as the sun is setting, the elusive aardwolf, jackal and caracal appear in the dusk on their evening hunts.

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Chapter Two: Seat of Power 37 . . . I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused. — Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics NATURE’S CRADLE OIL ON CANVAS 18 x 27 GROUND HORNBILL OIL ON PANEL 8 x 11

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Late that afternoon we sat on the riverbed near camp, watching the orange sun turn silvery grass-heads into a sea of fire before it slipped below West Dune. Soon after, the valley echoed with the mournful cries of (jackals), their calls a lullaby to the lonely beauty of the Kalahari going quietly to sleep around us. The colour drained from the sky, and the silhouette of West Dune quickly faded in the dusk. The click-click-click—like marbles striking together—of barking geckos and the plaintive scoldings of plovers announced the coming of the night.

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— Mark and Delia Owens, Cry of the Kalahari

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One memorable day at Grootkolk, the camp attendant cautioned us that a pride of lions was nearby, and he suspected they were up on a dune behind camp. I cautiously drove up the track, my heart beating in anticipation and hope. I had gone three days without

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he Kalahari Desert is vast, sparse and elemental. Sharing borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa, it is like no other place on earth. By day, it is harsh and washed out; in the early morning and late evening, however, it transforms into a celebration of light and color, heralded by the chirruping of thousands of barking geckos calling from their sand burrows. What was dun and grey becomes bathed in warm hues of orange, pink and purple. In the magical moments of dawn and dusk the creatures emerge, almost transient.

The open wilderness camps—Kieliekrankie, Grootkolk and Gharagab—names derived from our rich and diverse history, are a treat for the soul. These camps are not fenced. A leopard may lope 20 feet away from the deck, and lions roar so close that the hairs on your neck rise in awe. At night, hyenas prowl about behind the thin tented walls. From these camps, sandstorms race in, transforming the sky to hues of sepia. A peaceful afternoon can suddenly change as a rainstorm pelts the dry earth, bringing the scent of petrichor and hope.

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The lions’ bellies were full and they were relaxing in the daytime heat. I settled in the vehicle and, what followed, were some of the most memorable and valuable few hours of my life, providing brilliant reference material for my ultimate Kalahari painting, Seat of Power I immersed myself in the detail. The lions lazed around, moving every now and then to showcase their soft pugs, their fuzzy ears, the way in which the manes whorled in an ombre of dark to light. As the sun passed midday, the lions stood, stretched up and down like your average house cat, and moved closer to the vehicle toward the shade of a nearby bush. My heart thumping, I had to remove the zoom lens to continue photographing.

Moving the 4x4 slowly through deep sand, I eased the vehicle over a dune, and there they were! A small pride of three young males. Their spotted bellies and short black manes declaring their youth as they lay, slothfully and playfully, as your average adolescent on a sandy pink dune.

I parked a little distance off, giving them the space they need. These animals can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable, and I treat them with caution and reverence at all times.

Chapter Two: Seat of Power 41

SEAT OF (detail)POWER

sighting a big cat. I always travel with a selection of cameras at the ready, always expecting that the opportunity for reference material may arise.

I had never been this close to wild lions, and they posed for me as if they were being paid for the job. Kalahari black-maned lions are magnificent. Their distinctive black manes set them apart from the tawny lions of other parts of the continent. Now only 10 feet away, one suddenly locked his eyes with mine. I felt that my soul was being dissected. He looked straight through me, a moment forever etched in my memory. In the distance, the sky blackened as a storm crossed the Kalahari, bringing with it the scent of rain on the wind and virgae on the horizon, providing a perfect dramatic background, with sunshine front-lighting the lions. As the heat of the day subsided and the storm approached, the lions turned and faced the wind, narrowing their eyes to the oncoming wind, which sandblasted their feline faces. And then, in unison, with a language unknown, they rose and strode over the dune, disappearing into the wind and the dust.

42 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead

The intensity of stimulation on that red dune, the smell, the thunder and the lions compelled me to immortalize the scene in paint. That day, Seat of Power was born. On the same dune lay a blackened tree stump. Trees on dunes are vulnerable to lightning strikes because of their height in relation to the relatively flat landscape. This one had suffered a powerful strike a few years back, and what was left was a sculptural testament to what had beenThebefore.oncemajestic tree, the force of the lightning and the power of the lions—formidable and feared—made Seat of Power a fitting title for the piece.

I suddenly remembered to breathe, and laughed out loud, pumped with adrenaline, realizing that I had been sitting in glorious silence for the past few hours. Some large pugmarks beside the vehicle were the only reminder of this special encounter, but I had the images, and I had the photographs, and I had the painting.

Seat of Power is a celebration of detail, a celebration of lions and a celebration of the Kalahari, and in the two months of painting the piece, I relived the day when I was privileged to spend precious hours with these magnificent creatures.

— Marc Riboud

Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.

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Chapter Three Pools of Paradise Okavango Delta, Botswana

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Very often when a buffalo herd is moving through dense bush, individuals will look back defensively. They have a way of looking suspicious and mean spirited. One always hopes to spot the ultimate pose with a perfect set of horns. This one comes pretty close to that!

