Cader Idris, rich in mythological and historical associations, has always held a strong attraction for visual artists.
Cader Idris and the artists is the first book to discuss the artistic depiction of the mountain, from the eighteenth century to the present day.
Cader Idris has proved a constant source of inspiration for painters and many other artists, from Richard Wilson’s original mountain-portrait in the1760s, through works by Turner, Cornelius Varley, John Sell Cotman, Kyffin Williams and others, to Bedwyr Williams’s futuristic 2016 video, Tyrrau Mawr. Artists have brought different interests, viewpoints and ideas to their approaches to the mountain Their styles have developed, from Classicism to Romanticism, and on to modernism, abstraction and conceptualism.
Over a hundred illustrations, many of them of works seldom reproduced, allow readers to judge for themselves how a single place can give rise to such a varied and distinctive artistic tradition.
Andrew Green
Cader Idris and the artists
Cardiff: Graffeg Books, 2026
192p
ISBN 9781805951704
£25.00
Review
‘This new and generously illustrated book on Welsh art is to be welcomed. Andrew Green has brought together a comprehensive survey of artists’ responses to Cader Idris, from Richard Wilson’s “Llyn-y-Cau, Cader Idris in 1765 to our contemporaries … In this comprehensive and eloquent book, Andrew Green not only outlines the history of seeing the mountain, but celebrates Cader Idris as a landscape subject and an idea which continues to show us who we are and what our own place in the world might be.’
Prof. Tony Curtis, nation.cymru, June 2026
