Category: Sculpture

Frogner Park

“The Nobel Peace Prize medal is an 18-carat gold award measuring 6.6 cm in diameter and weighing 196 grams. Designed by Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland, it features a portrait of Alfred Nobel on the front and three men linked in brotherhood on the back, with the Latin inscription “pro pace et fraternitate gentium” (“for peace… Continue reading Frogner Park

Basilica of Saint-Denis

If you watch rugby you will have heard of the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. It was built for the 1998 football World Cup. I went to Saint-Denis, three stops north of Gard du Nord on the RER, on Monday morning to see an older building.

Wallace Fountains

Some cities have signifiers. Not sure that’s the right word but I haven’t used it before and it’s always good to add to the exiguous vocabulary deployed here.

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Fountains of Paris

In rural Ireland in the 1950s most homes had electricity but few had mains water. A well at Barmeath supplies water, pumped by hand until electricity came along. Mrs McGinn, who lived in the front lodge, had to trudge across a field to fill two buckets at a tap feeding a cattle trough. There was… Continue reading Fountains of Paris

Bronze Heads

Šoti Park is tucked in behind the Scottish Club in Tallinn. (Šoti means Scottish in Estonian.)

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Vabamu

I hope I am not getting compassion fatigue. Shoes on the Danube, KGB cells and now suitcases, twenty-one of them in a piece called In Exile.

Broken Line

You may remember, I do, the ferry tragedy at Zeebruge in 1987 when Herald of Free Enterprise, a roll-on/roll-off car ferry, capsized killing 193 passengers.

The Borghese Balustrade

Even in the rain it was agreeable to lean on the balustrade to look out at the view of Rome and, actually, I was keen to recover my puff after the climb up from Piazza del Popolo. The balustrade, not the one I was leaning on, has an interesting history. The President of the United… Continue reading The Borghese Balustrade

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High Renaissance

My next book, well that’s a bit misleading as it will be my first book, is going to look at busts and portraits. I have a newly formed theory that sculptors are more generous than artists. Take a look at these two fellers.

Of Obelisk and Orchid

I have been interested in war memorials for a long time and have wondered vaguely when they were first erected and, in particular, when the names of the fallen of all ranks were listed and commemorated.