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I began exploring Botswana as a university student when a few of us enthusiasts would head northwards on the sniff of an oil rag in a battered Landrover. In those days, we free-camped where we could, took terrible photographs with cheap cameras and absorbed freedom and fancy around flickering fires. As a Fine Art student, I was conscious of a feeling of place—the mood, texture, color andInabstraction.Botswana,the human world and the natural world co-exist. While driving on the main roads, it is not unusual to have to wait for an elephant to cross the tarmac or slow down for a kori bustard or a roan antelope.

B otswana is a land of extreme contrast and variety. It is a combination of the great Makadikadi pans—vast, flat salt pans with the occasional baobab-studded rocky outcrops overlooking the nothingness; the Kgalagadi desert with its undulating red dunes and hidden gems; Chobe, which includes the Savuti marshlands and the lush riverine areas; the Linyanti swamps with their magnificent trees and the incredible Okavango Delta, a world heritage site.

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I n the Delta, we have made personal contact with the polers who we hire to take us into the swamps on their dug-outs, known as makoro. This is not an expedition of percale sheets and gin and tonics at high-end lodges. To access the incredible secrets of the Delta, we take our own tents, sleeping bags, food and cooking equipment. The polers are invaluable in their knowledge of the mazes that make up the Delta and enable us to visit places where few humans ever tread. The polers are incredible people—gentle and knowledgeable. We entrust ourselves to their expertise and are subsequently treated to an experience few are privy to. I sensed that if ever I produced a major work representing the swamps, that it would be revealed to me from a makoro

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he Okavango Delta changes in nature with the annual flooding, which slowly fills it and transforms it from grassland to a watery highway. With the waters comes an abundance of birdlife, such as these spoonbills and sacred ibises that delight in the treats dislodged by the elephant’s gargantuan feet. Exploring the Delta on mokoros offers one a low vantage point from which to experience wildlife in the swamps. It is a surreal place, with a skyline of palm trees and their unlikely cousins, the baobabs. Passage on a mokoro is slow and silent—you can slide past a crocodile basking on a bank without it budging, and you can stop to photograph a bee-eater on a reed, filling your frame without a zoom.

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There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you had better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you will never understand what it is saying. — Sarah Dessen,

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— William Faulkner,

“The aim of the artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again, since it is life.”

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Chapter Three: Pools Of Paradise 55 Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pieces. — Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit FOLLOWINGWATCHFULPAGES:EYES OIL ON CANVAS30x50 KING OF A THOUSAND HILLS OIL ON PANEL 10 x 15 MORNING FACE OIL ON PANEL 8 X 10

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I have long been an addict of images. Occasionally I will discover an image so beautiful that I crave to render it in paint. This image, captured by Brendan Cremer, was just such a case. The explosion of water engulfing the lion is an abstract universe of liquidity and light, yet it has an order and sense that is thrilling. The watery tendrils shaped by the fur on the lion’s belly are gorgeous. God is there in the details!

62 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead STEALING THE SHOW OIL ON CANVAS 12 x 17

— Pablo Picasso, as quoted in Futurism

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“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of painting, people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance would be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can’t explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.”

My first version of Pools of Paradise — little did I know that the final version was still ten years off.

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Ross had pointed out that there was a distinctive dark line down the middle of the painting, creating an artwork of two halves. The main elephant was too aggressive and the coloring off-key. I also disliked the palms splayed above the elephant’s head. What was I thinking? We agreed that the waterlilies were still beautiful.

The images played around in my head for a few years before I painted my first version of Pools of Paradise. I first imagined the nearest elephant, startled by our arrival, ears flared as he turned to face us. The pool, the islands and the palms behind them, were exactly as I had photographed them.

Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.

— Mother Teresa, A simple Path

Our poler who had the unusual name “Across,” gestured for us to be quiet as we had disturbed two elephants whose rear ends we could see thundering into the lala palms. As we poled over to where they had stood, we saw the muddied water and the lilies they had ripped out as a tasty treat. I imagined them standing there, waist-deep in water, and the painting was conceived.

Late one afternoon we poled into an exquisite pool that was a mirror scattered with lilies, decked across the surface in a sumptious display of color. The water lilies that adorn the Okavango, jewel-like throughout the swamps, transform the landscape into an unimagined garden. The wind and ripples sometimes flip over the khaki-green-yellow leaves, exposing their purple undersides, anchored to the swamp floor by so many strawlike stems. I was awestruck by the incandescent beauty of it all. Surrounded by islands of reeds and palms, it was simply paradise.

The piece took two months to complete. I was drawn into the intricacies of the lilies, and it became one of my favorite close-up studies. I was deeply connected to the piece because it was a sentimental record of a beautiful moment.

I took the painting off its stretcher, rolled it up and couriered it off to Native Visions Gallery in Florida. For a year, it never sold.

Sometimes the idea of a painting overrides the artistic fundamentals of composition, subject matter and a number of other factors.

One of the dangers of spending too much time with an artwork is that you can become so absorbed in process and the minutae you lose sight of the ‘’big picture.’’ When I opened the painting, I could immediately see the flaws in the piece.

Chapter Three: Pools Of Paradise 67 L ike many of my large pieces, Pools of Paradise took years to come to completion. Each turn in the Okavango Delta heralds a new surprise; each bend reveals an unexpected secret. Channels join pools, streams slip into backwaters. With you seated right on the water level, the poler quietly punts you around the intricate mazes of this shallow-watered kingdom. At times, you are surrounded by grasses, which have been submerged as the annual floodwaters well in and, then sometimes, you are suddenly free again in beautiful pools of amber-colored water, where submerged gardens shudder and sway beneath you in the constant flow.

