The model in A Mountain Climber (1912, SMK, Copenhagen) by Jens Ferdinand Willumsen (1863-1958) is the artist's second wife, Edith Wessel (1875-1966). Although there are many complex readings of his work, and of this large painting in particular, as "a depiction of the “new”, and in the Nietzschean sense, ”great human being” in nature", it is also a striking portrait of a modern woman outdoors, conquering mountains in the early twentieth century. 

This week, with the long Easter weekend coming up, it's hiking, rambling, or simply walking in the countryside. The early 1930s saw an explosion in the popularity of weekend walks amongst young people in particular, and Hiking (c1936, Laing Art Gallery) by James Walker Tucker (1898-1972) captures this nicely. Dorothy Whipple - a great lover of the outdoors in spring - describes the exhilaration and freedom of similar walks taken by Jane, Maggie, and Wilfrid in High Wages (1930) at an earlier time, just before the First World War.

Despite the criticism, Postmodern style is proving to be irrepressible. "A House for Essex” (2015) is a holiday home built by Living Architecture in collaboration with Grayson Perry and Charles Holland of FAT Architects. It was described by Edwin Heathcote in the Financial Times as "an absurd melange of Finnish stave church, Thai temple, arts and crafts mausoleum and fairytale gingerbread house." 

PoMo architecture as featured in Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2020) contains a "glorious array of vivid non-conformity". "There could be a fake Italian piazza filled with faux ruins, a corporate headquarters shaped like a wicker shopping basket, a Japanese house that looks like a face, or a London office block that simultaneously brings to mind both the 1990s and the ancient world." The Moore House (1984) in Austin, Texas, perfectly illustrates this eclecticism.  

Several important but unlisted PoMo buildings have already disappeared, including Egyptian-style branch of Sainsbury's Homebase, designed by Ian Pollard, built 1988-90, and demolished 2014 to make way for 'luxury flats'. It was typical PoMo in that it delighted some and confused others with its inventiveness, playfulness, and wit. The exterior featured a frieze carved by David Kindersley and his team depicting huge Egyptian deities including Seth holding a power drill. Not longer after, the C20 Society organised its first conference on Postmodern architecture and began its campaign to get more PoMo buildings listed. 

The Cosmic House (1978-83) by Charles Jencks (1939-2019) is perhaps the most famous and extravagant expression of Postmodernist ideas as applied to domestic architecture. Described as a "riotous living monument to his theories", the interior is just as complex as the exterior with "every corner alive with symbolism and allusion". It is now Grade I Listed and can be visited by appointment.

This week we have postmodern architecture (PoMo), a style which emerged in the late 1960s as a reaction against the austerity and formality of Modernism, and is characterised by its colour, playfulness and historical allusions. It has been much maligned and derided in recent years, and while seventeen PoMo buildings were listed in 2018, others have already been demolished or are at risk. This is Newlands Quay (MacCormac Jamieson Prichard and Wright, 1986-88, Grade II) in London's docklands: "Porthole windows lend a nautical appearance...and other referential details include red brickwork and arched openings that hark to Victorian dock buildings."