Goodbye, Dolly.....

Down with the Blue Sheep (Blaue Schafe)

Alle sind gleich - jeder ist wichtig
[Everyone is equal - everyone is important]

There are so many things to see in this world, but where do we start? And where do we finish? As Dolly Parton smiles goodbye, I am cruising on the River Main, in Germany, and, while the world is filled with clichés and tears, I also feel bereft.....

She would have loved these sheep, and their message..... Someone from Locust Ridge in the Great Smoky Mountains would have known full well what it was like to be one of twelve children in a cabin in the woods, and how each individual had a value, whatever their strengths or weaknesses. 

Then, overhead, there sails a Steinadler, (Golden Eagle), the broad-winged apotheosis of Germany, ragged and careworn, and (probably) lacking in state support.....

Gentle as the sweet magnolia
Strong as steel, her faith and pride
She's an everlasting shoulder
She's the leaning post of life
She hurts deep and when she weeps
She's just as fragile as a child
And she's a sparrow when she's broken
But she's an eagle when she flies

Eagle When She Flies
Dolly Parton

Let us face it. The world is not always as we would wish it.  There are differences of opinion:

Communist youth, forward!  Fight fascism

There are myths and misunderstandings:

There are plenty of legends and appropriated stories, sometimes appropriated to fit someone else's narrative:

St George/Heiliger Georg

And there are baroque ceilings to crane your neck to which may or may not make sense.....

Of course there are treats like organ lofts in cathedrals:

And pastel shades in alleyways:

And palaces that go on for ever:

The Würzburg Residenz

With ceilings in vast stairwells:

The world's largest continuous ceiling fresco, in the Würzburg Residenz,
painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo between 1752 and 1753

 

And chandeliers in ballrooms:

To crane your neck to:

And windows that frame your view:

Or which concentrate your vision:

Or which tease your imagination:

I am on a River Cruise through (a largely reconstructed) medieval Germany..... For a while I thought I was going on the Rhine (again) and, with news of drought and record lows on both the Rhine and the Danube, I expected to be cancelled (as most, if not all, river cruises on those rivers in August were this summer), but, I was mainly (?) on the Main and as luck would have it, the Main was not affected.....

The River Main is a 525-kilometre-long (326 mile) waterway entirely in Germany and the longest tributary of the Rhine. It has two sources: the White Main (Weißer Main) which rises in the Fichtel Mountains in northeastern Bavaria and the Red Main (Roter Main) which rises on the eastern slope of the Franconian Jura (Fränkische Alb). Apparently the rainfall (and perhaps snow melt) up there has been sufficient this year to keep the water levels up, but the river is also controlled by a series of locks (with recycling systems which preserve 60% of the water).....  On this cruise we actually touched four 'rivers' - the Danube, the Danube/Main Canal for over 100 kms, the River Main for 384 kms and then finally the Rhine where we disembarked; in total we  covered 590 kms and went through 52 locks:

Our itinerary started in Regensberg, then near Kelheim we visit Weltenberg Abbey, the oldest monastery in Bavaria, where we drink a delicious (well I thought it was) black beer (Weltenburger Kloster Barock Dunkel) brewed in the Weltenburger Klosterbrauerei, the oldest monastic brewery in the world......

The Abbey sits just by a dramatic limestone gorge through which the Danube squeezes:

The next stop is Bamberg, where some years ago I lost my hat in a rainstorm. I search for it in vain, then seek solace in a glass of Rauchbier (smoked beer), another enjoyable example of why it is always stimulating to travel....

 

Then we stop in Nuremberg, infamous for Hitler's rallies and then later for the trials:

Here I visit Albrecht Dürer, the inventor of the logo:

Whose medieval house (he lived here from 1509 until his death twenty years later) was slightly damaged by aggressive aerial behaviour in October 1944:

Though it has since been patched up and was reopened in 1971 to celebrate the artist's 500th birthday:

I am shown round by Agnes, Albrecht's wife, and feel quite at home. She tells me that her husband was the greatest Northern European renaissance artist, that he revolutionised printmaking and that he was also a formidable entrepreneur and a polymath to rival Leonardo.