Ross Parker and I have an agreement that if a painting doesn’t sell within a year, it comes back for reworking. So back over the seas came Pools of Paradise to my studio in Nieu-Bethesda.

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hen I rework a piece, I immediately paint over the offending bits to make a clean, fresh start. Much to Bronwen’s chagrin, I have sometimes painted over an entire piece that does not sit well with me. In this case, I painted over the elephants and the landscape, then put Pools of Paradise to one side as a beautiful study of waterlilies with a plane of white expectation above it. Some years passed. In the interim, I went on a trip up to Namibia, the Caprivi Strip and Botswana with a group of good friends. When we were crossing a bridge over the Kwando river, I saw the perfect background to Pools of Paradise. I stopped to photograph this random gift. On another trip to Mana Pools, I came across a huge bull languishing in the Long Pool’s water grass, bejewelled with egrets. The photographs from this encounter made me realize that I needed more peaceful, relaxed elephants in Pools of Paradise. It needed a sense of tranquility. A few months later, I transformed the blank space above mySometimeswaterlilies.paintings don’t come easily. The two versions of Pools of Paradise spanned the good part of a decade and included three trips, a total makeover and many hours of “wasted” work. Yet in the re-working comes incredible value and learning for me as an artist. I do not become attached to a piece—to me it is work, and work is love made tangible. On completion, I rolled up Pools of Paradise and couriered it to Florida where Ross popped it into its original frame, which had gathered quite a bit of dust by then, and it sold almost immediately.

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Chapter Four Morning Has Broken Florida Everglades

T his painting is the world of the great blue heron: reflection, a riot of verdant colors and the shady underside of the boardwalk above. This great bird stalks the shallows with regal grace and is commonly seen in Florida’s waters, the perfect subject for a painting.

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Chapter Four: Morning Has Broken 73

I was fortunate to be introduced to the floral treasures of the Everglades by photographer Connie Bransilver, and she introduced me to a land of misty cameos graced by giant cypress trees, and little known pools and creeks hidden far into the glades. Of course, I sensed that a major painting had begun stirring, but I had to return many times before it would reveal itself.

I began traveling to the States to attend exhibitions and meet clients and collectors, and it was during these trips that I fell in love with the Everglades and the landscape of Florida. There is a watery similarity between the African labyrinth of the Okavango Swamps and those in Florida.

— L. P. Jacks, Education through Recreation

74 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead THE OLD COUNTRY OIL ON19CANVAS¾x35½

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

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— Barbara Hurd, Stirring the Mud—On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination WINGBEATS OIL ON16CANVAS¾x33¼ TRANQUIL RETREAT OIL ON CANVAS 17 x 21½

In a swamp, as in meditation, you begin to glimpse how elusive, how inherently insubstantial, how fleeting our thoughts are, our identities. There is magic in this moist world, in how the mind lets go, slips into sleepy water, circles and nuzzles the banks of palmetto and wild iris, how it seeps across dreams, smears them into an upright world, rots the wood of treasure chests, welcomes the body home.

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. . . if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . . If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods

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W e spent a few days boating on the St John’s River, collecting lovely landscape vistas from the area. I enjoyed how often we would round a bend and find a fishing boat tucked away against a distant bank. It is a scene of tranquility and pleasure.

Fishing is one of the great meditations, and Gone Fishing is an attempt to show the anglers absorbed by the greater landscape around them

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GONE FISHING

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— Barbara Hurd, Stirring the Mud—On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination 24 53 11 x 16

To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.

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84 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead GOLDEN SLIPPERS OIL ON CANVAS 15 x 9 ½ IN THE SPOTLIGHT OIL ON CANVAS 17 X 10 IN HIGH FEATHER OIL ON CANVAS 16 x 11 When I would re-create myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. — Henry David Thoreau, The Atlantic magazine

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Floridian birds are less skittish than those in Africa, and the wonderful bird parks in Florida allow for great close-up photography. With their fine feathers and perfect plumes, egrets are delightful subjects.

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I am eternally grateful to Ross Parker and Native Visions Galleries for marketing and promoting my work, allowing a young lad’s dream to be realized!

I painted these three beauties over a few years and loved their contrast to the dark water.

y quest for good bird references is unrelenting!

One morning, while paddling down some river in the Everglades, it suddenly dawned on me what a charmed life I have led. I am blessed to be able to do what I love most as a career; traveling and exploring the most beautiful wilds of this earth to find places and creatures to paint.

86 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead DAWN LIGHT OIL ON CANVAS 15 x 24 The light was made to rule the darkness. — Rae Hashton

Chapter Four: Morning Has Broken 87 EVENING ON THE CANAL OIL ON CANVAS 11 x 16

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Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes; Sing to him the song of the green morass, And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Warm and still is the summer night, As here by the river’s brink I wander, White overhead are the stars, and white The glimmering lamps on the hill-side yonder.

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Sing of the air, and the wild delight Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight Through the drift of the floating mists that enfold you;

Silent are all the sounds of day, Nothing to hear but the chirp of crickets, And the cry of the herons winging their way O’er the poet’s house in the Elmwood thickets.

