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

A Wandering Eye

 Picture this......

All pictures are in the past. Even what you think you saw just now, for example Anthony Michael Gordon's 55th minute goal against Argentina happened fractionally before you could experience it, with the light travelling through your lenses to your retina then crowding down your optic nerve to be processed by your brain.....  Nothing is what you think you saw.

And so it is with art.....  Hockney has gone the same way that T S Eliot took.  Words and pictures still with us, but the light has gone.....

I am in London again, roaming the interstices of  life and love, wandering partially for the sake of it, partially because to stay still is also an illusion.....

Although I think I prefer my rustication [sic] in far flung Norfolk there is a vibrant stimulus in the hectic miasma that is London.  Almost an aversion therapy......

So I prowl about, a camera, or an iPhone, at the ready, snapping images that later may help me remember where I have been or what I saw. Pictures which, along with the estimated 5 billion to 5.3 billion photos that human beings currently take every day worldwide, will mean less than nothing to no one. 

This figure equates to over 61,400 photos snapped every single second, resulting in roughly 50 petabytes of new image data captured daily, which average leads to more than 2 trillion photos taken annually across the globe, of which around 90% are now captured using smartphones, leaving conventional cameras and film to account for less than 10% of daily images.

So, there we aren't.  Here I am.  

Yes, here I am.  Competing with the rest of the world, remembering that the essence of competition is that there are always losers.......

But.....  WTF?  Other people breathe. That doesn't mean I shouldn't.

And, as Hiromix says:

Though what she doesn't say is that every image, whether it is a painting or a photograph or (perhaps) a sculpture, is a selfie.....  It's not a new thing.  The first artist ever was expressing something of his or her self.  The last artist ever will still be trying to say something that emanates from the self.....

Here is David Hockney telling us about his house in France, wanting us to appreciate his life, possibly subconsciously wanting us to share his life, without - obviously - intruding......

And here is Andy Warhol vicariously extending his world to tantalise us with fame and luxury:

And here is Christo wrapping the desirable away so we can only dream of what lies beneath:

While Bob Dylan entices us to follow his lines into the distant imagination of an evanescent world:

Of course, you cry, [Who are you to patronise?  Ed] there are images that involve no artistry, such as those of the Camera Obscura..........

But this device is only designed to monitor or assist imagery. It doesn't happen by itself.....

So what about nature?  The circle of life?  Why are flowers so attractive?

Aren't they just saying, Come, look at me?  Come, smell me?

Come on, come on, come on, come on

Now, touch me, babe

Can't you see that I am not afraid?

What was that promise that you made?

Why won't you tell me what she said?

What was that promise that you made?

Touch Me

The Doors

Anyway, this, by a circuitous route, brings me to Kew Gardens, a somewhat pricey outskirt of the metropolis.  Here, where foxes and badgers rule supreme and hedgehogs are no longer happy residents, a series of sinuous sculptures punctuates the park, courtesy of the late Henry Spencer Moore (not knighted, by the way, in 1951).....

Having recently visited Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, (and having previously written about Henry Moore at Perry Green in https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2013/05/feeling-henry-moore-ish.html) I am shy of opining about the abstract.  There is something grand, something liberating, however, about being next to a substantial three-dimensional art work in an open, natural environment.  

As Moore wished, the work expresses itself from all angles.  You wander around it and it presents differing ideas/thoughts/possibilities as the lights changes as the shapes interact.....

As Moore himself said, in Unit One, edited by Herbert Read in 1934, All art is an abstraction to some degree (in sculpture the material alone forces one away from pure representation and towards abstraction).....

Or, as he wrote in The Listener in 1937, Each particular carving I make takes on in my mind a human or occasionally animal character and personality, and this personality controls its design and formal qualities, and makes me satisfied or dissatisfied with the work as it develops......

Makes me satisfied or dissatisfied...... Art as an expression of satisfaction. Art is an expression of the self.  Not to deny anattā - the Buddhist concept that there is no permanent, unchanging, soul or 'self' but that there is a flowing collection of consciousness, sensation and perception that allows a more sensitive and imaginative connection with the world.....

That may be a hazy view of the life outside the window.....

But a two-dimensional swimming pool is just as elusive......

I must wrap my car......

But I will let Raye say her piece:

And I don′t really like my body

But knowing it′s my only body

I should probably call somebody

I should really show you how I'm feeling inside

Matter fact, I′m glad you called me

I been hiding, I been high and I been sleeping hungry

Body Dysmorphia 

Rachel Agatha Keen, Michael Harris Sabath

Now I'm gonna love you

Till the heavens stop the rain

I'm gonna love you

Till the stars fall from the sky

For you and I

Touch Me