Stange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance at the National Gallery

I toddled along to have a look at this exhibition yesterday. It's interesting for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is the art.

They say that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and one of the themes that the exhibition explores is how, here in Britain, there has been a general prejudice against German art. It is suggested that the strained relations between the two countries over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the wake of the First and Second World Wars, is partly to blame for this attitude.

Also in operation is our love affair with the Italian Renaissance - Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, anyone? And our, in my view, unfair perception that the German Renaissance was its poor relation. Anyone of that way of thinking should make straight for room 4 of the exhibition, which displays the works of Hans Holbein (the younger), Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach (the elder).

As a counterpoise to all this negativity there must have been a period when the art of the Northern Renaissance and the German Reformation struck a real chord with the English people. After Henry VIII became head of the English Church and led his people away from Rome I'd have expected there to have been a certain sympathy for the German Masters and perhaps even a shared Protestant aesthetic. Perhaps this underlies the emergence of Hans Holbein as the official court painter to Henry VIII, and his enduring popularity here in England, borne in no small measure of his iconic depiction of his patron king. Included in the exhibition is his exquisite miniature painting of Anne of Cleves, which played its part in paving the way for Henry's disastrous marriage to a woman that he never found comely. 

The final room of the exhibition is interactive, allowing visitors to vote and leave comments on how they feel about what they have seen. I hope that the National Gallery will let us know the general consensus in the fullness of time, and I hope it will show us to be more open-minded than the trustees of the gallery were way back in 1856 when they sold 37 early Westphalian works from the Krüger collection on the basis that they did not fit in with 'the present state of the gallery'.

The exhibition is running in the Sainsbury Wing until 11th May.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Top 5 dog walks in West London: # 1 Chiswick House Gardens

Now that the sun is shining, the sap is rising and the skies are blue I thought I'd make a list of my top 5 dog walks here in sunny West London.

Yesterday, in the glorious spring sunshine, we managed a quick jaunt over to Chiswick House, which is one of my favourite places to go for a walk. Let me be clear on this one: I totally, absolutely, love the gardens there. I love the contrived formality of their statuary, I love the pretty lake with the woodland walk and the modern cafe, where they make great cappuccinos and leave out bowls of water for the dogs. I love that everyone else is there with their dog, and I love that they make it really clear where the dogs are allowed to go and when they're supposed to be on a short lead, a long lead or are free to go rollicking around at their whim. It's brilliant!

Chiswick House

The villa, finished in 1729, was built by Lord Burlington to show off his art collection and act as a venue for some stonkingly good soirées.  As originally conceived it had no bedrooms. Its sole raison d'être was to function as a party palace. His Lordship had been on the Grand Tour, fallen in love with the work of Andrea Palladio, and then decided to build Chiswick House as a homage to the Master.

He set to work with William Kent, and they created the villa with its beautiful gardens, out of which the English Landscape movement was born.

Serpentine Lake, Chiswick House Gardens, London

Lord Burlington was also a great admirer of the seventeenth century architect, Inigo Jones. In 1738 he acquired this gateway that had been designed by Jones for Beaufort House in Chelsea. It was re-assembled here at Chiswick and now leads grandly out to the Italian Garden.

Gateway designed by Inigo Jones, Chiswick House Gardens

Did you see the Duchess starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes? Maybe you've read Amanda Foreman's brilliant book about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, on which the movie was based.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

Well, this is where Georgiana held her very best parties. Back then they built wings with sleeping accommodation so that they could stay overnight, but these were knocked down in the 1950's to bring the building back to its original form.

Georgiana described Chiswick House as 'my earthly paradise'.

Chiswick House

Walking around yesterday in the sunshine I saw exactly what she meant. There were loads of other people and their dogs gambolling around enjoying the opportunity to swap their overcoats and scarves for flip flops and T-shirts. The lovely weather was infectious and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

We ambled around the lake, crossing Georgiana's classic bridge, built by her husband, the fifth Duke.

Classic Bridge, Chiswick House

Did you notice the little coots building their nest in front of the bridge?

Coots nesting in Chiswick House Gardens

Georgiana's son, who became known as the Bachelor Duke when he failed to take a wife, built the magnificent conservatory and the Italian garden when he inherited the estate from his father.

The grand conservatory, Chiswick House

The Bachelor Duke was an avid camellia collector, and if you visit during the month of March you can go and visit his historic collection of camellias while they are in bloom. I have written more about the Camellia Festival here: Camellia Festival.

I always enjoy the contrast between the formality of the statue lawn bounded by the Exedra hedge, and the informality of the landscaped parkland dreamt up as a more perfect version of the natural world than Mother Nature ever conceived.

I admire the beautiful ladies from Venus on her pedestal, struggling to cover her modesty in the Rosary Garden ...