Sing to him the mystical song of the hern And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking; For only a sound of lament we discern, And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD

Morning Has Broken 89 Of the landscape lying so far below, With its towns and rivers and desert places; And the splendor of lights above, and the glow Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better. Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate, Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate, And send him unseen this friendly greeting; That many another hath done the same Though not by a sound was the silence broken; The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.

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Chapter Four:

—Henry Longfellow,

90 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead I am enchanted by water birds. There is something about their poise, their tendency to be pale and translucent, their rapt concentration and focus on what lies beneath their stalky legs and dagger-beaks. In the Everglades, birds hang out in mixed flocks — the spoonbills scoop and muddy the water, disturbing fish and frogs, which are then pierced by egrets and herons. And as doors to the next world go, a bog ain’t a bad choice. It’s not quite water and it’s not quite land—it’s an in-between place. — Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children SUN CATCHERS OIL ON CANVAS25x18

Chapter Four: Morning Has Broken 91

hese golden shallows are a common feature seen while exploring Florida’s waterways. They provide a calm foil for the busy texture of the inland vegetation, and are an artist’s dream. In this painting, I wanted to set a lovely contrast between the warm colors of the water and the cool blues and purples of the over-hanging Spanish moss. The white ibis are arranged like jewels on the golden surface. With their rapier-like beaks digging through the surface, I thought Gold Diggers would make a fun title for the painting.

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One was a white gull forming a half-mile arch from the pines toward Waukegan.

I took away three pictures.

One was a thing my people call “death,” neither a whistle in the little sandhills, nor a bird Sanscrit of wing points, yet a coat all the stars and seas have worn, yet a face the beach wears between sunset and dusk.

SANDHILL PEOPLE

One was a thing my people call “love,” a shut-in river hunting the sea, breaking white falls between tall clefs of hill country.

One was three spotted waterbirds, zigzagging, cutting scrolls and jags, writing a bird Sanscrit of wing points, half over the sand, half over the water, a half-love for the sea, a half-love for the land. I took away three thoughts.

One was a thing my people call “silence,” the wind running over the butter-faced sand-flowers, running over the sea, and never heard of again.

One was a whistle in the little sandhills, a bird crying either to the sunset gone or the dusk come.

— Carl Sandburg, The Complete Poems of Carl SandburgMELLOW

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his shady waterway is primal and moody, with a surface of steaming mist beneath the over-hanging branches. The great blue heron gliding past is the iconic inhabitant of the area. The distant glow of warmth heralds the coming day. This scene was typical of the area where I canoed down a section of the Peace River during a research trip.

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BIRDS OF A FEATHER (detail)

OIL ON CANVAS19x47 Sometimes she heard night sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.

— Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

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100 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead M y favorite light is the warm light of dawn and dusk. In this painting, the glow of the arriving sun sets fire to the colors of the riverbank vegetation, while in the moody shadows below, a lone egret patrols the waterline. The setting for this painting is the Peace River. DAY BREAK OIL ON PANEL11½x17 EMERALD GLADE OIL ON CANVAS 19 ½ x 16

If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.

— Masaru Emoto,

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— Hans Hoffman,

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When the impulses which stir us to profound emotion are integrated with the medium of expression, every interview of the soul may become art. This is contingent upon mastery of the medium. Search

he birdlife in these parts is quite remarkable, with herons, egrets, spoonbills and storks that allow you to approach within close proximity as they wade and feed in the shallows.

I will never forget the day when, up before dawn, I came across a flock of rare sandhill cranes, which thrilled me just as much as seeing open-billed storks in Africa.

The Everglades is unique in that within a few miles of the city, one can escape the hustle of urban life in Florida and find yourself in a timeless, perfectly protected place. The sight of an alligator or even a black bear in the wild thrills me as much as seeing a beautiful orchid or unusual bird. It was a natural transition as I spent more time in the Everglades that I would begin painting this exquisite place.

In early 2017, I had an inspiring chat with Ross Parker about doing a series of paintings that really celebrate the beauty of the Florida landscape. Ross wasted no time in doing some research and set up a road trip, including canoe outings in the Everglades for fellow artist Margaret Gradwell and myself. When I arrived in March, we had the pleasure of hitting the open road and traveling across the state to some stunning settings. Because Florida has so many waterways and estuaries, we invariably spent a lot of time on boats and canoes.

Early one morning, we awoke long before it became light and puttered our pontoon boat across a mirror of still water to a huge stand of cypress trees on the banks of the St John’s River. There was a faint mist, and the expectation of the sunrise through the trees was palpable.

I really believe that we were able to see the soul of this beautiful place, and I was properly inspired along the way. I returned home and immediately wanted to paint three massive masterpiece-size landscapes at once. Sanity prevailed, however, and I focused on the first work, Morning Has Broken.

MORNING HAS BROKEN (detail)

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As an artist, it thrills me when everything comes together so perfectly in terms of composition. Although the piece took three months to complete, I was invigorated by the process and happy with the result. As a realist, it is easy to accumulate the detail, but to capture the mood of time and place is more difficult. The finished piece took me back to that morning on the St. John’s river, and it contains a little of everything I love about the wild heart of Florida.

As the gloom faded and the sun rose, the Spanish moss in the giant trees began to glow in the backlight and steam rolled off the water as the sun’s rays warmed the surface.

