Robert moves in a new direction with this sketch, applying the theme of his art college graduating exhibition, “Oppositions,” to his own life and experience. No longer an academic exercise, but a scene from life, recording the region where Robert grew up. Robert uses two different coloured inks; the two facing drawings were no doubt done on different days and reflect different ideas of what constitutes a landscape. The blue drawing captures a meandering rural scene; the black drawing shows the less picturesque presence of industry. On the left, a field full of stumps is all that remains of a once prosperous orchard. On the right, industrial sheds cluster round a factory situated on the river. There are two contrasts at work: industry and nature and transient forms of nature (the tree stumps) and more permanent forms of nature (the distant mountain, Blomidon). Blomidon serves a role here much as Mt. Fuji played for the Japanese artist Hokusai: a symbol of endurance in the face of change.

The preceding pages in Robert’s sketchbook record notes from a lecture by visiting artist, Martha Rosler. She quotes Marxist theorist Walter Benjamin: ‘The question in art is not one of “form” and “content,” but one of “form” and “context.”’ Art school helped Robert appreciate how a landscape could contain elements with clashing symbolic values.