To copy is to lie, it is incomplete, it can never be otherwise. To create or recreate is true, it is part of the law, the order, the rhytms of nature- Colin McCahon.
BACKROUND.
Colin McCahon was born in a little town in Timaru in 1919.
As Colin McCahon was growing up as a boy in Dunedin, he felt his calling to paint was in his early ages after watching a signwriter at work. Colin wasn't really taught to paint (apart from Saturday morning tuition classes he took for about 3 years with Russel Clarke) and at that time many people believed that you had to obtain a certain degree in art school before you can paint and understand art but Colins case, he never really went to art school.
INFLUENCES.
McCahon was deeply influenced by religion to show what he believes and also to show the true nature of faith and his own spiritual experience and development. In addition he sought to maintain a relation to 'modernism' and abstract art. He was also infuenced by landscape. .
LANDSCAPE -E.G- Takaka-Night and day, The promised land 1948,.
RELIGION-E.G- The resurrection of Lazarus showing Mount Martha 1969-1970, .
McCahon was into science in which he was good friends of (and also influenced by) Sir Charles Cotton.
McCahon states- The North Otago landscapes all come both directly and indirectly from Cotton-that's why they are real.
Cotton was a Scientist in which McCahon was interested in Geomorphology. In fact his wife received a book signed by Cotton in which it was a gift to her but McCahon constantly admired the way the landscape was. Xample-Takaka.