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My head spun at the wonder of this sight, and I snapped many photos, knowing this would lead to a great work.

In all my visits to the Everglades, I had accumulated snippets of inspiration for this painting. But coming across this quintessential scene that morning brought it all together for me.

106 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead W hat we weren’t expecting, however, and what made this a truly special experience, was that hundreds of Florida’s wading birds arrived unexpectedly and started flocking at the base of the cypress stand. There were egrets, wood storks and great blue herons — all performing and honking in a glorious manner right before us!

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Rivers and Riverine Habitats

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—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

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Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

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I am drawn to rivers. I grew up in the bountiful bushveld of Zimbabwe on a farm outside Mutare in the Eastern Highlands, where rivers were commonplace. As a child, the river that ran through my parents’ farm was where I spent countless summer afternoons. Rivers cut into the loamy earth through which they travel and create intriguing passageways within the surrounding landscape. When school or church was out, I would escape down into the depths of the cuttings, protected from wind, weather and the world. Down in the riverbeds, trees are nurtured in microclimates and have a different quality from those on the plains and on the slopesWildabove.figtrees provide shelter to both bird and beast. Their branches reach up beyond riverine cuttings, well fed by subterranean waters, an arboreal cathedral providing security and comfort, joy, adventure and exploration. The river was my solace, a place to which I would escape for hours. A place where sound and light and color were amplified and where time would be of no consequence as I followed the daily variance of its inhabitants.

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OIL ON CANVAS 26 x 44 T he river was a meditative space where I could sit on my favorite log and simply be. Routinely, I would check the sanctum of my river—dismantle traps that had been set, take note of variations in burrows made by kingfishers and crabs. I considered myself the small custodian of this place. Although the river was always there, always constant, the allure was unrelenting. My soul revels in African riverbeds. I would never forget the little river of my childhood, and I became drawn to the many more that have inspired my later works: The mighty Zambezi, which flows down to braided eddies at Mana Pools; the Gats River in the Karoo, which harbors kudu and raw desolation; the Tugela, which rushes over the bedrock of Kwa-Zulu Natal; and the deep, slow meander of the St. Johns River in the Everglades.

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Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.

On land, hippos appear to be bovine-like, cumbersome creatures. But they are lightning fast and can easily outrun any human. In the water, they are fearful fighters and account for many human casualties in Africa. A bull’s huge incisors can inflict grave damage during battle. Their scars are sometimes horrific, and it is not surprising that many fight it out to the death. A dead hippo provides food for many creatures, both in the river and on land. HIPPO OIL ON CANVAS17x25

A canoeing trip at Mana is not really a relaxing experience. We had to be constantly on the alert for buffalo in the reeds and particularly for pods of hippo submerged in the deep pools. While paddling quietly over a particularly large pool, we suddenly saw the ominous line of bubbles indicating a submerged hippo moving swiftly in a direct line toward us. Our paddling changed dramatically to a more frenetic, loud, panicked splashing, and we were lucky to duck behind a small island just as the hippo’s gargantuan jaws emerged ten feet away from us in an aggressive display of dominance, his sabre-like incisors making it very clear who was boss in the river.

— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

n a trip to Mana Pools with Ross and Kirsten Parker, we hired canoes so we could get close-up photographs of elephants and birdlife on the river. One gains a different perspective of the landscape from a canoe as the viewing angle is low as you glance up toward the riverbanks and any animals that browse in the lush grass there.

HOBNOBBING

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ippos are mainly herbivorous, feeding on plant matter both in the water and on land. During the day, hippos mainly act as floating islands in the rivers and waterholes they call home. They appear docile and cumbersome and have an endearing presence to them. They bask in the sun, feed on water plants, and sometimes submerge themselves for up to five minutes. As they emerge from the depths, they breathe out through their large nostrils, like a glorious geyser. I love painting hippos. Although widely regarded as gargantuan beasts, hippos are wonderful to paint. They are covered in subtle pinks and greys and their smooth skin often reflects—and is reflected by—the water around them.

Late one night at Xakanaka, as we lay reading to torchlight in our flimsy tent, I became aware of something large stomping around outside. We had been camping on the edge of the swamps for a few days and, while we had seen lion pugmarks in the dust around the tent one morning, we were unsure what this beast could be. It was not the familiar subtle passing of elephants. This creature was noisy—and terribly close by. We could now hear grunting and snorting followed by the strangest sound I’d yet encountered in the wild—it was a kind of whirring, followed by distinct splattering of dung hitting our flimsy tent wall.

I cautiously unzipped the flysheet and shined my light at the intruder, but all I could see was a great grey wall. Hippos are most dangerous at night when they leave their watery sanctums and move onto the land up well-worn tunnels through the undergrowth. I slowly sank back into my sleeping bag, whispering that a hippopotamus was rudely defiling our tent with its dung-flinging tail. We stayed very still that night, thoroughly relieved when we heard him crashing back toward the river.

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Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him. Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus! We really look alright to us, As you no doubt delight the eye Of other hippopotami.

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

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To encounter a buffalo on foot is a precarious predicament.

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I really enjoyed painting cows when I lived in the Kwa Zulu Natal Midlands. They solidly occupy their space and are docile, doe-eyed and peaceful. The wild buffalo of Africa remind me of their domesticated cousins in their basic size and stature, but that is where the likeness ends. I have been surrounded by these beautiful bovines both while driving and on foot. I love their grumpy curiosity and their raised heads as they sniff the air.

