Barns

Barns.

I have sketched and drawn numerous barns around the vicinity (of Horton), and there are hundreds to choose from, and in this post I have thrown in a few of my sketches. I suppose like sheep and walls they are another ubiquitous symbol of the Dales, but sadly a lot are in disrepair - the maintaining and rebuilding costs of the barns far outweigh their use. Originally these laithes were used for the overwintering of cattle and fodder storage, they are numerous so the heavy items (hay) did not have to be transported far from where they were harvested, and manure from the cattle over winter could be spread on the nearby fields. However with modern agricultural techniques, transportation of materials is far easier therefore reducing the necessity of numerous barns.

But as ruins in themselves these have a strangely romantic quality, and aside from being practical buildings they stir imaginations, why is this? What is it about ruined barns that drags us in, what is it about these weather-worn broken-down buildings?

In the landscape of the Pennines (away from my local area) the barn is depicted as a black monolith at the conjunction of black walls against a field of yellow ochre, with a feeling of tempest in the air. Two words in literature echo this emotion, Wuthering Heights.

The paintings of Peter Brook mirror this feeling, his depiction of the field barn in the landscape epitomises the West Yorkshire Pennines, especially those painted against a winter scene, they have a true 'Yorkshire' feeling about them. One can look at a Peter Brook image of a barn in winter and automatically place the part of the county it depicts, and it is interesting to note Peter Brook commonly used sand mixed in with his paint which added  extra texture to his paintings.

So because of these barns were built using locally available material (avoiding transportation costs), they reflect the local geology and therefore mirror the landscape of their surroundings. Where I live, in the heart of Limestone Country, the barn takes on a different persona. Local limestone is used for the walls and laithes and overall appears as a much brighter, lighter (dare I say it, a 'happier') place than the brooding sandstone and gritstones of the southern Pennine scenery.

http://www.peterbrookart.co.uk/