Bourton-on-the-Water

We went to Bourton-on-the Water a few days ago. We had not been for ages as it gets so busy that it becomes impossible to get into the village, let alone park. Weekends are a no no but this was a Monday and we thought we would give it a go. It was still very busy but not unbearably so. The village often has more visitors than residents during the peak season. Some 300,000 visitors arrive each year as compared to under 3,500 permanent residents.

The river Windrush runs through the village and this is what makes it so picturesque.

The river is extremely shallow, as you can see in this picture.

The river is crossed by five low, arched stone bridges. They were built between 1654 and 1953, leading to the nickname of  'Venice of the Cotswolds'.

The houses and shops are constructed of the ashlar yellow linestone characteristic of the Cotswolds and they have embellishments that make Cotswold architecture so picturesque: projecting gables, string-courses, windows with stone mullions, dripmoulds and stone hoodmoulds over the doors.

Another of the bridges

and two more further along.

It's just lovely wandering around.

I looked at these two people sitting in their garden, which is lovely, and with such wonderful views, and I thought how much they must resent being on such public view all the time.

There are lots of pubs, bars and eateries to accommodate all the visitors

It does not take long to get to the end of the main street and the last bridge.

We turned left, past this cottage

found the alleyway we were looking for

a few more steps

and we're in open countryside

fields and a few houses on our left

and the river on our right

This house is quite grand

There is even a bridge to get to the garden

well looked after garden.

Just fields now

and the river

and some colour.

Finally, here it was - the house whose garden is an island in the middle of the river

two bridges on either side of the island, connecting the garden with the house and the rest of the grounds - wow! I never tire of looking at this

We took the path

Here is one the bridges that connects the island garden to the house

We made way for a person walking behind us and he stopped to chat.

He told us that the house has been in his family for sixty years and that they paid £15,000 for it all those years ago. 

Four acres surround the house

We got on to the main road but decided we did not fancy walking here

so we admired the little bridge

and retraced our steps, past the island/garden

and eventually reached the village

and started exploring some of the backstreets 

popped into Cotswold Pottery but did not stay long. They sell traditional ceramics and I like modern ones

eventually we re-joined the main street. Someone was having great fun in the river.

A timbered building - unusual here.

We eventually settled on the Willow for our lunch.

 

Daniel Craig-Martin - Old Masters and Modern Design

Daniel Craig-Martin - Old Masters and Modern Design at the Royal Academy of Arts.

This is the last post on this exhibition that was so enjoyable and thought-provoking. You can see the other three posts on this exhibition here , here and here

 

Michael Craig-Martin frequently cites artists and works of art that have inspired him. In this post he pays tribute to celebrated works of art by reimagining them in his own visual language. One example is Diego Velazquez's Las Meninas. Artists have been intrigued by the way Velazquez placed the viewer in the position of the Spanish and Queen sitting for their portrait. A much later work, Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917), influenced Craig-Martin to pay homage to Duchampian strategy of elevating everyday objects to fine art.

Manet's Dejuener sur L'herbge, (acrylic on aluminium)

You can see Manet's painting on a blogpost on Manet here . Furthermore, you can see Manet's second version here

Reconstructing Seurat (purple), 2004, (acrylic on aluminium)

One of Craig-Martin's favourite paintings is Georges Seurat's Bathers at Asnieres.  Here, he has reimagined this monumental composition using his own visual language of black outline drawing and vivid, flat colour fields. The artist uses colour to highlight elements of the painting such as the factory smokestacks in the background of this scene of leisure.

As with the previous painting, there is no specific blog post for Bathers at Asnieres but you can see the painting here

Las Meminas,2018,  (acrylic on aluminium)

To see this painting go here . For some examples of how artists have tried to understand this iconic painting you can go  here

Manet's Olympia, 2023, (acrylic on aluminium)

Untitled, 2013 (Barcelona chair)

Duchamp's Large Glass, 2023, (acrylic on aluminium, in two parts)

The actual title of Marcel Duchamp's landmark work is The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. It shows the erotic encounter between the bride (above) and nine bachelors, trapped in a mechanical apparatus (below). Duchamp used a variety of materials on sheets of glass rather than canvas. In his painting, Craig-Martin plays on the tension of paying homage to Duchamp's materpiece while the original work was a rejection of painting itself.

You can see Duchamp's work here and here  (better picture of the work in this second link)

Fountain, 1999, (acrylic on alumium)

You can see Duchamp's iconic installation here and here (this blogpost includes other works by Marcel Duchamp)