A lone bull can place your life in certain danger as they are ruthless and unpredictable killers when they want to be. Years ago, we awaited a gentleman who had booked stay in our guesthouse in Nieu-Bethesda. He never arrived. We subsequently learned that he had been killed by a buffalo while on foot at a nearby park. A nearby Karoo game farmer was also killed by his own buffalo.

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128 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead BLAZE OF GLORY OIL ON CANVAS 36 x 24 He looks like he hates you personally. He looks like you owe him money. He looks like he is hunting you.

— Robert Ruark, Horn of the

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I n my paintings, I do not exaggerate the threatening look that these powerful animals exude—they are a force of nature not to be toyed with. What I enjoy about painting Cape buffalo is that they become so weather-beaten and gnarly with age. Their eyes are bloodshot from the dust and their bodies are covered in caked mud to keep off the bloodthirsty ticks. The blowflies aggravate them and they become grumpy and irritable.

Buffalo are much more approachable in the safety of the herd— but solo bulls are indomitable. A standoff of buffalo becomes a monument to everything that is Africa—beautiful, statuesque, powerful and dangerous.

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I had seen a herd of buffalo, one hundred and twenty-nine of them, come out of the morning mist under a copper sky, one by one, as if the dark and massive, iron-like animals with the mighty horizontally swung horns were not approaching, but were being created before my eyes and sent out as they were finished.

— Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa

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On one trip to Kruger Park, I stopped the vehicle alongside a muddy bank where I could see skid marks that the elephants had left as they made their way down these ancient paths. It was the perfect plinth on which to place a giant bull. The artist is constantly searching—for the perfectly poised subject, the unusual setting, the atmospheric backdrop and the soul that hold the work together.

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In painting elephants, I have come to realize that no two are even slightly the same. Their huge bodies beautifully reflect the soil and minerals that form their respective haunts—Tsavo elephants are covered in red dust; those in Addo are decidedly pink; Etosha elephants are chalky white, Kruger elephants are a stony, metallic grey.

here is nothing more thrilling than chancing upon an old tusker. They are the iconic symbols of Africa, and I never tire of painting them.

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I live close to Addo Elephant National Park and it is uplifting to spend time with these creatures. The old tuskers of Africa are legends—names such as Duke, Shawu, Joao, Kambaku, Mandleve, Tshokwane and Shilowa—are revered and have parks, camps and places named after them.

On a recent trip to Mana Pools, it was quite evident there were none of the great old tuskers to be seen. I used to relish in spotting them, but there are concerns that these great icons have been poached due to the demand for their ivory in the East. It is now very rare to see an elephant with a decent pair of tusks.

— Langston Hughes

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THE NEGRO SPEAKS OF RIVERS

I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

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I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

138 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans. — Jim MOTHER’SFowlerSIDE OIL ON PANEL 15 x 10

In the Karoo, the high chirruping sound of European bee-eaters arriving en masse in the cold cirrus skies indicate the start of spring.

Like their less flamboyant cousins, the Carmine bee-eaters are also gregarious and swoop into their roosting places along riverbanks each year. We paddled past the pockmarked bank, still somewhat wary of the hippos, but with a heightened sense of everything around us. We drifted silently beneath the nesting colony. The huge squadron swooped in on the balmy breeze. Their chirruping magnified to a symphony not only of sound, but a dazzling display of an almost un-natural carmine color.

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O n a canoeing trip at Mana, we were slowly gliding away from the lush flatlands into a stretch where the current sped up, undercutting a bank of earth where a colony of birds had created thousands of nesting burrows.

One of Africa’s showcase birds, bee-eaters flaunt the most powerful colors on the palette: emerald and cobalt, ultramarine, azure, violet, magenta and our favorite, carmine!

While many riverine birds, including kingfishers, make their nests in the banks, the sheer number of perforations indicated they were the excavations of a distinct species: the bee-eater.

Sometimes a painting stays in my head for a while. Carmine Chaos is a reflection of a day out in Africa. It came with a heightened sense of awareness, a reflection of the joy of being alive and having the privilege of being able to witness such a scene.

I had seen an elephant moving off from the top of the bank before we arrived—his muted tones of grey and dust offsetting the bee-eaters in all their glory.

The idea for the painting played in my mind for a long time. I eventually found the perfect elephant pose to set off the delicate birds, and this time, because the idea was dying to get out, the painting flowed from the brush with ease.

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Carmine Chaos is a celebration of what it is to be alive in Africa, how tenuous it can be and how totally glorious.

t can be tricky painting African birds. In contrast to the muted landscape, they are sometimes too garish, too bright—almost unreal. However, the sheer theater that unfolded before us was etched in my mind forever and demanded to be immortalized in oil.

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From the dark woods that breathe of fallen showers, Harnessed with level rays in golden reins, The zebras draw the dawn across the plains Wading knee-deep among the scarlet flowers, The sunlight zithering their flanks with fire, Flashes between the shadows as they pass Barred with electric tremors through the grass Like wind along the gold strings of a lyre.

