Unfortunately I have no idea what these letters and numbers signify …
Even without the Christmas enhancements I like the London Wall Place lighting very much and you can read more about the thinking and planning behind it here.
As every year, Tower 42 amuses us with a homage to ‘Christmas Jumper Day’ …
And its usual Christmas tree …
You also see some strange sights around the City this time of year. For example, this Star Wars Stormtrooper patrolling the desks in the WeWork building …
And this unusual evening visitor to Salters’ Hall …
And finally, Shard Lights returned on 9th December 2019, transforming the top 20 storeys of The Shard into an exciting and colourful spectacle, visible across the capital.
The show, designed with help from local schoolchildren, features three, nine-minute sequences displayed every half hour from 4pm to 1am each evening throughout the month. Each sequence reflects the children’s designs and here are a few examples …
On New Year’s Eve there will be a unique display from when the clock strikes midnight to the early hours of New Year’s Day before the show comes to a close.
I’d like to quote from the City Corporation’s little booklet on Fountains – it’s rather poetic in places.
‘Fountains are an important sensory diversion in the urban scene of the City. Whether a municipal drinking fountain or a monumental water feature, they provide a rich diversity of sculptural form, movement and sound. The movement provided by the water of a fountain is probably its most fascinating element. Still water seems lifeless, but when given motion, either by spurting, spraying, spouting, undulating or tumbling, it becomes full of life and vitality. Of itself colourless, water can direct and refract light rays, and when it is in the form of a fine mist, it can disperse all the colours of the spectrum. The sound of a fountain is also one of its most essential and most overlooked attractions. Whether the water is crashing, whooshing, gurgling or gently lapping, sound is an integral part of a fountain’s aesthetic appeal. This can improve significantly the quality of a space, not only by adding the sound of water, but also by blocking out the less attractive sounds of the City’.
So I was inspired to search out some nice examples and I shall start with this absolute beauty in the quadrangle at St Bartholomew’s Hospital (EC1A 7BE). Created in 1859, it shows naked boys holding aloft a shell with dolphin-esque waterspouts …
It was the idea of Philip C Hardwick, the Hospital Surveyor.
You can read the full story about its construction and the part it played in Bart’s history here on the Bart’s Heritage website.
Originally the water was projected much higher in order to be seen above the shrubs that had then recently been planted …
Picture credit: The Wellcome Collection.
Just across the road is the West Smithfield Garden (EC1A 9BD). Waste ground for a time, the site was finally laid out as public gardens by the Corporation of London and opened to the public in 1872 …
A drinking fountain with a bronze figure representing ‘Peace’ was erected in 1873 a few years after the armistice between France and Prussia was signed in 1871 …
The sculptor was John Birnie Philip (1824-1875).
You can see Lady Justice atop the Old Bailey in the background.
Before you leave the Bart’s area do visit the interesting little Hospital museum just inside the entrance to the quadrangle.
The St John Zachary or Goldsmith’s Garden in Gresham Street EC2V 7HN) is a haven of peace in the bustling City. Walk under the stunning golden leopard’s head symbol of the Goldsmith’s Company …
Down the steps in the sunken garden you will find this pretty little fountain …
You can read more about the garden and an interesting nearby sculpture called The Three Printers in my City Gardens blog.
Postman’s Park’s fountain is rather modest (EC1A 7BT) …
And finally, on the north side of Blackfriars Bridge is one of my favourites, recently liberated from behind hoardings and nicely restored (but sadly no longer pouring water) …
Sculptor Wills Bros.
The pretty lady represents ‘Temperance’ and she originally stood outside the Royal Exchange. The fountain was inaugurated by Samuel Gurney, MP, the Chairman of the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountains Association, on 27 July 1861 and you can read more about him, and the Association, in my earlier blog Philanthropic Fountains.
This week’s fountains have been very traditional.
Next week I will look at more modern versions, including those that tend to pop up out of the ground …
First of all, some great news! You can now follow me on Instagram at :
www.instagram.com/london_city_gent/
Crossing the road outside St Paul’s Underground station I came across the surprising sight of 40 golden angels resting on swings above my head …
Entitled Lunch Break they are an installation by architects KHBT in collaboration with artist Ottmar Hörl. Intended to create a strong conceptual and visual link to the Cathedral it is, the note nearby tells us, also an emotional and imaginative work that is aiming to make people think and smile. ‘After all, in this particular time, guardian angels deserve some rest’ …
Outside the west front of the Cathedral is the statue commemorating Queen Anne, a Victorian replica of an earlier work that had become weathered and vandalised. The queen is surrounded by four allegorical figures and this one represents America …
She wears a feathered head-dress and skirt whilst her left hand grasps a metal bow. Her right hand may once have held an arrow.
What fascinated me, however, is the creature by her feet which resembles a rather angry Kermit the frog (alongside the severed head of a European) …
In 1712, this is what the original sculptor Francis Bird imagined an alligator would look like. A contemporary description of the statue states …
There is an allegator creeping from beneath her feet; being an animal very common in some parts of America which lives on land and in the water.
In the Diamond Jubilee Gardens close by is this work, The Young Lovers, by Georg Ehrlich (1897-1966). The Cathedral gives it a dramatic backdrop …
Ehrlich was a Austrian sculptor who was born and studied in Vienna. During the First World War he served in the Austrian Army and in 1930 he married the artist Bettina Bauer. After the rise of the Nazis, Ehrlich decided that it was too dangerous for them to be in Austria since they were both Jewish and they moved to London. He became a British citizen in 1947 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1962.
Since the weather was so nice, I took the opportunity to capture this profile of the one-time Dean of St Paul’s John Donne …
John Donne 1572 – 1631 by Nigel Boonham (2012)
I have written about Donne before and you can access the blog here.
His bust points almost due west but shows him turning to the east towards his birthplace on Bread Street. The directions of the compass were important to Donne in his metaphysical work: east is the Rising Sun, the Holy Land and Christ, while west is the place of decline and death. Underneath the bust are inscribed words from his poem Good Friday – Riding Westward :
Hence is’t that I am carried towards the west, This day when my soul’s form bends to the east
The most familiar quotation from Donne comes from his Meditation XVII – Devotions upon Emergent Occasions published in 1624:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
I really like this work by Paul Mount (1922-2009), also to be found in the gardens …
Amicale (2007)
Mount was one of the last British artists whose careers were interrupted by the Second World War. A lifelong pacifist, he served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in North Africa and then France, where he stayed on after the end of the war to do relief work. Once free to work again, artists like him never really lost their sense of a world to be made anew through art. For Mount, sculpture expressed an essential human dignity. He observed …
The way that two shapes relate is as important as the way two people relate.
There is a nice obituary notice about him and his fascinating life in The Guardian which you can access here.
And finally, every time I walk past St Paul’s I am struck by the beauty of the stone carving, take this example …
Or this abundance of cherubs …
And this meticulous carving around the Dean’s Door …
Christopher Wren paid the sculptor, William Kempster, an additional £20 for the excellence of his work.
As memories of wartime fade, these shrapnel marks from a nearby bomb blast serve to remind us of how close the Cathedral came to destruction …
A number of other City buildings bear scars from World War bombing and you can read about them here.
Don’t forget to find me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/london_city_gent/
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