From 1964 to 1966, McCahon was involved in what was to be his largest public commission for the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, in Remuera. The commission took the form of designing and painting the clerestory windows in the new convent chapel and a site-specific painting for the choir balcony, a long narrow work entitled The Way of the Cross. In that same year, he was also undertaking a brief for the University of Otago’s new library. This Waterfalls mural, along with the church commission, represents an extraordinarily busy and creative period in McCahon’s career. Subsequently, the major work Fourteen Stations of the Cross, was “…one of the first major paintings directly attributed to the convent commission experience”. It is delightful, therefore, to see this small intimate landscape come out of such a public period. McCahon painted only a handful of Small Landscape paintings while regathering strength during his labours on the convent commission. Many were small in size, three featuring the triangular compositional element in the top right-hand corner as a symbol of God. In the Catholic faith, the triangle represents the three-fold mission of Jesus Christ, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The triangle is a universal symbol of strength, each side supported by two others. Pared back and simplistic, it is a moody and atmospheric depiction of a generalised landscape. We can see connections to McCahon’s earlier works, such as the Gates and Northland Panels: concern with man’s fall and his resurrection, our insignificance in the face of greater spiritual issues, and the sublime nature of many of his landscape elements. The important feature of these 1960s works was that the landscape was employed for its symbolic content: light cutting through darkness, curved hill motifs and waterfalls. Delineated by colour and brush stroke, Small Landscape is a remarkably expressive and powerful painting. EMMA FOX M. Bloem and M. Browne, Colin McCahon - A Question of Faith, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam/Craig Potton Publishing, 2002, p.206