Gordale Scar is at the northern end of Craven Fault,
a 22- mile geological fault line which runs from the borders of Cumbria
into the Yorkshire Dales. This great limestone gorge is one of the most
spectacular sights in the country. It is somewhere around 15-16 million
years old.
The Romantics travellers who came here were awestruck by this place. The
poet Thomas Gray said he could only bear to stay here
for a quarter of an hour, but 'not without shuddering'. The landscape
provoked an assault on the senses, an adrenalin rush so strong that it
was considered truly sublime.
Many painters thought Gordale Scar was unpaintable! They thought it almost
too majestic to be compressed into a canvas. Then James Ward
proved them wrong.
Ward's Gordale Scar is one of the greatest triumphs in British landscape
art. Ward captured the sight that so terrified his fellow painters, in
a monumental canvas 12 foot by 14 foot in size - one of the largest paintings
in existence.
James Ward's childhood was like something out of a Dickens novel - his
early years were blighted by poverty, his father's drinking and the cruelty
of child labour. But he managed to work his way out of the gutter, emerging
as a celebrated artist with a steely determination to succeed.
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