Tag: Edwin Lutyens

The English Love Affair with Gardens Captured in Art

George Henry Boughton – Three Quarter Length Portrait of a Girl in a Rose Garden, 19th century oil on canvas © Toovey’s

The English love affair with the garden has been conducted over centuries.

The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement led by designers like Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens combined structured layouts with more naturalistic informal planting. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries artists captured this expression of Englishness and our love affair with gardens in their art.

These equalities are apparent in A Path of Roses by the Anglo-American artist George Henry Boughton (1833-1905). Boughton was born in Norwich. His family emigrated to America in 1835 when he was just two. He would grow up in New York. Throughout his life he journeyed between and exhibited in America and London. He was elected as a Royal Academician in 1896. In A Path of Roses Boughton depicts a young girl walking in a rose garden, her cat upon her shoulder. This stylized scene provides an American romantic interpretation of the English affair with gardens giving expression to the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts voices prevalent in British art at the time. The light, palette and composition create a stillness, it is as though we glimpse a moment out of time. The oil painting, which sold at Toovey’s for £2200, was a cabinet sized version of the artist’s 1875 Royal Academy exhibited work of the same title.

Beatrice Emma Parsons – ‘Water-Garden, Gravetye Manor’, early 20th century watercolour © Toovey’s

Beatrice Emma Parsons (1869-1955) was invited to paint the delicate early 20th century watercolour of the Water-Garden at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex by the garden’s designer and patron, William Robinson. He began to create the gardens in 1885. From humble beginnings in Ireland Robinson made his fortune as a garden writer. Amongst his most influential books were The Wild Garden and The English Flower Garden. Today he is best known for his understanding of the wild garden, a garden which celebrates nature rather than controlling it. He introduced the modern mixed border and popularised things we take for granted today like secateurs and hosepipes. Beatrice Parson’s was famous for her paintings of gardens in full colour. Her depiction of the rhododendrons reflecting in Gravetye’s lake is beautifully conceived. It realised £1000 at Toovey’s.

Rudyard Kipling opened his poem The Glory of the Garden with this verse – ‘Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues…’

The English love affair with the garden remains as strong today as it has always been.

The Cenotaph, Marking 100 Years of Remembrance

Watercolour and gouache of the Cenotaph by Ann Allsop dated 1943

The Cenotaph in Whitehall, London has provided the focus for the nation’s Service of Remembrance for 100 years.

The Cenotaph, which means empty tomb in Greek, was designed and built by the famous architect Edwin Lutyens at the request of the Prime Minister Lloyd George. It was originally made out of wood and plaster for the first anniversary of the Armistice in 1919. As soon as the monument was unveiled people spontaneously covered its base in wreaths of remembrance for the dead and missing of The Great War. In response to the public’s enthusiasm for this focus of national memorial it was decided that it should be re-constructed permanently in Portland stone. The finished Cenotaph was unveiled in 1920 and bears the poignantly inscription ‘The Glorious Dead’.

Sir Fabian Ware founded the Imperial War Graves Commission (later the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) and in 1917 it received its Royal Charter with the Prince of Wales as President. At 45 years old Ware was too old to fight, instead he commanded a mobile unit of the British Red Cross. As he witnessed the terrible human cost of the war Ware became convinced that the resting place of the dead should never be lost and began to record the graves of the fallen as early as 1915.

The Cenotaph, Whitehall, London, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens
The Cenotaph, Whitehall, London, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens

The Commission consulted some of the most eminent architects of the day. Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield were chosen to begin the work of designing and constructing the cemeteries and memorials. Rudyard Kipling was tasked as literary advisor to recommend inscriptions.
In the aftermath of the First World War the British people at home also needed a focus for their sense of grief, sacrifice and pride. Countless War Memorials were erected the length and breadth of Britain often by public subscription. It was the greatest expression of remembrance this nation had ever seen.

This coming week we will once again reflect upon the costs of defending righteousness, freedom and liberty, giving thanks not only for our allies but also for reconciliation and peace.
In churches across Britain, Europe and America the common story and Christian heritage which unites us will be expressed in services of Remembrance and thanksgiving. Beside War Memorials across Britain these familiar bidding words will be heard:

“We have come to remember before God those who have died for their country in the two world wars and the many conflicts of the years that have followed. Some we knew and loved: we treasure their memory still. Others are unknown to us: to their remembrance too, we give our time…With thanksgiving we recall services offered and sacrifices made…”

I hope that each of us will be able to find time in this Remembrance Sunday to reflect, offering thanks and prayers for the courage of successive generations who have been called, and continue to be called, to defend the greater cause of justice and concord.

By Rupert Toovey, a senior director of Toovey’s, the leading fine art auction house in West Sussex, based on the A24 at Washington. Originally published in the West Sussex Gazette.