Basutoland Hills 

Curator: Looking at Maggie Laubser's "Basutoland Hills," what strikes you first? It appears to be an oil painting. Editor: Immediately, it’s the bold color. That high-key yellow feels celebratory, optimistic. The landscape pulses with energy despite its simple forms. It evokes a kind of peaceful exuberance. Curator: Laubser, as a white South African artist, engaged with expressionism, specifically Fauvism. Her work after studying in Europe reflects an attempt to translate what she learned back home, negotiating her position in a colonial context while representing local landscapes. What can the stylistic choices reveal? Editor: That radiant yellow, almost artificial in its brightness, might signal an idealized or romanticized view, right? Looking at the figures on the road, almost monoliths carrying burdens—there’s a weightiness to them, contrasting with the joyful colors. It makes me wonder if she saw their resilience embodied by the bright hills or something...else? Curator: It brings to the forefront the power dynamics embedded within landscape art of the colonial era. It also feels relevant to how post-apartheid South Africa negotiated representing itself on its own terms. Landscapes can stand in for cultural narratives about land and ownership. The bright, perhaps overly vibrant palette of the hills can read as an imagined Eden – divorced from the material and social conditions of its people. It evokes the tension between subjective beauty and imposed narrative. Editor: The thatched-roof huts resonate deeply. They signify a vernacular architecture that speaks of belonging and resilience – perhaps unintentionally foregrounding themes of domesticity and cultural identity as resistance in such landscapes. The simple geometry in contrast with the undulating hills…there is symbolic contrast! Curator: I see her rendering a scene filled with multiple layers of complexity – desire and cultural distance included. Her palette seems not only aesthetic but weighted down by complex cultural burdens. What seems idyllic is filled with conflict. Editor: Thanks, it definitely changes my understanding. The painting moves away from an immediate, happy landscape into an act that reflects a more charged encounter, then.