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Ian Hamilton Finlay, words and plant-ings to create a unique 1925–2006: sculpture as a type of environmental sculpture. Yet, as the word was always his starting point, fusion of poetry and place Finlay preferred to be described as a poet. It was the diverse contexts of display Patrick Eyres that always determined the scale and medium, whether an artwork was destined On Monday 27 March 2006, Ian Hamilton for a building, garden, park or landscape, Finlay died at the age of eighty. We lament or exhibition and publication. Similarly, it the passing of a Renaissance man: poet, was through the challenge of realizing his sculptor, artist, philosopher, landscape ideas with exquisite quality in the right gardener. This range of activity acknowl- materials that he initiated the practice of edges the interdisciplinary thinking that collaborating with artists, craftsmen and infused his creative process. However, in architects. Consequently his prolific out- view of his extraordinary achievement, it put encompassed prints, textiles, books, is a surprise to recollect that he was not sculpture and installations for a variety of trained in any of these disciplines. He did interior and outdoor sites.1 not attend university or complete any Whether engaged with the modernism course at art school. Instead he was self- of concrete poetry in the 1960s and 70s, or taught and won international recognition a neoclassical postmodernism, Finlay con- as a leading exponent of the modernist sistently upheld the traditional function genre of concrete poetry. Indeed it was of art as a repository and transmitter of through the visual dynamic of concrete meaning. Thus the interdisciplinary thrust poetry that he evolved a way of fusing of his oeuvre was not only programmatic
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1. Gary Hincks, Little Sparta but also polemical in its sustained critique scale to reflect upon contemporary ideas, Overview, 2002, pen and ink, of certain twentieth-century conventions.2 to salute cultural heroes and to invoke 260 * 510 mm, Collection Gary Hincks Among Finlay’s concerns were the separa- the European tradition of the classical tion of poetry and the visual arts, the mod- garden. ernist disjuncture between avant-garde Little Sparta stands in hill-farming and tradition, the privileging of object- country, over 300 metres above sea-level, based sculpture, and the phenomenon of where the continuous struggles of garden- the sculpture park. Nonetheless, his contin- ing are compounded by the seasonal uing neoclassicism forged a reconciliation onslaughts of the weather. Nonetheless between modernist and postmodernist this former upland croft has been trans- practices in his work, in the way it formed into an embowered haven, whose embraced a minimalism which synthesizes numerous glades and pools have been concrete poetics and the elegant simplicity designed as settings for inscribed sculp- of the classical inscription. ture. Begun in 1967, the garden had been a Far from being historicist, Finlay’s neo- conceptual entity since 1964. Finlay had classicism is not only affiliated to the become an established figure in Scottish recent discourse of non-object-based sculp- avant-garde literary circles by 1961. In 1963 ture, but also addresses contemporary cul- he published his first collection of concrete ture through contemplating issues as poems and the following year began to apparently disparate as Terror and the envisage concrete poetry that was integral Divine. It was through his interest in the to gardens. From 1964 to 1966 he started to garden as a site for artworks that he began implement these ideas through the printed to embrace practices that are recognizably poem-gardens and the garden poem- sculptural. As a result Finlay’s principal sculptures around his former homes at legacy resides in the four-acre, neoclassical Ardgay in the Highlands and Coaltown of garden developed over the past forty Callange, near St Andrew’s in Fife, before years around his home at Little Sparta moving to the hill farm of Stonypath. on the edge of the Pentland Hills in The garden was created gradually southern Scotland. This is the place that through the twenty-three-year collabora- became the epicentre of his cultural tion with Sue Finlay. It had been Sue’s par- production. As a landmark work of art – ents, Simon and Caitriona Macdonald innovative, organic, unique – it is an awe- Lockhart, who had given them Stonypath inspiring experience. Yet it is a private as a gift. The plantings are crucial. Hardy realm that has been created on a domestic trees and shrubs form the skeleton of the
