Rowley Gallery Blog
We walked to Friday Street on Remembrance Sunday. The approach from the north was down Hollow Lane which seemed a promising start. A deep cut road through the sandstone overhung with trees leading us into ancient woodlands. On the way we passed congregations remembering the fallen. All around leaves were falling, like memento mori. Luckily the sun was shining and it seemed we were granted a last fantastic dying burst of colour before the winter. Continue reading “Friday On Sunday”
A circuit of Ambresbury Banks in Epping Forest, an ancient earthwork built circa 500BC. According to local legend it was the site of the defeat and death of the great British Queen Boudicca at the hands of the Romans in AD61. The Iron Age banks and ditches formed an enclosure used as a cattle fold. Nowadays it is overgrown with beech trees and was covered with a carpet of leaves and beechmast when we visited. A series of lovely undulations striped by tree shadows in leaf filtered light. Continue reading “Ambresbury Banks”
Autumn leaves in the Jardin de Principe in Aranjuez, Spain. We were driving from Madrid to Toledo and stopped here for lunch and a walk in the park. This garden and the adjacent Jardin de la Isla were laid out around the royal palace of Philip II in the 16th century, 200 years before the present town was built. They became the inspiration in 1939 for the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo. Continue reading “Hojas De Otoño”
A walk on Hampstead Heath and the amazement of finding myself suddenly in the middle of another autumn produced the new series of prints. Actually it is not a new series. The new prints became part of the Regency series. After all these years I still find surprising the way prints create themselves almost without my help. Continue reading “Keats Leaves”
I love this picture. It reminds me of a ‘fayr feeld ful of folk’ from Piers Plowman. Christopher Corr made it for a client from London now living in Washington. The brief was to paint the view from Parliament Hill with all London’s landmark buildings plus Gospel Oak lido and running track. He cleverly reversed the viewpoint so we’re looking back down on this earthly paradise. Click on the image to enlarge it and explore it in detail. The painting measures 106 x 74 cms. Continue reading “Corr Blimey!”
They seem to be mostly larch. This intricate timber frame construction is made from 17 cubic metres of larch. It stands on a traffic island by St Botolph’s church at the start of the A11, the road from London to Norwich, and it marks the place where the Aldgate once stood. Continue reading “The Trees Of Aldgate”
Seeing Mary’s painting yesterday of swimming in the River Barle at Simonsbath brought to mind Roger Deakin’s wonderful book Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain. I first chanced upon a copy at the Book & Comic Exchange, a second-hand bookshop in Notting Hill Gate, part of the Record & Tape Exchange empire, where I used to spend too much time looking for obscure musical and literary delights. I’d not heard of him before but I was attracted by ‘Deakin has written an aquatic Songlines‘ and ‘A delightfully eccentric masterpiece’. It opens with a heavy midsummer downpour and Deakin taking shelter in the moat: Continue reading “For Roger Deakin”
Mary Kuper just brought us a new consignment of paintings. This one is of Simonsbath, Exmoor and the River Barle where Mary was swimming earlier this year. She uses thin glazes of oil paint on board and adds small brush strokes and scratched marks drawn into the paint, creating a richly textured surface. Continue reading “Super Kuper”
I’ve had this image as the desktop background on my computer for the last three years. It was the highlight of a walk from West Wycombe to Hughenden Manor. We passed many grand buildings and sweeping landscapes but this place, at the intersection of two sunken paths and the curious steps leading up to where the light filters down through the leaves – Beam me up, Scotty – this was my favourite moment of the walk. Continue reading “Holloway Junction”
One of the many highlights of our recent trip to Cornwall was one that I took with me. Just a couple of days before we left London I received a copy of Holloway, a book by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood & Dan Richards. I kept it unopened in its Jiffy bag with Dan’s handwritten label and best wishes until we arrived, so that it became a part of our holiday. Inside, when I finally opened it, was a beautifully printed and illustrated book that told of the search for an ancient Dorset holloway, previously visited by Macfarlane with Roger Deakin. They were looking for the hide where the hero of Geoffrey Household’s novel Rogue Male went to ground. I’m not sure which I knew first, Household’s book or the film with Peter O’Toole. The abiding feeling was not so much of threat but of the safe harbour to be found beneath trees. Continue reading “Holloway”