Aberglasney

     

     To Aberglasney Tuesday where summer is fading into autumn. Afterwards a short walk up the hill to the village hall, aka 'The Temperance Hall', and an art and antiques exhibition by Studio Cennen, a revival of the exhibitions that they held in the hall before Lockdown.

Own work: The Temple of Bacchus, Stowe

     Of late I've been rather interested in garden structures, such as follies and banqueting houses, and, slightly tangential, to that the influence English garden structures, such as those by Vanbrugh and Kent had on French Neo-classicists such as Claude-Nicholas Ledoux.  I'm particularly drawn to the over-scaled and dramatic architecture of Sir John Vanbrugh.

     Here is my interpretation of a now lost building by Vanbrugh - The Temple of Bacchus that once stood in the gardens at Stowe, in Buckinghamshire.  It was built in 1719 for Viscount Cobham and survived until the 1920s when it was demolished for the school chapel designed by Sir Robert Lorimer.  
     I accidentally discovered a photographic illustration of the temple in a book in the horticultural library at Aberglasney.  It was my first I encounter with the building and I was very intrigued - it had drama and heft.  A quality of presence and mystery.  It was, I thought, a suitable subject for a painting, but could find very few other illustrations of the temple? and those were of poor quality or too small.  However I wasn't to be deterred, and so here then, based on those meagre resources, is my evocation of a lost part of our architectural history, our patrimony.  Mixed media, 23 x 46 cms.

Aberglasney

And through his new creation lead the Ouze,

And gentle Cammus, silver-winding streams:

God like beneficence; from chaos drear

To raise the garden and the shady grove.

     Over to Aberglasney yesterday and a talk given by Tom Lloyd, historian, antiquary and herald.  His subject the Rudds and Dyers, the two most important families to own the house. It is one of a series of events this year to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the restoration of the gardens and house from, in John Dyer's words, 'chaos drear'
     The gardens are looking particularly fine, it has to be said, at what is, after all, the crown of the year.

Aberglasney in the snow

      Woke up this morning to find it had snowed in the night! Not much really but enough, for all my mature years, to get a little excited. Here are a few photographs I took of the gardens at Aberglasney when I arrived at what is the final day of my current exhibition.  It is quite remarkable how even a light dusting of snow completely alters one's perception of a space or landscape.

I Love the snow, the crumpling snow,

That hangs on everything,

It covers everything below

Like white dove's brooding wing,

A landscape to the aching sight,

A vast expanse of dazzling light.

It is the foliage of the woods

That winters bring - the dress,

White Easter of the year in bud,

That makes the winter spring.

Exhibition

      My annual exhibition at Aberglasney Gardens in Carmarthenshire is currently underway.  Here are a few images of the event.  The exhibition remains open until Thursday.

Exhibition

   

 

     I am pleased to announce my next exhibition will be at Aberglasney Gardens, Carmarthenshire 22.03.24 - 28.03.24.  The gardens are open 10am-5pm everyday.  Do pop along if you can!

Autumn at Aberglasney

My gardens sweet, enclosed with walles stronge,

Enbanked with benches to sytt and take my rest

The Knotts so enknotted, it cannot be exprest,

With arbours and alys so plesaunt and so dulce,

Thepestylent ayers with flaours to repulse

     A morning of luminous pallid sunshine here at Aberglasney Gardens, quite beautiful in a quiet slightly melancholic manner, and very northern. So I seized the opportunity to dash around before opening to take some photographs. 

Exhibtion

 Well, here I am sitting in the gallery at Aberglasney and tapping away at my keyboard. There is mist in the valley and the smell of woodsmoke on the air.  The sunshine is delicate and intermittent. Autumn is here in rural Wales. Here are some photos I have just taken of my current exhibition - it will last until close of play on Thursday. Enjoy.