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garden, provide shelter from the elements the absence of birch trees, the meaning is and are integral to the composition of self-explanatory. In addition, the associa- Finlay’s sculpture. However it was the pro- tions of the words complement the idea of gramme of neo-classicizing, which began each work by drawing attention to the during the 1970s, that led to the re-naming sights, scents and sounds which amplify of Stonypath as Little Sparta in about 1980, enjoyment of the sensuousness of ‘place’. and that has shaped the place as it is today.3 Animated by weather, the garden becomes Only vestiges remain of the concrete poet- an Aeolian harp, whose cadence is played ics at Stonypath between 1967 and 1975, by wind soughing through trees and and so we must consult other sources of shrubs. Simultaneously the rustle of a documentation. Even though these are breeze delights the eye with the dance of plentiful,4 it is preferable to visit Stuttgart sun dapple and leaf shadow. for his self-contained garden at the Max Although it was never realized, The Planck Institute (1975).5 Monteviot Proposal has proved to be As Finlay familiarized himself with the Finlay’s most extensive statement about history of garden design he became aware the theory and practice of his sculpture, that the traditional concept of the garden- and he would reiterate that it continued to as-artwork necessitated a poetic, philo- be a valued touchstone. Clearly there is an sophical and political synergy. He also affinity between this approach and the came to understand that the terse economy post-conceptual, non-object-based sculp- of text favoured by concrete poetry was tural discourse. Furthermore, he was criti- evident in the classical use of inscriptions. cal of the self-contained autonomy that Thus he began to appreciate the resonances allowed modernist sculpture to be placed invoked by association-endowed inscrip- in a variety of environments regardless of tions, and the possibility of transforming a site specificity. To his way of thinking site through the poetics of metaphor, the word was the catalyst that generated whether a landscape or a gallery. Finlay’s associations which embraced the other use of the inscription resists focusing elements of each composition, such as exclusively on the sculptural object. the trees and the place, even the weather. Instead, the object is only one element Consequently the extensive repertoire of within a work composed of plantings, objects considered worthy of inscription ground and relation to the overall site. encompassed the tree-plaque, bench, He was emphatic about the key role of obelisk, planter, bridge and tree-column composition: ‘The art of gardening is like base, as well as the headstone – and the the art of writing, of painting, of sculpture; roll-call of craft-collaborators amounts to a it is the art of composing and making a gazetteer of contemporary British stone- harmony, with disparate elements’.6 carving and letter-cutting. Through his summary of the neo- While thoroughly modern, Finlay classical re-arming at Little Sparta during enjoyed a passionate sense of history and the late 1970s, The Monteviot Proposal took delight in the tradition of the garden (1979) invites us to appreciate the ‘dis- as an antidote to the surrounding culture – parate elements’ of Finlay’s sculpture: ‘The as a site of poetic, philosophical and politi- sculpture – if one is to call it a sculpture – cal discourse – and associated his art with was characteristic of the ornaments of the lyric garden-making of the Georgian that landscape, for it drew attention not poet William Shenstone at The Leasowes, to itself (though it was pleasing to look at) and with the pugnaciousness of Lord but to the indigenous features of the Cobham’s Stowe. Finlay’s works are a woodland – to the pleasure of hearing the pleasure to experience and, while always breeze in the trees, and to the trees which challenging, they have often provoked were both ornamental and useful’.7 A splen- controversy due to his startling use of did example of Finlay’s approach is the shock tactics, which generally combine headstone carved to resemble a temple surprise and an impish sense of humour. façade. It bears the inscription, ‘Bring Back Aircraft carriers become bird tables and The Birch’. We gasp at this exhortation to feathery ‘aeroplanes’ swoop down to re- restore corporal punishment – before fuel. Through the movement of shadow, noticing that it is placed amidst a grove of sundials were celebrated as examples of hornbeams and maples and that, through avant-garde Kinetic Art. Hand grenades
