{"id":621758,"date":"2026-10-06T00:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T00:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621758\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T00:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T00:08:12","slug":"the-passing-of-the-forest-new-zealand-arts-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621758\/","title":{"rendered":"The Passing of the Forest \u2013 New Zealand Arts Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples<\/p>\n

\"\"Cover Dick Frizzell The Weight of the World 2025, Courtesy of Dick Frizzell and Gow Langsford Gallery.<\/p>\n

The Passing of the Forest\u00a0
\u00a0Richard Wolfe
RRP $75.00<\/p>\n

Oratia Books
Publishing: 8 October<\/p>\n

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples<\/p>\n

Richard Wolfe\u2019s book The Passing of the Forest\u00a0takes it title from the poem by the poet \/ parliamentarian William Pember Reeves published in 1898. The poem which celebrates the landscapes and forests of New Zealand also alluded to the destruction of the extensive forest with lines such as<\/p>\n

Well may these plundered and insulted kings,
Stripped of their robes, despoiled, uncloaked, discrowned,
Draw down the clouds with white enfolding wings,
And soft aerial fleece to wrap them round,
To hide the scars that every season brings,
The fire\u2019s black smirch, the landslip\u2019s gaping wound;<\/p>\n

The writings and depictions of the forests in course of New Zealand\u2019s history have been ambivalent. In the early nineteenth many descriptions of the landscapes showed the huge resource available to the colonist which was tied to the notion of taming nature to the benefit of man. On the other hand, there were an increasing number of writers concerned at the long-term viability of constant deforestation and milling.<\/p>\n

As the author notes \u201cAlthough New Zealand was the last sizeable habitable landmass to be settled by humans \u2026 the impact on its native forest has been little short of dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolfe profiles the devastation of native forests in a history which has parallels in the history of Australia. He quotes writers about the growing appreciation of conservation and management, and he uses examples of New Zealand art from the early nineteenth century to the present of art depicting the forests.<\/p>\n

The Passing of the Forest explores how large areas of forest were burned by M\u0101ori, and then European setters drawing parallels with colonisation in Australia with illustration by Australian artists. \u00a0The book illustrates how New Zealand\u2019s deforestation has impacted on leading artists and thinkers and explores ways forward to replace what has been lost.<\/p>\n

\"\"Charles Heaphy A sawyer\u2019s clearing in a forest of kauri on the banks of the Kaipara River, 350 x 470 mm, lithograph, hand-colouredPUBL-0011- 03, Alexander Turnbull Library.<\/p>\n

The book has more than 50 colour images from leading artists who have depicted the New Zealand forests. These range from the early images by Charles Heaphy which depict the forests as an endless resource, through to artists like Dick Frizzell who have depicted both the forests as well as the results of massive milling and deforestation. There is his image of the forest at Whakaangianga which shows stands of trees as well as the desolate landscape and also an image of piled up stumps ready for burning in \u201cThe Weight of the World\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dick Frizzell Milling Whakaangiangi, 2025, 1795 x 2900 mm, oil on canvas Courtesy Dick Frizzell and Gow Langsford Gallery<\/p>\n

As well as Frizzell the stump and dead trees has been an image used by many artists such as Dennis Knight Turner, John Holmwood, Doris Lusk and the famous 1931 image \u201cFrozen Flame\u201d by Christopher Perkins.<\/p>\n

Included are a number of works showing the damage wrought by milling with George E Pruden\u2019s \u201cEarly Colonial NZ Farm Clearing\u201d of 1909 and Shane Foley\u2019s \u201cGhost Forest\u201d painted one hundred years later in 2009.<\/p>\n

While M\u0101ori have been unwise in their approach to forest management in the past, they are now very concerned about the intertwined ideas around preservation and landownership. Emily Karaka\u2019 s paintings such as \u201cKawerau, A Maki WHRA Act 2008\u201d are a response to these issues.<\/p>\n

\"\"Emily Karaka Kawerau A Maki Rahui; WRHA Act 2008, 1830 x 1830 mm, acrylic, oil and pastel on canvas Courtesy of Emily Karaka and Francis McWhannell, Season Gallery.<\/p>\n

Several artist in New Zealand and Australia depicted the fires that ravaged the forests and bush of both counrtries `Edwyn Temples \u201cDoomed \u2013 a bush fire\u201d being one of the more dramatic and <\/p>\n

\"\"Edwyn Temple Doomed \u2014 a bush fire, Private collection, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhet\u016bp.<\/p>\n

Other paintings by contemporary artists revisit images from the past such as Shane Foley\u2019s \u201cGhost Forest\u201d and Robyn Litchfield\u2019s \u201cEnclosed Within It\u2019s Own Shadow\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" Shane Foley Ghost Forest, 2020, 1100 x 760 mm, acrylic on canvas Private collection, courtesy Shane Foley.<\/p>\n

Many images are a celebration of the forests themselves such as the Romanic view by Charles Blomfield with his \u201cThe Vaulted Aisles of nature\u2019s cathedral\u201d and a study of the New Zealand bush by one of the early female artists, Jenny Wimperis.<\/p>\n

Other paintings such Nigel Brown\u2019s \u201cFamily of an Axeman\u201d is a depiction of an heroic, black singlet clad man holding an axe which is a figure similar to William Strutt\u2019s self portrait of the artist wielding an axe<\/p>\n

There are also several depictions of the impact of fires lit to create new pastoral land with Edwynn Temple\u2019s \u201cDoomed \u2013 a Bush Fire\u201d and Margaret Stoddart\u2019s 1908 \u201cBush Fire.<\/p>\n

The author also includes some dramatic scenes by Australian artists of bush fires with John Longstaff\u2019s \u201cGippsland, Sunday Night February 20th, 1906\u201d, and William Strutt\u2019s \u201cBlack Thursday\u201d.<\/p>\n

The book provides a wide-ranging history of the fate of New Zealand\u2019s forests over the past two hundred years and its depictions by New Zealand artists, but it is also a history of efforts by government agencies and conservation groups to prevent its destruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples Cover Dick Frizzell The Weight of the World 2025, Courtesy of Dick Frizzell and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-621758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}