John Craxton liked to paint goats, an animal he vaguely resembled. Picture one, its hooves balanced precariously on a Mediterranean hillside, surviving on next to nothing, but utterly free to roam: this was Craxton, who left postwar Britain for Greece, where he lived in perfect contentment on little more than sunshine and sea urchins. Light was what he craved, and the rest, somehow, would always take care of itself. Only rarely did he trouble to sell his work; when it came to materials, he used whatever was near at hand. Five Goats (1959), in which the exuberant beasts in question might almost be cartwheeling in the Cretan dust, was painted in tempera with additional help from some Polyfilla, bought originally to plug the holes in the walls of his ancient home.
