Fine art of slow motion

Stanley Palmer draws inspiration from the Parisian streets. One sketch, however, is missing from his collection of drawings. Picture / Fleur Williams

Auckland artist Stanley Palmer is back from a trip around Europe, partly inspired by Alain de Botton's book The Art of Travel. The purpose of the 10-week sojourn was simply to "look at art ... and travel to draw".

While visiting architecturally rich cities such as Prague, Paris, Florence, Rome, Venice and Naples, Palmer produced 40 sketches of landscapes which he intends to give to friends as gifts, "so they can have handmade postcards from me to hang on their walls".

He visited countless galleries and museums including the Guggenheim, Museo Capodimonte, Matisse, and Naples Archeological Museum, all of which provided additional inspiration.

De Botton's book describes travelling as a journey as opposed to a destination; it questions why we travel instead of what to do when we get there, drawing on insights from artists and writers.

It explains how American painter Edward Hopper would travel from New York to New Mexico, capturing everyday scenarios in diners, hotel rooms, gas stations and trains.

"And in these often ignored landscapes, Hopper found poetry," de Botton writes. "In roadside diners and late-night cafeterias, hotel lobbies and station cafes, we may dilute a feeling of isolation in a lonely public place and hence rediscover a distinctive sense of community."

Palmer has long been inspired by his love of the landscape. Well known for his paintings and prints of New Zealand terrain, he has been exhibited widely and his books include West and Poor Knights.

This most recent trip is not the first time he has been to Europe. Back in 1972, along with Kate Coolahan, he represented New Zealand in the 36th Venice Biennale.

Entering his house in Mt Eden, you are immediately struck by the strong smell of paint fumes, indicating works in progress. His three etching presses are in his basement studio, reached via narrow wooden stairs.

At the age of 68, Palmer is full of activity, pulling out postcards, photos and books, pointing out facts about artists. He quotes literature off the top of his head: Coleridge, Keats and T.S. Eliot. He is a mine of information, and an interview can quickly become an art-history lesson.

Equally passionate about architecture as landscape, he sketched buildings and archaeological sites during his European journeys.

When he talks about European art, he says mischievously that "the buildings are more interesting than the art".

He thinks all architects should spend time in Pompeii and the Herculaneum, for "the scale and brickwork".

The Louvre, he notes with disappointment, "is turning into an airport; they are shuffling people around and searching bags".

Palmer's experiences in Europe were generally positive, although he ran into trouble with petty thieves in Paris. While sketching a group of men playing bowls from a nearby cafe, he left his table for a second and returned to find the sketch had disappeared. "It was a really good drawing of them. I had showed it to the guys and they quite liked it."

Ironically, he found the area around Pompeii to be the safest, which contradicts popular belief. In Naples, the graffiti-covered train Circumvesuviana is notorious for theft, something highlighted in many guide books.

But Palmer says the people there were "the most trusting people in the whole of Europe. It is the least likely place to be robbed - the people are so friendly".

Palmer favoured travelling Europe by rail, though he says some trains were old and slow. One that took him from Padova to Vienna was "fairly run-down and jammed up with locals. It was not very user-friendly - it was like going back to the 60s".

While Palmer believes the New Zealand art scene is generally healthy because of its diversity, he is largely inspired by European art. He is also influenced by American Edward Hopper, Austrian Gustav Klimt and the French Realist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.

His landscapes have been described as "leaning toward impressionism" and he once described his work as "fairly abstract". Now, he says in his typically elusive manner, "sometimes it is not a reality ... it's about joining past and present; joining ideas together".

Simplicity and detail are characteristics he admires in art. "Look at the pigeons" - he points to the tiny specks in his sketch of the Campo de Fiori in Rome.

De Botton's book highlights another artist - John Ruskin - with similar values, who was also a keen observer of detail and advocated a slower pace of life to appreciate beauty.

He once said: "The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being."

Perhaps de Botton's philosophy of slowing down enough to be truly present, allowing artists to fully capture their surroundings, resonates with Palmer. "It's a nice occupation really," he says. "You get to sit and contemplate the world."