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2. Chris Broughton, Stockwood Park Overview, 1992, pen and ink, 420 * 297 mm, New Arcadian Journal, no 33/34 (1992)
replace traditional pineapple finials atop land Europe appreciated Finlay’s sculptural the entrance to a garden walk. fusion of landscape design, cultural associ- Indeed Little Sparta has flourished as ation and site specificity – and the commis- much through conflict as through poetic sions in Germany (1975), Holland (1982) and reverie. Finlay was embattled not only by France (1985) pioneered recognition of his weather but also by warfare – as his garden works in Britain. was assaulted by critics and bailiffs alike. Finlay’s achievement at Little Sparta In some quarters his quest to redeem neo- can be appreciated through the bird’s-eye- classicism from the taint of Nazi-ism was view drawing by Gary Hincks (fig. 1). The regarded as proof of fascism. In others, approach up the bridleway from the minor his longstanding challenge to the local road through the Vale of Dunsyre is authority’s rating definition of the Temple marked, just below the garden, by the mon- of Apollo as a commercial art gallery was ument to the epic Battle of Little Sparta condemned as a transgression beyond the (1983).8 We can see that the place is made bounds of creative activity. His taste for up of a number of gardens that burgeon polemic and his vigorous prosecution of within and beyond the pre-existing farm- the Little Spartan War, as a counter-attack stead garden, which is now known as the against Strathclyde Regional Council, Front Garden. The farmyard midden has doubtless alarmed potential British become the Temple Pool and is flanked patrons. by buildings converted into temples: the Even the re-naming of the garden former cow byre is dedicated to Apollo exemplified both his puckish wit and the (left) and the erstwhile coal shed to polemical thrust of his work at that time. Philemon and Baucis (right). Beyond the Already in dispute with Scottish official- farmstead barn, the sylvan dell of the dom, he associated his campaign with that Woodland Garden is a labyrinth of hermet- of ancient Sparta’s resistance to the hege- ic glades that embower two pools, an aque- mony of Athens. As the institutions of duct, a rill, a pantheon and a grotto. The administrative and cultural power were Wild Garden encompasses plantation, based a mere twenty-five miles away in moorland and lochan (or little loch). Since Edinburgh, ‘the Athens of the North’, the early 1990s the dramatic improvement Stonypath became Little Sparta. As a wry has been the extensive area to the right antithesis, the re-naming was also a com- known as the English Parkland. We can ment on the hard work and frugal life at see the confluence of the rill that flows Little Sparta. Fortunately patrons in main- through the Wild Garden with the burn
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1 For an overview of Finlay’s oeuvre, that cascades from the lochan. We can also world in which grant-aid is determined see Y. Abrioux, Ian Hamilton Finlay, A see on the far right a gardener’s wheelbarrow. by visitor numbers. With the increase in Visual Primer, 2nd edition, London, 1992; for architectural and landscape Placed on a lawn, this bronze cast of a visitors, it has become apparent that the works, see P. Simig and Z. Felix (eds), utilitarian modern wheelbarrow is simply fragility of Little Sparta will be eroded by Ian Hamilton Finlay: Works in inscribed: W. SHENSTONE 1714–63. The unlimited public access. By comparison, Europe, 1972–95, Ostfildern, 1995; for the prints, see P. Simig and R. Pahlke combination of text, object and the envi- the robust design of works for public com- (eds), Ian Hamilton Finlay: Prints, ronment of the English Parkland invites missions has acknowledged that these 1963–97, Ostfildern, 1997. association with the poet-gardener who places are enjoyed daily by varying num- 2 For the polemical, see Y. Abrioux, ‘The Heroic Mode: The Third Reich coined the term ‘landscape gardening’. It is bers of visitors. The people’s arcadia for Revisited and The Little Spartan War’, fitting that Finlay’s tribute to Shenstone Stockwood Park, Luton (1986, completed New Arcadian Journal, 15, 1984, un- visualized the physical toil required to 1991) is an example that can be appreciated paginated, and Abrioux, as at note 1. 