Map Ref. 16. Beside the Marsh Pond in the Summer Garden, on the path leading from the Lake towards the Mirrabrook Restaurant. The photographs show the work insitu over a period of ten years, circa. 1985, 1990 and 1995. (Note that over the years, as the trees have grown, the work has appeared to sink a little into the landscape.)
From a distance over the Marsh Pond, the rounded, eroded forms of this work echo the hills beyond. Although Moore never saw this site, he was sent photographs, and is reported to have been very pleased with the result which accorded with his philosophy for the siting of his works. Like the sculptor, Robert Stackhouse, whose work is on the other side of the Summer Garden pond, Moore always wanted people to be able to walk all around his works, so as to see them from all angles, (including the worm's and bird's eye view), and at all times of the day or night. As Moore once observed,
"Out of doors the light is always changing with the hour, with the day, with the season, and at night the moonlight magnifies."
Henry Moore was always interested in form and space. The artist said that his inspiration for "Hill arches" was some ancient, weathered dinosaur bones he had seen on an excursion to an American desert. (For an example see the Dinosaur Bones in the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah.)
After the bronze had been cast, the metal's natural inclination to form a patina was hastened with chemicals to give the sculpture an orangy glow in daylight.
As Moore's life drew to a close, he said in his biography,
"I would like my work to be thought of as a celebration of life and nature."
The sculptor died at his home in Much Hadam, England, on 31 August 1986.
© 1995 Jane M Hyden
