From the MTG: Bay's balmy summers reflected in paintings

Waipara Landscape by E. Mervyn Taylor. Collection of Hawke's Bay Museum's Trust, Ruawharo Tā- ū-rangi (gifted by Dr J Burnell)

New Zealand summers are spectacularly beautiful, so it makes sense that many landscapes in the Hawke's Bay Museums Trust's Collection were created at this time of the year. Waipara, by E Mervyn Taylor with its yellowed hills extending into the distance and the tough dry grass which make for a sweltering vision, is one such painting.

In this work, Taylor exhibits his inherent desire to communicate his subject, to his audience. He gives a view of the landscape to connect with, through detail in the grass, repeated shapes in the Tī Kōuka tree bark and shadowing on the rock forms.

It also is perhaps, the elegant decorative nature of these details that make this landscape appear to be concerned with more than a literal image of summer.

Maybe it is possible to sense the history of this place in these strange monolithic formations. The patterned surface of the rocks seem to mumble a story and the scars of lost branches borne by the tī kōuka tell of times past.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Taylor was one of a small number of Pākehā artists who developed interest in Māori culture. Introduced to indigenous theology by his wife, Taylor spent many months on the East Coast at Te Kaha, an observer of life there.

On the Coast he would have learnt about the unique relationship Māori have with our natural world and the direct connection they have to it, through their ancestors. In Waipara, Taylor seems to make this felt.

Taylor actively supported the protection and promotion of indigenous culture in an era when European influences threatened its decline. In addition to his own work he did much to encourage other artists, including Cliff Whiting and Napier's Paratene Matchitt.

Toni MacKinnon

Passionate about the value of creative arts within New Zealand, Taylor became a part of the Nationalist movement of artists.

He realised this interest by producing a number of watercolours depicting the regional features of various parts of Aotearoa. Taylor also produced many works for New Zealand School Journals and a small number of murals. In these, Taylor more overtly expresses cultural aspects of Aotearoa.

Taylor was one of New Zealand's most extraordinary artists and communicators. He was a wood engraver, painter, illustrator, sculptor and designer. While he embraced a wide variety of media he is most recognised for his wonderful woodcuts of native flora and fauna as well as icons of Māori culture.

Described by friends as a quiet, modest man, Taylor's life and career were dedicated to ideals about the power of art that were progressive for his time.

Over his career he made a real commitment to bringing art closer to the people and embellished this ideal with the quality and quantity of his creative output. In this work, as in much of his oeuvre, these ideals can be clearly seen.

You can view this work, along with many other works by Mervyn Taylor held in the collection, on MTG Hawke's Bay's website.

• Toni MacKinnon is art curator at MTG