— Roy

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THE ZEBRAS

Into the flushed air snorting rosy plumes That smoulder round their feet in drifting fumes, With dove-like voices cakk the distant fillies, While round the herds the stallion wheels his flight, Engine of beauty, volted with delight, To roll his mare among the trampled lilies. Campbell

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A frica’s communal coffee station is the waterhole. Water is often scarce in the bushveld. During the heat of the day, most animals seek reprieve in the shade, but as the sun starts to soften, the well-defined pathways leading to waterholes bustle as commuters make their way to slake their thirst.

Return to old watering holes for more than water; friends and dreams are there to meet you.

Waterholes are the perfect place for predators to pounce. Due to the moisture there, trees and bushes usually flourish, providing perfect hideouts for the big cats. Some waterholes are home to crocodiles and hippos, so even a sip can sometimes be fatal.

— African Proverb

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Waterholes have a distinct pecking order. Animals display incredible discipline and order, and there are unspoken rules as to who gets to drink first. While some lower their heads to sip the sweet water, others keep guard.

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I love to paint animals near or in water. It provides opportunity for a clean, uninterrupted view, and colors are enhanced and reflected by the water. These buffalo in Zambia’s Luangwa Park reveled in the cool mud and fresh water that they shared with the sacred ibises.

ou will seldom be disappointed spending time at a waterhole. It is thoroughly absorbing to watch a herd of elephants thundering down to drink. Unlike other species, they take little heed of what might be hidden there, and they approach the life-giving liquid with gusto, the matriarchs forming a wall of protection around their young charges.

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famous drinking venue is Addo Park’s Hapoor waterhole, named after the park’s most notorious bull elephant. Here, the elephants emerge out of the spekboom bush by the hundreds in the heat of the day, totally oblivious to anyone who might be observing from their vehicles. The breeding herds are the most entertaining, with little groups of calves cavorting under the legs of the adults. Sometimes a little one will slip into the water, whereapon the older members of the herd go into the water and help them out onto the bank. One can sit here for hours absorbing the antics of these incredible, ancient creatures.

It is not easy to remember That in the fading light of day . . . The shadows always point toward the dawn.

— Winston Abbot

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154 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead Southern Africa is blessed with antelope of all shapes and sizes. Magnificent horns are their crowning glory. Where we live, kudu roam free, their jumping skills negating the restraints of any farm fence. This makes driving in poor light especially dangerous, as they tend to leap across the road when startled, often inadvertently crashing through the windscreen. Sable antelope are royalty! Their black-purple hides gloss in the African sun and their magnificent scimitar horns adorn their heads with grace. They seem to prance in an elegant display of dominance as they strut toward the waterhole, scattering their entourage of doves and starlings.

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— Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

I think I could turn and live with the animals They are so placid and self-contain’d I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to the other, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

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We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured byInman.aworld older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. Henry Beston,

—

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— A.S.J. Tessimond

To rules or routes for journeys; counter Attack with non-resistance; twist Enticing through the curving fingers

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And leave an angered empty fist. They wait obsequious as darkness Quick to retire, quick to return; Admit no aim or ethics; flatter With reservations; will not learn To answer to their names; are seldom Truly owned till shot or skinned.

Cats no less liquid that their shadows Offer no angles to the wind.

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Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, Offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat, Through loopholes Less than themselves; will not be pinned

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Who says being an artist is easy?

I became so absorbed in this massive color field that I could not extricate myself to see the work objectively. I lived in a strangely productive zone, returning each day to engage with the canvas. I kept hearing the words that Michelangelo had uttered centuries before: “If people knew how hard I had to work . . .’’

I visited this waterhole at Mana Pools in 2003 when our children were very young. Photographing the area late one evening, I knew that I would paint it someday. As the sun set, we settled down for a few beers from the cooler box as one does when out in the bush in Africa. I was chatting with our two eldest children, trying to bring them into the present by asking them what they could see, hear and smell as we sat around the waterhole. Bowen, then age four, closed his eyes as he tried hard to focus on what his senses were telling“Whathim.can you smell Bowen,” I asked. Breathing in deeply, he replied in earnest, “Beer, Dad, I smell beer!”

Finally, I looked over the piece and it was complete! Signing it after all that time, I placed it with its face toward the wall. And when I turned it around two weeks later, I saw that all the hard work had paid off. I was back beside the African waterhole!

I started to draw the piece in pencil. It took me a full three weeks before I started painting. The color mixing was a challenge— because of the sheer size of the piece, I could not work it all at once as the pigment dried before each animal was complete. The underpainting then took a month. Starting with a classical imprimatura, I progressed to a thin underpainting before completing the final layer with thicker paint and texture.

A work of this magnitude establishes itself during the drawing and compositional phase. This can take days, or it can take weeks. Only when I look at the drawing and it feels right do I consider moving on to color and paint.

It took three full months to complete Happy Hour—a celebration and showcase of the fauna, flora and landscape of Africa. The painting took its toll on my body and mind. The repetitive motion—thousands of movements from palette to canvas— resulted in my doctor suggesting that I move the palette to my left so that I could cross my body each time I took color. Such a large piece meant that I could only paint while standing, and my feet were feeling the hundreds of hours of hard work.

