DescriptionWatercolour, ink and gouache (1997). At first you do not notice the young woman kicking leaves. Your eye is drawn up through the picture, onto the path, up the sculptural trees to the branches above and ineluctably towards the little window of horizon at the top of the picture. And then you see her. Marty South is Hardy’s character in the ‘Woodlanders’. She’s a wood splitter, a maker of thatch for roofs. In the novel she’s neglected by the central character; in this picture, however, she’s kicking autumn leaves. And one can only imagine that she’s wending her way, after all that work, engaged in a happy end of day pursuit.
