Rural Art: In Focus
The following article features in our November 2024 print issue, available to subscribers.
SOMETHING about the countryside irks Britain’s governing class. Whether they are increasing regulatory burdens on rural industries in the name of combatting climate change, doing away with fusty old pastimes like hunting in the name of 'social progress', or raiding the estates of farmers to make up for decades of fiscal mismanagement, it is clear that the detached managerial elites who run the UK view the countryside as a problem to be solved.
This is unsurprising given that our leaders seem to view the British Isles not as an ancient and storied homeland, but as an economic zone to be understood in terms of profit and loss.
For decades, the various institutions that constitute the power structure governing Britain have taken aim at rural communities. Earlier this year, for example, the Wildlife and Countryside Link (a coalition that counts the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and the National Farmer’s Union among its members) called the countryside in its totality “racist and colonialist”.
As the elites’ actions have grown more brazen, such smears are increasingly ineffective at concealing the truth; that the countryside represents everything our city-dwelling, jet-setting, bean-counting ruling class stand against: tradition, hierarchy, generational continuity, a spiritual connection to the land, simplicity, self-sufficiency, and hard work.
This is not to say that the countryside will disappear without a fight. Joining the rallying cries for its preservation is an upcoming exhibition on 18th December, at London Scottish House, which will bring the spirit of the British countryside to the heart of our capital.
Rural Art: In Focus is a tribute to the landscapes, lifestyles, and culture that form the foundations of Britain’s national identity.
Hosted by Touchpoint Strategy, and generously supported by sponsors including Hunting Kind, this exhibition will give a platform to some of the finest contemporary rural artists and celebrate an often-demonised and overlooked part of our nation’s culture and heritage.
“The countryside is constantly under attack from urbanisation,” says Hugh Beattie, an exhibiting artist and one of the rural art community’s most prominent figures. “My work freezes and distils its rustic glory before more lanes, fields, and ancient dwellings become enveloped.”
Tess Wheldon, one of the organisers, concurs: “We have seen rural communities under attack by Labour through policies intended to break them up and replace them with concrete suburbia. The uncomfortable truth is that without farmers, gamekeepers, huntmasters, and foresters, we would not have the countryside that makes Britain so unique.”
“In hosting this art event, and setting up a fund to support rural artists and put on events like this in future, we hope that we can at least raise awareness of not only the struggle faced by these communities, but also the raw and unadulterated beauty of rural life.”
Find tickets to the exhibition here.