Venus in the Rosary Garden, Chiswick House Gardens

... to the Sphinxes on the gateposts ...

... to the sculpted Terms in the inner courtyard.

The face of a sculpted Term, Chiswick House Gardens

And then in the quiet moments, when my family race on ahead without me, I enjoy letting my imagination run free to conjure up some of the splendid parties that happened here all those years ago. The Prince of Wales (later George IV), the Shah of Iran, two Tsars of Russia (Alexander I and Nicholas I), Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Kings of Prussia and Saxony and an assortment of Whig party big-wigs have all wandered idly here in the sunshine of long-forgotten summer afternoons, smelling the flowers and admiring the views. Musicians have played for their entertainment, the most exquisite delicacies have been laid on for their consumption, garlands of flowers have been woven through the branches of the trees and exotic animals have been imported for them to marvel at. And sometimes, when you're here late on a summer evening and there's a hint of dusk dropping down on the quiet air, you can almost catch the echo of their laughter: a ripple through time from a lavish soirée all those years' ago.

Anyway, enough whimsy: if you'd like to go for a ramble around my favourite stomping ground you can download a site-plan here: Site map for visitors

The closest underground stations are Chiswick Park and Turnham Green.

If you come by car there's a convenient car-park just off the A4. It's pay-and-display and, from experience, the traffic attendants are pretty quick to give you a ticket should your time run out. They also get a bit twitchy and ticket-tastic if you don't park in one of the outlined squares. Parking on the grass or the cobbles is a no-no unless you're in the business of collecting parking fines. Here's the info sign so that you can come with the right coins to pay the meter.

  Happy hound-walking,

Bonny x

5 things that make my garden grow ...

Do you know which is the most important must-do of them all when it comes to successful gardening?

The answer is, of course, to keep the gardener happy. When the gardener's got the hump about his/ her lot in life the weeds will surely thrive - as I'm sure Socrates or Freud or Aesop, or someone very wise, must once have observed.

Now in our case the gardener is, for the most part, me. I get some help with the heavy lifting, and the tree-pruning, but for the rest of the time our little London garden is totally my responsibility. And here's the five things that keep me going when I get started on the job:

1. Kneepads

Ta-dah! Very now, very chic.

OK so I'm not going to have Victoria Beckham knocking on my door any time soon looking for style tips, but these little mamas keep my knees together when I'm pulling out those nuisance weeds from between the cracks on the patio. And unlike the twee 'kneeling boards' that come in chintz and shades of pastel, they're always where I need them - on my knees. Yours for £5.99 down at the hardware store: you'll wonder how you ever lived without them!

2. Laundry soap

Just to be clear: I'm the polar opposite of a high-maintenance West End princess. Heck, I've never been in a nail bar in my life, but I hate, hate, hate getting earth under my fingernails. It's just so ... well, grubby. So here's what I do to get around the problem: I use the laundry soap in something after the fashion of a cat using its scratching post. I dig my (not very long) fingernails into the soap so that I get fresh-smelling laundry soap under them. Then I put on a pair of wax-sealed gardening gloves, and I'm ready for anything. At the moment I'm heavily committed to spreading well-composted farmyard manure around as a spring pick-me-up for my soil. With my gloves and laundry-soap ensemble my nails are virtually bomb-proof. When I'm done I just come inside, wash my hands in the normal way and the soap dissolves leaving me with a set of sparklingly clean nails.

3. A little pleasant company

In my house I always have a happy little furry presence lurking somewhere round my heels. And he totally loves being out in the garden. He races around, full of the simple joy of being alive. It's not always good for the hellebores and the crocuses, which he trots over with abandon, but he's a great inspiration on how to kick back and enjoy the blue sky, sunshine and a rollick in the fresh air.

4. Music

Spotify rules the airwaves around me. I'm a really big fan, with a drive-time playlist that will take me from here to Timbuktu without having to listen to the same track twice. Out in the garden today I had Madge playing her 'Ray of Light' Album, which totally rocked my morning. I've got this great little Jambox gizmo, which fits in my handbag along with my iPad mini, to play me happy wherever I go.

5. A good cup of Rosie Lee

Being Irish I like my tea to be copper coloured and very, very strong. We have our own tea blends back home, which can be tricky to find here in England. Happily for me, I've got a good local source of Barry's Irish breakfast tea, which does the trick any time of the day. Here it is served up in my favourite Emma Bridgewater mug, al fresco in the sunshine. Perfect!

Happy Thursday!

Bonny x

Killing weeds without deadly chemicals ...

Today I 'm waging war. I'm having my revenge on all the nasties that grow between my paving stones. And I'm determined that my battle will be won without recourse to chemical warfare.

