Landscape, Ritual and Art
23 March to 30 September 2002
Penrith Museum's main exhibition for 2002 has a theme that continues to fascinate old and young, locals and tourists, and has done for thousands of years: standing stones in the landscape. Our area is particularly rich in prehistoric stone monuments and rock carvings which suggest that the earliest settlers in the region identified themselves closely with certain sites in the landscape.
Archaeologists, artists, mystics and poets have all sought to link us with the mind and spirit of their makers through their interpretation of stone circles and henges, and this exhibition explores some of these aspects of the prehistoric ritual landscape through the media of artefacts, photography, painting, sculpture and words. It promises to show that these monuments and their settings still have a power to command a response at various levels, particularly the creative one.
