Fine Arts: The Cornish artist who fell from the heavens

Soaring Flight: Peter Lanyon’s Gliding Paintings
Courtauld Gallery, London, until January 17

Panorama
Courtauld Gallery, London, until January 10

When Peter Lanyon flew in his glider, he yearned to be intimate with the air as it rushed over his vessel: suspending, hoisting, buffeting him in the sky, like the contact of a living being. He found that this non-motorised form of flight was “more sensual than I would have guessed”, just as the sea was “closest to our instability, waywardness, fickleness, mood and temper”.