Being out in the wild brings with it so many life memories. These memories comprise encounters with incredible animals and special moments with friends and family. Thirteen years later, one of Ross Parker’s collectors, Rick Rudi, commissioned me to paint the archetypal African waterhole. He asked that I incorporate a variety of animals that meant a great deal to him. I knew at once that the waterhole at Mana Pools would be the perfect setting for the commission. I set to work, first drawing up a charcoal sketch of the scene and then sourced the sable, kudu, impala and elephants from various photos, drew them in charcoal, cut them out and moved them around until they made compositional sense. Of added interest to the composition is the fact that each animal is reflected, in effect, doubling the presence animals.

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Finally, to my wife Bronwen, I am ever thankful for the endless hours spent on this book. More than that, however, I could not imagine the vast dry beauty of the Kalahari without you at my side, nor the bejewelled pools of the Okavango without you there in the mokoro. Your deep love and enthusiasm for the wild makes you the perfect companion for this wonderful life!

To my teachers and mentors, Jock Forsythe and Lance Penny; what you gave me remains invaluable.

I am grateful to the following photographers who have generously allowed me to use some of their incredible photos as reference material: Ian Michler, Adrian Bailey, Clyde Elgar, Roger de la Harpe, Nigel Dennis, Nils Kure, Gabriela Staedler, Brendan Cremer, Connie Bransilver, Joe McDonald, Beverly Joubert, Ron McGill, Alida Thorpe, Frans Lanting and Brian Hampton. A huge thank you for the production, layout and editing of this book: Mel Lenet, Eric Taylor, Chuck Wechsler, Ross Parker and Bronwen Langmead. After many discussions around the campfire, and for the vote of confidence to arrive at the publishing of this book, I am eternally grateful to Ross Parker and Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries. I would include gratitude for a working relationship that has seen us travel to the secret wonders of the Luangwa Valley, the magical vistas of the Zambezi River at Mana Pools, the jewel of Kavinga, houseboating on Kariba and the secluded river systems tucked away in the vast Everglades region.

Acknowledgements

Call of Africa’s Native Visions Galleries must surely stand out as the premier wildlife art exhibitors on the planet. The organization is superbly professional, and I am fortunate to be associated with it.

— David Langmead

To Ross Parker who, before all things, is my friend.

To David Shepherd and Raymond Harris Ching, both were equally inspiring. David Shepherd for his indomitable passion, and Raymond Harris Ching for showing this genre that true masters still walk the earth.

168 The Light Fantastic: The Wildlife Art of David Langmead THE ROAD TO NOWHERE OIL ON CANVAS 12 x 17

ARTIST DAVID LANGMEAD David Langmead possesses a rare talent forged by classical training and an imagination fired by the African continent. His unique journey has empowered him with a command of landscape and anatomy and, at the height of his talents, he uses both to capture the richly layered beauty of the natural world. Raised on a farm in Zimbabwe, Langmead delighted in his bushveld surroundings. It was there, absorbed in the landscape of granite kopjies and msasa trees, that the young artist developed an intense love for the wild. It was a love based on observation and an affiliation with place. Langmead went on to work as an in-house book illustrator for Longman Zimbabwe before moving to South Africa to study for a Fine Arts degree. He worked for many years in the commercial industry, developing an understanding of excellence and productivity in the trade. Langmead’s ultimate dream however, was to work as a professional wildlife artist, and his life inevitably inclined back toward the draw of the veld From the wilds of the Karoo, he launches many an expedition in search of the beautiful spirit of the southern African wilderness. His understanding of the light and color of the region is that of a resident long accustomed to nuance. He lives this complexity every day, and thus possesses an advantage over visiting artists from abroad. His perception of atmospheric depth and mastery of color separates him from many aspiring artists. With an enthralling artistic vision, lovingly rendered in the quest for an elusive perfection, David Langmead stands tall among the finest contemporary wildlife and landscape painters of our day. The Light Fantastic invites you on a journey into the secret heart of the African bushveld and beyond. Traveler and artist David Langmead has returned time and again to his favorite wilderness areas in passionate pursuit of their sensual beauty. Ever seeking the one painting that encapsulates the experience of place, Langmead has journeyed to the drylands of the Kalahari and the watery jewel of the Okavango. This book is filled with images of his journeys, some of them detailed and intimate, others vast and encompassing. Light remains the primary catalyst for the artwork and many of the paintings celebrate the transient glow of the African dawn or Thisdusk.book also records his lifelong fascination with the watering points of the African veld, both in its waterholes and rivers. Langmead documents the animals and birds that frequent these waters, whilst celebrating the color and reflection that inevitably appeal to the artist. With a talent that transcends the boundaries of African wildlife, Langmead explores the subtle beauty of the Florida wetlands with equal enthusiasm. His many visits to the Everglades have opened up a new array of painting possibilities and inspired quest for the quintessential soul of these wetlands. As exhibited in this selection of 150 paintings and in Langmead’s absorbing and enlightening text, The Light Fantastic is a transcendental journey, a 20-year love affair between the artist and the beauty of the natural world. For those who have fallen under the spell of the unspoiled wilderness, and those who yet dream of new journeys, whether they be wildlife enthusiasts or travelers, this is a book to treasure.

FantasticLightThe LANGMEADDAVIDOFARTWILDLIFETHE AFRICA’SOFCALLVISIONSNATIVEGALLERIES The Light Fantastic THE WILDLIFE ART OF DAVID LANGMEAD The Light Fantastic THE WILDLIFE ART OF DAVID LANGMEAD9 781935 342229 5 6 0 0 0 > ISBN 978-1-935342-22-9$60.00