The fourth plinth

On first view, the intense ultramarine blue of Katharina Fritsch's Hahn or Cock,  on the fourth plinth, in Trafalgar Square dazzles.

 

Seen against a blue sky on a sunny day however, it makes sense and it looks wonderful.

 

 

Winter colour

Jephson Gardens in January.

The dogwood is at its best.

The hellebores are starting to flower

 

 

 

 



 

the buds just starting to open

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

and the first snowdrops have appeared.

 

 

 

 

In the Shadow of War, at the Djanogly Art Gallery

 

 

In the Shadow of War, at the Djanogly Art Gallery,

Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham.

Anticipating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the exhibition features the work of a generation of artists who rose to prominence in post-war Britain. The exhibition includes work of figurative artists who made allusions to the trauma of conflict be it Nazi imagery or the Holocaust. It also includes work of British sculptors that was dubbed 'the geometry of fear' referring to its iconography of despair or defiance.

Head of a Woman, 1950  (image taken from here )

 

Francis Bacon, Figure in a Landscape, 1945  (image taken from here)

 

This painting was exhibited for the first time in April 1945, just as the war in Europe was drawing to a close. The painting is mysterious and deliberately ambiguous. It features a headless suited figure sitting astride a garden chair in an attitude that might in another context suggest leisured informality. To the right, what at first sight looks like a machine gun reveals itself to be a dismembered mouth apparently shouting into a pair of microphones. The image of a shouting or screaming mouth recurs frequently in Bacon's work of the late 40s and 50s.

 

 

 

 



 

Keith Vaughan, Assembly of Figures, 1952  (image taken from here )

 

During the war Vaughan was a conscientious objector. His time as a non-combatant in the Pioneer Corps, and later in a POW camp, gave him ample opportunity to study and draw the male figure, a subject that was to preoccupy him for the rest of his working life.

 

This painting is the first of a series of large-scale oils comprising groups of male nudes. In these compositions which lack any explicit narrative or meaning, he attempted to achieve a sense of pictorial order and harmony. Elsewhere in his writings he hints that the conscious search for such stability in art was made more urgent as the real world became increasingly chaotic and insecure.



 

Henry Moore, Falling Warrior, 1956-57 (image taken from here )

In the 1950s Moore produced a small body of works related to the theme of warfare which include a series of helmet heads and two warriors. Warrior and Shield depicts an apparently mutilated figure holding its shield as if to deflect a blow from above. He said that he wishes to depict 'a figure in the act of falling... emphasising the dramatic moment that precedes death'.

Ceri Richards, Return of the Patient, 1953 (image taken from here )

 

 

L.S. Lowry, The Funeral Party, 1953  (image taken from here )

Eduardo Paolozzi, Shattered Head, 1956  (image taken from here )


Photography was not allowed in the exhibition so I've had to download the images. I could not find satisfactory images for some of the works that I really liked which included: Marilyn Evans' The Execution; Elisabeth Frink's Bird; or Lynn Chadwick's The Seasons.

Robin

 

I came across this little robin in Jephson Gardens yesterday morning. It was very tame, kept looking at us, and it sang its little heart out to us. 

 

 

 

Such delight!

 

 

 



Chipping Campden

We enjoyed our visit to Chipping Campden when we visited last week.

 

We parked here, by the gateway of Old Campden House which is framed by these two cute pepperpot lodges. The Jacobean house was built in 1613 and was burned to the ground by retreating Royalist soldiers thirty years later.

 

 

 



 

Two banqueting houses were the only other survivors and this is one of them. In the 17th century guests would have retired here for their banquet (or dessert course) at the end of a meal to drink wives and eat dried fruit and sweetmeats.

 

The East banqueting house is owned by the Landmark Trust these days and many many years ago we visited friends who were staying here and stayed with them for one night. We have very fond memories of our stay.

 

 

 

 

The church of St James is right next to the gateway and we like the grounds so another visit was in order.

 

Each of the lime trees leading from the main entrance to the porch represents an apostle.

 

 

 

Most of the church is 500 years old and was built with money from the flourishing wool trade.

A very narrow passageway, fun to walk through.

 

Rebuilt in the 15th century, the church is an example of an early perpendicular wool church

 

This house is right opposite the church so it might be the vicarage.

 



 

 

 

We then started walking towards the centre of the town past these Alms Houses which were built in 1612. Their very simple style shows the early influence in Britain of the Renaissance. They were and still are used as the homes of twelve pensioners. Each dwelling has an upper and lower room and each front door is shared by two houses.

 

 

It's the mellow honey-coloured Cotswold stone that makes these villages so attractive

 



 

 

Chipping Campden was one of the most important of the medieval wool towns and famous throughout Europe. It's this legacy of fame and prosperity that give the town its character.

             

 

The High Street is long and broad, and is flanked on either side by an almost unbroken single terrace, made up of many different architectural styles. In 1970 the High Street and much of the rest of the town was officially designated a conservation area. 

 

 

 



 

The wealth of the town came from the wool trade.

The Market Hall is in the centre of the town. It was built in 1627 by Baptist Hicks, who also built Old Campden House. Built to provide shelter for traders, it was a very important part of the town: butter, cheese and poultry were sold here.






In the 1940 it was almost sold to an American, but local people raised the money to buy it first and gave it to the National Trust.

The stone of the floor is so worn away by hundreds of years of bustling trading that it's hard to imagine that it could be used for anything much today.

 

Unlike other Cotswold towns Chipping Campden is not overrun with tourists 

 

 

 

 

and this adds to its charm. 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Small but beautifully proportioned

 



 

 

We stopped at the Cotswold Grill for some lunch

and admired the glass ball fountain that is in the middle of a small courtyard at the back of the restaurant.

 

On the way back to the car we came across another fine example of the town's architecture.

 

 



 

 

The Stour Gallery

The Stour Gallery, in Shipston-on-Stour

Peter Hayes

 

 

 

Peter Hayes, Porcelain Blade

 

Peter Hayes, Couple

 

 

Breon O'Casey

John Ward

 

 

 

 

John Ward

 

John Ward

 

 

 

John Ward

 

 

 

Peter Wills

Peter Wills

Ashley Howard

Ashley Howard

John Emanuel, Seated Figure, St Ives

 

 

 

 

 

John Emanuel, Figure in White, St Ives

 

 

 

 

John Maxwell Steele, With Much Enthusiasm.