Peter Lanyon; Ronald Bottrall on 'Cornish Stock'; County Roots, Identity and Perception; Dorset Landscape

"To see Cornwall as a Cornishman sees it, it is necessary not merely to have been born and brought up in the county, but to have come from Cornish stock".

Ronald Bottrall, quoted in "St Ives, 1934-64", Tate Gallery Publications,1985 (p. 107). An extract from a foreword to "Paintings from Penwith" by Peter Lanyon.

Another poet, Polarthur Trebuce Pencaddick (the Yorkshire-born Arthur Caddick), wrote a satirical poem called "Cuckoo-Song" (Quiet Lutes and Laughter, Fortune Press,1955) about St. Ives artists and Cornishness. A few extracts from the poem quoted in the St Ives, 1934-64 Tate Gallery publication):

"O Auntie! Fetch the family tree!
Have I Cornish blood in me?
Did my forebears ever rove
Somewhere round by Lanyon Cove?
...
O Auntie! Fetch our pedigree!
Have I Cornish blood in me?
...
The cuckoo calls! I must, I must
Become a Cornishman or bust".


If Ronald Bottrall was right, then one would have to argue that Constable and Turner, and every non-Dorset-reared artist who ever painted a Dorset landscape (including Peter Lanyon) never "saw", perceived or portrayed  the Dorset landscape in the authentic way a Dorset man or woman might do.

Absurd.