3 See J. Sheeler, Little Sparta: the realize the vision shared by the two poet- through Chris Broughton’s bird’s-eye-view Garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, gardeners.9 They certainly shared the frus- (fig. 2).14 London, 2003. tration of being continuously short of Within this spacious grove, we can 4 See, for example, D. Paterson, with introductions by S. Bann and funds. With the benefit of hindsight, we amble across lawns and beneath foliage to B. Lassus, Selected Ponds, Reno, 1976, can appreciate the ironic advantage of enjoy the variety of site-specific environ- and S. Bann, ‘A Description of impecuniousness. It obliged a rigorous mental sculpture. On the left, the Buried Stonypath’, Journal of Garden History, 1, 2, 1981, pp. 113–44. consideration of the function, scale, mater- Capital intimates the presence of the for- 5 For Finlay’s garden at the Max ial and appropriateness of each work mer Palladian mansion, demolished in the Planck Institute, Stuttgart, see before slender resources were committed 1960s. To the right, the Herm of Aphrodite Simig and Felix, as at note 1. ‘Self- contained’ is the phrase used by to production. resides in the midst of a stand of silver Stephen Bann in relation to Finlay’s The genius of Little Sparta lies in birch trees. It recollects a garden’s purpose ‘landscape improvements’, see Finlay’s combination of artwork-in- as ‘A Lovely Place’ (locus amoenus) as well Abrioux, as at note 1, p. 121. 6 I. H. Finlay (with P. Simig), progress and nursery-of-ideas which could as ‘A Place for Loving’ (locus amorem). To Sentences, Edinburgh, 2005, n.p. be transplanted into the wider world. one side, the Double Tree-Column Base 7 I. H. Finlay (with N. Sloan), The Initially the larger commissions came from serves to identify the trees – ‘Betula Monteviot Proposal, 1979. All eighteen pages are reproduced in mainland Europe and later from North Pendula / Silver Birch’ – and to remind us P. Eyres (ed.), Mr. Aislabie’s Gardens, America and Britain. The poetics nurtured of the historic relationship between tree Leeds, 1981, n.p. in the private arena of Little Sparta were trunks and the architectural column. The 8 See P. Eyres, ‘Despatches from The Little Spartan War’, New Arcadian exported into the public domain through Flock of Stones lies adjacent to the specially Journal, 23, 1986, pp. 3–37, and commissions for architectural projects,10 excavated sections of the Georgian ha-ha – P. Eyres, ‘Ian Hamilton Finlay: for gallery exhibitions,11 for sculpture as an the sunken wall that allowed views from emblems and iconographies, medals 12 and monuments’, Medal, 31, 1997, element of a pre-existing landscape, and the garden while keeping the animals out- pp. 73–84. also by commissions for self-contained side. As a waggish transgression, this ‘flock’ 9 See H. Gilonis, ‘Emblematical and gardens.13 The Tree-plaques at the Domaine has been placed inside the ha-ha, within Expressive: the gardenist modes of William Shenstone and Ian Hamilton de Kerguehennec (1985) were envisaged the garden; the ‘flock’ also happens to com- Finlay’, New Arcadian Journal, 53/54, in the manner described by the earlier bine the playful benefit of stepping stones 2002, pp. 86–109. quotation from The Monteviot Proposal – for children with that of a picnic spot. 10 For examples, see Simig and Felix, as at note 1. within the pre-existing and mature wood- Beyond, we see the willow to which the 11 See, for example, T. Lubbock in Ian landscape of the Breton sculpture trail. Tree-plaque is attached. In the spirit of The Hamilton Finlay: Maritime Works While the Max Planck Institute was the Monteviot Proposal, the Tree-plaque invites (exh. cat.), Tate St Ives, 2002, pp. 5–17, for a discussion of the nautical first commission for a self-contained gar- us to wonder who or what might utter the theme that is common to the works den (1975), the hermetic Sacred Grove at the words: ‘I Sing for the Muses and Myself’. exhibited, and which permeates the Kroller Müller (1982) is also self-contained, On the far right stands the curved garden at Little Sparta. 