Re-visiting the Heaton Cooper Tarns of Lakeland

The artist Heaton Cooper wrote of 127 tarns, illustrating 103 of these in his book ‘Tarns of Lakeland.’ While many lists of tarns exist, few contain the personal anecdotes and stories contained within Coopers book.

By visiting the same locations I’m hoping to see how Cooper was ‘seeing’ the landscapes: what features he chose to prioritise as interesting or significant, and which he chose to minimise or exclude as distracting in his compositions. It will also be an interesting observation of how landscapes change through time, reminding us that Lakeland is a working land and that the seemingly rugged and wild spaces are living and ever changing due to both environmental and human impact.