Visionary Artists, Parallel Lives -Gladys Mgudlandlu

35 What is the secret of the phenomenal success of Miss Mgudlandlu? Undoubtedly much of her work is strong. Each piece is a new, fresh idea. In fact, new ideas seem to crowd in on her all the time and she appears to be in such a haste to rush after the new burst of inspiration that one is left with the uneasy impression that each picture is slap-dash and incomplete. Compared to the clean-cut, sharp and brilliant technique of the Johannesburg artist, Ephraim Ngatane, Miss Mgudlandlu indulges in mere childish scrawl. Miss Mgudlandlu performs a kindly service. She is an escapist. Her message is: ‘Leave it all to God. God is in his heaven and all is right with South Africa’. In her calm green valleys through which half-naked tribal women wend their peaceful way homeward in the late African sunset, one can recline restfully with a cocktail and the past is the future and the present is the past while Miss Mgudlandlu soothingly murmurs: ‘Come Deep in the Forest, Gaze at the Velvet Flowers, the Birds and Lilies, the Forest Rockery, the Hills and Dongas’. Who can resist her hypnotic call when life and reality mean ninety-day detentions and banning orders and bang, bang, bang? For a few seconds I could see the attraction in those cool dark clumps of trees and birds and lilies. I too would care for a brief escape from the permanent madness of reality! And I believe it is on the appeal of this escape release that she so profusely and exuberantly provides, that Miss Mgudlandlu’s phenomenal success rests. Miss Mgudlandlu is too innocent and unaware to have deliberately contrived this state of affairs. Bessie Head (1963) ‘Gladys Mgudlandlu: The Exuberant Innocent’, The New African, 30 December, page 209.