12 See Simig and Felix, as at note 1, even though it is within the pre-existing screen containing the Errata of Ovid, a and, for a more recent example, landscape of the Dutch sculpture park. poetic use of the convention for addressing P. Eyres, ‘Variations on several Notable examples of British commis- printed typographic errors (errata). Finlay themes: Ian Hamilton Finlay in Barcelona’, Sculpture Journal, IV, sions include Stockwood Park in Luton had earlier deployed the erratum slip, with 2000, pp. 182–86. (1986), the Forest of Dean sculpture trail polemic playfulness: 13 For the self-contained gardens in (1988), the garden of the Serpentine Gallery Erratum: Arts Council relation to Little Sparta, see P. Eyres, ‘Ian Hamilton Finlay and the in Kensington Gardens (1992) and the For ‘Mind’ read ‘Void’ cultural politics of neoclassical gar- churchyard of St George’s, Bristol (2002). As In Stockwood Park, he offers a quiz dening’, Garden History, 28, 1, 2000, the Little Sparta Trust takes up the chal- through the errata inscribed on eight pp. 152–66, and P. Eyres, ‘Naturalizing Neoclassicism: Little Sparta and the lenge of sustaining the garden, Finlay’s plaques set into the architectural screen. Public Gardens of Ian Hamilton public gardens become instructive in this By implying typographic errors in the text Finlay’, in P. Eyres and F. Russell (eds), fresh context. Little Sparta was created as a of the influential book, Metamorphoses, by Sculpture and the Garden, Aldershot, 2006. private realm and nurtured outside the the Roman author Ovid, he invites us to
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3. Little Sparta, empty boat. visualize the gardenist transformations and remain open to the public (fig. 3).15 28 October 2005 that take place; for example: Only a month before his death, he (photo: Alison Campbell) for DAPHNE read LAUREL announced to the Trust that the garden’s for ADONIS read ANENOME climactic flourish will transform the farm- However. two of the errata eloquently con- stead barn from hazardous ruin into an join concrete poetics and classical allusion: open-air walled garden evocative of the for NARCISSUS read NARCISSUS mediaeval hortus conclusus. Work is for ECHO read echo already underway supervised by Pia Maria The key always lies in the associative use Simig who, as Finlay’s associate since the of words within a composition whose early 1990s, has been engaged in all aspects
14 See I. H. Finlay (with G. Hincks), plantings complement inscribed stone to of his oeuvre. This summer, during Six Proposals for Stockwood Park, complete Finlay’s environmental sculpture. removal of the dilapidated roof, an archae- Luton, reproduced with commentary In recent years Finlay has been fêted by ological fragment of a mythic era was by P. Eyres, ‘A Peoples’ Arcadia’, in New Arcadian Journal, 33/34, 1992, Scottish institutions which have perceived excavated by chance. This faded wooden pp. 61–103. See also S. Bann, ‘A Luton a Scottish-ness in his pugnacious individu- sign had graced the entrance to the garden Arcadia: Ian Hamilton Finlay’s con- ality and polemical critique of establish- on the day of the heroic Battle of Little tribution to the English neoclassical tradition’, Journal of Garden ments – whether in the arts, official Sparta. In elegant, italic calligraphy it History, 33, 1–2, 1993, pp. 104–12, and patronage or local government. In 2005, invited the bailiffs to ‘Please Sod Off’. Ian L. Burckhardt, trans. L. Lendrum, during the celebrations of his eightieth Hamilton Finlay will be sorely missed – for Sculpture in the Park: The Hamilton Finlay Sculpture Garden, Stockwood birthday, Finlay was hailed as Scotland’s his cultural innovation, his ferocious repu- Park, Luton, Luton, 1991. greatest living artist. tation, his disarming charm, his visionary 15 For the Little Sparta Trust, see Positive in his foresight, Finlay formu- thinking, his softly spoken wit – and for his
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