And this is me...
Can we trust artists to be impartial when portraying themselves, and if not, what do self portraits tell us?
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Diarmuid Gavin is well known for his magical skills at turning a back yard rubbish dump into something resembling the hanging gardens of Babylon. For him planning and designing shape, colour and form are the vital ingredients to a perfect garden. So Ever Wondered sent him out to see how two famous artists pushed the boundaries in their garden design…
First stop: Barbara Hepworth’s open air museum in St.Ives...
Diarmuid: This is fantastic, there’s so many pieces here in the garden: how many are there?
Brian Smith: I think it’s about 20-25 pieces. They were done over many years. This is a selection of her work probably from the 1950s through to her death in ’75.
Diarmuid: So in a way these would have charted her own artistic development right through her life?
Brian Smith: Exactly yes, you can see a change in style. Most of the works out here are bronze, but there are also stone. Most of them change appearance after they’ve been in the garden for a while.
Diarmuid: In some areas, the sun is having a big effect on them, the remarkable shadows cast link into the sculpture and forms a complete picture. And yet in other areas you have bamboo as a background.
Brian Smith: She was very fond of bamboo. She liked to plant anything that would blow in the wind easily and make that wonderful sound. Despite the fact that there are so many sculptures here they work very well in relation to all the planting, they don’t dominate the planting, each works equally well.
If you would like to find out more about the use and meaning of visual images then have a look at course D850 The Image and Visual Culture.
Next stop France to see one of the most famous gardens in the world. Monet’s garden in Giverny which inspired some of his most renowned impressionist paintings.
Diarmuid: My first impression of the garden is that it’s quite spartan but maybe that’s because of all these tulips standing to attention and, there’s no attempt to blend colours into each other, why is that?
Tim Marlow: I think this is Monet’s palette to a certain extent. The other thing is that when he was making this garden, he was virtually blind, he had chronic cataracts that were only sorted out three years before he died. But I think if you actually squint your eyes, you actually see a garden that’s been created by a blind man who only sees dazzling areas of colour.
Diarmuid: It is exhilarating being here and seeing it all, but the odd thing is, I feel I know this garden and everybody who comes here must say that because everybody in this world knows this scene.
Tim Marlow: Very much so and it’s not just because Monet painted it a few times and those images have been endlessly reproduced; he paints it over and over again, as if to chart the movement of time, the change of season, how light changes, but, because he’s old and successful and selling a lot of work, instead of going out into the natural world he decides to construct his own vision of the natural world, and then he paints it.
Diarmuid: How much of that magic is what he created, or how much of it is in this beautiful view. Should we just regard it as a beautiful garden?
Tim Marlow: No I think you should regard it as the first great installation work of the 20th century. Monet diverts an entire river, the River Epte which is a tributary of the Seine, it takes him 10 years to construct this garden. He had an army of gardeners who built it for him and there’s an army of gardeners who maintain it. After Monet had tired of painting trees and the bridge he became obsessed with the water itself, and he saw an entire world reflected in the water.
If you would like to find out more about art in general then have a look at course A103 An introduction to the Humanities
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Content last updated: 15/03/2005
