julian rowe
julian rowe
visual artist
visual artist
… hieronymus bosch takes tea in dunorlan park [2005]
Hieronymus Bosch Takes Tea in Dunorlan Park was commissioned by Tunbridge Wells
Museum for their Parklife exhibition. The title refers to an elegant and recently restored public
park in the town.
Tunbridge Wells has an image of dull Victorian respectability that is perhaps not wholly
deserved. The idea of a park is at odds with such an image. Dunorlan Park is a controlled
intrusion of unruly, dangerous nature into the orderly townscape, a place that licenses
fantasy, where a Roman temple can nestle amidst the shrubbery and statues may go
innocently unclad. It reminds me of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, that famous depiction
of strange goings on in a dream-like landscape.
What could be more respectable than afternoon tea? Somehow afternoon tea and Tunbridge
Wells belong together. And yet, like the park, it too is a licence to indulge in sweet, forbidden
things.
I have brought these ideas together in Hieronymus Bosch Takes Tea in Dunorlan Park, in
which the cakes become gardens, owing something to Bosch and a couple of things (the
fountain and the temple) to Dunorlan.
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