Dürer undertook three long journeys to Italy and the Netherlands, and became famous in his lifetime throughout Europe. He produced between 4,000 and 5,000 prints of his 1515 woodcut of a Rhinoceros (an animal he never saw), which was a veritable money-spinner (a rare surviving example of it was sold at Christie's New York in 2013 for $866,500).....

We cruise on. It is tranquil on the water, the banks green, though the surrounding fields and woods show the dry browns of thirst.  We pass agricultural villages, sleepy places where people fish, or nurse their babies, waving to the passing foreigners:

We pass industrial towns, where barges quietly disgorge or pick up bulk cargoes:

We glimpse onion-domed churches and dominant monasteries:

Then, as evening falls, 

The river seems to fall asleep:

Then a new day breaks, and the river gently stretches and steams under the banks:

Part of the fun of travelling is people-watching.  Observing customs and costumes:

Würzburg is the centre of the Franconian wine country, and it is traditional to drink white wine (preferably Sylvaner) on the Old Bridge:

Though some may prefer spritzers:

Or just smiling:

Or perhaps not:

This voyage is nearing its end, but we stop briefly in Wertheim, at the confluence of the Tauber and the Main, and I climb to the top of the ruined castle for the fine views:

Then we moor at Aschaffenburg, an uninspiring town with a massive fortress (but an excellent Bierkeller) before completing the itinerary at Mainz, one time home of Johannes Gutenberg, who, in the mid fifteenth century, made a breakthrough that puts all subsequent Information Technology into the shade.....

Though Gutenberg was by no means the first printer in the world, he revolutionised printing by inventing movable metal type and by developing oil-based inks. He also benefited from the local wine trade employing an existing wine press to stamp the images of his reversed letters onto parchment or paper. His printed bible - the first of its kind - could be reproduced 180 times in the space of time that it took to create one in manuscript....

And so with that touch of religion, the news breaks that Dolly Parton has passed away.  

From here to the moon and back

Who else in this world will love you like that?

Forever and always, I'll be where you're at

From here to the moon and back

From here to the moon and back

I'd blow you a kiss as I wish on a star

Counting my blessings for all that you are

Thank heaven for you and to God, tip my hat

From here to the moon and back

And I'll spend forever just proving that fact

From here to the moon and back, 

Who will love you like that, 

From here to the moon and back

From Here to the Moon and Back

Dolly Parton

Juliusspital, Würzburg

Oh All this blue it ain't sky and sea

Some of that blue's gonna fall on me

Oh, the future's looking bright

There's a better day!

Look away, look away

Better Day

Dolly Parton

*******

With many thanks to Jorge and Zara of Riviera Travel, Captain Balint, and particularly Vladimir and Okan

But, whatever  the relevance, this is especially for Dolly:

Look around and see what's going on

Everything just seems to be so wrong

If we'd just open up our eyes

We could see a better life

I still believe.

There's a place for all of us

If we'd reach out

And touch the love

Nothing's gonna ever change it much

...if we don't

If I don't, if you don't,

If we don't, if I don't.

If you won't, if we don't.

If We Don't

Dolly Parton/Linda Perry

A brief return to the Cotswolds, Part Two

Extraordinary harmony.....

Two Seated Figures II, 1973

 

The highlight of our brief trip to the Cotswolds was our visit to Lypiatt Park, which came about after I recently published a piece on the exhibition of Lynn Chadwick’s sculptures at Houghton Hall in Norfolk (for which, please see https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2026/06/houghton-hall.html). 

