Walking and art

We weren’t sure, without stepping on each other’s toes, how best to overcome the inherent problem of writing something individual/personal in a jointly authored paper, so we had a chat . . . a sort of preamble ramble . . . about how best to tackle this conundrum and decided that we should write the piece as a dialogue. Beginning with Plato’s dialogues nearly 2,500 years ago, featuring in novels such as Pride and Prejudice (Austen 2003), and continuing to the present day, the combination of walking and dialogue has been a continuous feature of philosophy and literature in the West. Coleridge’s discussions with Wordsworth while they walked the Quantocks helped formulate the embryonic Ancient Mariner. Furthermore, it can be argued that all communication is dialogic, in that it takes place in response to what has already been said and written and stimulates what will be said and written in the future (Volosinov 1986). While obviously not claiming to be the equals of such literary giants, we nevertheless hope that the ensuing text reveals something of our take on the joys of walking and art. We’ll try to reflect on walking in the countryside and in the city, and on walking before and after sundown.