JOHN PIPER was one of the most diverse and best-loved of English Modern artists. In retrospect, he can be regarded in many ways as a bundle of contradictions, being simultaneously an old-fashioned romantic and an antiquarian with a penchant for the Ballets Russes and avant-garde French painting. The fact that he was able to meld his diverse tastes and interests into a single, albeit multi-faceted, aesthetic is a lasting tribute to his energy and vision and places him as one of the great British polymaths of the 20th century.
As a direct result of his eldest brother being killed in the second battle of Ypres in 1915, Piper was obliged, despite his wish to go to art school, to fill his brother’s place and join the family law firm. This was a career for which he was singularly unsuited and his failure to pass the Law Society’s examination created an impasse that was only resolved by his father’s death in March 1927. Once released from the office, he applied to the Royal College of Art, but was diverted to Richmond School of Art for a year to improve his life-drawing skills, before he could be admitted.
Having finally achieved entry to the Royal College, he only remained for four terms, as his insistence on marrying Eileen Holding, a fellow student from Richmond, was in contravention of its rules. Thus, in his late twenties and without formal qualifications, he launched on his professional career, supplementing his income with journalism, a practice he kept up throughout his life.
この記事は Country Life UK の April 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の April 08, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
A tapestry of pinks
THE garden is now entering its season of vigour and exuberance.
Bringing the past to life
An event hosted by COUNTRY LIFE at WOW!house is one of the highlights of a programme that features some of the biggest names in interior design
This isle is full of wonder
GEOLOGY? A bit like economics, the famously boring science? I confess I suffered the prejudice—agriculture and history being my thing, both of them vital in every sense— but Robert Muir-Wood’s voyage through the past 66 million years of the making of the British landscape has biblical-level drama on almost every other page. Flood, fire, ice… or, perhaps, the formation in rock, sand, mud and lava of these isles is best conceived of as fierce poetry.
Empire protest
Without meaning to issue a clarion call for independence, E. M. Forster perfectly captured the rising tensions of the British Raj. One hundred years later, Matthew Dennison revisits the masterpiece A Passage to India
Hops and dreams
A relative of marijuana, hops were a Teutonic introduction to British brewing culture and gave rise to the original working holiday
Life and sol
The sanctuary of the Balearic Islands has enchanted a multitude of creative minds, from Robert Graves to David Bowie
'Nature is nowhere as great as in its smallest creatures'
Giving himself neck ache from constantly looking upwards, John Lewis-Stempel makes the most of a sunny May day harvesting ‘tree hay’ and marvelling at the myriad wildlife including flies and earwigs–that reside on bark
'Plans are worthless, but planning is everything'
Country houses great and small were indispensable to D-Day preparations, with electricity and sanitation, well-stocked wine cellars, countesses to run the canteens and antique furniture to feed the stoves
The darling buds of May
May Morris shared her father’s passion for flowers, embroidery and Iceland, but was much more than William’s daughter. Influential both as a designer and as a teacher, she championed the rights of workers, particularly women, as Huon Mallalieu reveals
Achilles healed
Once used to comfort the lovelorn or soothe the wounds of Greek heroes, yarrow may now have a new starring role in sustainable agriculture