Sitting Couple on a Bench

Lypiatt Park, a medieval and Tudor manor house near Stroud, was once the property of Dick Whittington, the Lord Mayor of London, but was acquired, in a dilapidated state, in 1958 by the modernist sculptor Lynn Chadwick, who lived and worked there until his death in 2003.

The Manor House

It was inherited by his son, kinetic artist Daniel, who now lives there with his family, but it is also where his half-sister, Sarah Marchant (née Chadwick) manages and catalogues her father's artistic legacy and writes introductions for publications on his work at Lypiatt Park, 

and it was by her invitation that we were privileged to visit the Park which now extends across 250 acres of land that Lynn purchased in 1988.
 

And so it was that we experienced, as a friend put it when I showed her some of my photos, an extraordinary harmony between the angular shapes and the comfort between the figures. 

Sitting Figures, 1979-80

The works on show, some thirty sculptures, ranging from the abstract, to human forms, via a number of ‘beasts,’ cover most of Lynn’s career from when he began to create three-dimensional pieces, which was after his service in the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War, until the end of his life in the 21^st century.

Dancers, 1967

Having trained as an architectural draughtsman, Lynn’s approach to sculpting was to weld a framework of straight steel rods, as if drawing in space. This was then filled with ’stolit,' an amalgam of gypsum and iron filings. These sculptures were then cast in bronze in limited editions. In later works the frame was clad in stainless steel sheets. One sculpture was a unique commission in 1962 using sheet steel from a steel works (Two Winged Figures). 

Two Winged Figures, 1962

It was an entirely different approach to that of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, whose creations involved subtracting material from an initial block of wood or stone; Lynn’s creations grew almost subconsciously from his imagination.
 

Jubilee IV

The park, which falls away from the Manor House into the Toadsmoor Valley beneath Bisley, is a gracious haven for the varied pieces that were all placed in their positions by Lynn - which is important for collectors to see how the artist intended his work to be viewed. He started to place the sculptures in 1989 and this continued until it was complete in 2002. And this is where the harmony lies.  The older works, which have rough, dark, scraped finishes seem to belong organically in the landscape.  

Two Seated Figures II, 1973

The later figures, shiny with their stainless exteriors, reflect the sky and the natural environment, whether the yellow of the dry grass or the green of the arboreal shadows, changing as the light ebbs and flows, in harmony with each other and with nature.  

Sitting Couple on a Bench

The figures, most especially the pairs, as in Jubilee IV or Sitting Couple on a Bench, are comfortable with each other, and I can feel the artist’s belief in relationships and companionship – a message perhaps that peace is possible if only we would share our time..... The individuals, however, like Cloaked Figure IX, 

Cloaked Figure

or the trios, like The Watchers 

The Watchers

or the three Little Girls,

Little Girl I, Little Girl II and Little Girl III

are no less comfortable and they expand that idea of harmony, despite, as my friend noted, their angular shapes....  The relationship between the figures - and this is not to exclude the wonderful beasts, whether alerted, crouching, rising or howling

Howling Beast I, 1990

 

Rising Beast, 1989

- and their surroundings feels just right, and that is a reminder that while we walk or sit in the world, we are a part of that world and should respect it.

 

Sarah was a wonderful host, brimful of pride and delight in her father’s achievement and most welcoming and informative on our personal tour.  

Ace of Diamonds III

Sadly, at least in some ways, the park is not adapted to be open to the general public, the complications of such a move being currently insurmountable, but I hope that this piece may inspire my friends to seek out the works of Lynn Chadwick that are out there in various places, whether you have time to catch them at Houghton before October, or merely look up above the doorway of Fortnum and Mason in London.  

High Wind IV, 1995

As my followers will know my knowledge and understanding of art is limited, but I have found immense delight and - if this isn’t too strong a word – hope in his work and am most grateful to Sarah for granting us the opportunity to visit Lypiatt Park and see for ourselves where so many of his pieces are in harmony with their home.
 

Stranger III, 1959

With thanks.....

Ace of Diamonds III