After driving through a maze of country lanes, I arrive at the Henry Moore Studios and Gardens. It is a gloriously sunny day and I enter the visitor’s centre, a chic contemporary glass structure.
I take a seat outside the café and sip my cappuccino overlooking the bright Sculpture gardens. The Family Group in bronze stands before me. I stare into it contemplating how Moore has captured the essence of being a family unit and celebrating the stability that it can provide.
I step into the gardens, and walk by an orchard abundant with ripe apples, its leaves casting a dappled sunlight onto the grass. As I approach The Double Oval sculpture I soon realize that it’s only when I walk around these sculptures that they truly come to life; each angle offers a fresh perspective and there is an inherent dynamism within each seemingly static and bulky design.
I enter the Yellow brick studio, a workshop space with uncut raw stone, wood, bronze, marble and all sorts of tools, like mallets and chisels, where I can imagine Moore getting covered in dust as he carved with intensity.
This leads to the Maquette Studio, I’m fascinated to learn that Moore didn’t draw his designs, but made maquettes based on various everyday natural objects like flint or bone. These sensorial organic forms would ignite his interest and he’d add to them with clay, cast them in plaster and later use them as a base for his full-scale statues.
Further along, is a sixteenth century reconstructed barn. Inside are some huge tapestries hung on the walls based on Moore’s drawings; they show how his trips to Mexico and Athens influenced him. The knowledgeable guide explains Moore’s aversion to polished classical monuments and his interest in draping often used in Greco-Roman figures.
Finally I head to a current exhibition entitled: Becoming Henry Moore tracing his path as a young sculptor. I can see his early work exhibited alongside indigenous and ancient statues and how artists like Picasso and Modigliani inspired him.
The presentation of Moore’s Modernist artwork is perfectly laid out here and I leave feeling a sense of awe at this sculptor’s legacy, amazed by his innovation with abstract form, and enchanted by the delicacy and aesthetic sensibility that infuse these monumental statues.