Normally this is an issue that gives me serious pause for thought. The thing is that, whilst I don't much like the nasties growing in the gaps, I don't want to poison my son, my dog, myself or any of the other little critters who happen to pass this way. I'm sure that whatever they put into commercial weedkiller these days doesn't pack the punch of weapons-grade plutonium, but we just don't know what its long term effect will be on the chap with the fluffy paws who's forever trotting over the residue left behind, or on his human pets for that matter. So, you see, I'm all in favour of not taking any chances.

And that's why I'm using this little lot:

That's right, my arsenal for the fight consists of some super cheap, no-frills malt vinegar, salt and my any-old liquid soap that happened to be stationed at the kitchen sink.

I usually keep the spray bottles that household cleaners and laundry sprays come in. It's one of my little foibles: I can find a hundred uses for those things.

So I got this one, washed it out and put a label on so that I'd know what was in it. It would, after all, be a bad result if I sprayed it on the laundry, and we all ended up smelling like left-over chips!

Next I added a good pinch of salt to the spray bottle, along with a decent squirt of the liquid soap and then I topped it up with the vinegar and gave it a good shake to mix everything together.

Now for the before and after photographs ... .

 Some of my flowerbeds are bordered with flat-end bricks, where the nuisance weeds are difficult to dig out and like to make their home. This is how this one looked after I'd had a go at pulling them out in a hissy fit:

You can see that the leafless stumps still looking infuriatingly green and healthy, with a sort of 'I'll be back in no time' smirk on their weedy faces.

I sprayed them with my magic potion a couple of days ago, just after I took this photograph.

And this is how they're looking today:

Ha ha ... not so perky now! 

The spray bottle makes it really easy to direct the weedkiller to the cracks between the stones so that there's minimum wastage. And there's nothing in the mixture that's likely to cause much harm to man or beast ...

... which is a really good result for these guys!

Happy zapping,

Bonny x

Chiswick House, Camellia Festival

The gardens at Chiswick House are pretty close to the top of my hit-parade. I love just about every aspect of the place from the wonderfully formal statuary and topiary, to the lake with its little classical bridge, to the funky, modern cafe where they serve tip-top cappuccinos.

They were originally laid out by Lord Burlington and William Kent in 1729, marking the inception of the English Landscape movement and are believed to have been the inspiration behind other spectacular landscapes such New York's Central Park.

And, right now, if you should venture over in that direction you will also have the wonderful Camellia Festival to enjoy. It runs throughout the month of March.

As it happens Chiswick House has one of the oldest collections of camellias in the western world. They are housed in a splendid conservatory that was built back in 1813 by the Sixth Duke of Devonshire.

Chiswick House Conservatory, London

His first idea had been to grow exotic fruits there. He tried his hand at figs, peaches and grapes.

Interior, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Different rooms within the huge building were kept at different temperatures to suit the Duke's delicate fruit, and to make them crop at a rate that would feed consumption over a stretch, rather than all ripening together and having to be made into jam! They think that he may even have had a stab at growing pineapples, the absolute height of decadence, in the end pavilions.

By 1828, however, the Duke had been seduced by another exotic newcomer: the Camellia, newly discovered from China, and regarded as the ultimate in garden chic. Sea captains were bringing them over, no doubt with cargos of Camellia Sensis leaves (that'll be tea to you and me) to sell to the nurserymen, who then sold them on to the gardeners of the aristocracy.  Before long the Duke had amassed a stunning collection, some of which, including the famous Middlemist's Red, still survive there today.

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London
200 year-old camellia

Middlemist's Red, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

Yes, I know - Middlemist's Red is pink! But let's not be sectarian about our reds versus our pinks. It is, after all, a lovely, deep, dusty, thoroughly well-bred sort of a pink.

Middlemist's Red Camellia, Chiswick House Conservatory, London

John Middlemist, who cultivated collectible plants at his nursery in Shepherd's Bush, is believed to have imported this beauty from China in 1804. It was originally planted at Kew, but in the 1820's the Sixth Duke acquired it, and brought it over to live at Chiswick. There is only one other known example of this variety, which is growing in New Zealand.

Can you just imagine what sort of a tale it would tell, if only it could talk?

I spent a very happy hour pottering around in this magnificent conservatory, enjoying the perfect beauty of the camellias, inhaling the sweet smell of narcissi and hyacinths, which have been artfully arranged throughout, and savouring the tentative warmth of the sun, whose rays were amplified through the glass windows so that they almost persuaded me to shed my coat. It was sublime.

 I loved the stripy flowers, the deep red flowers, the delicate pink flowers and the impossibly perfect white flowers.  They made me think of Coco Chanel, who's probably the most famous camellia-devotee of them all. The story goes that her lover, Arthur "Boy" Capel presented her with a beautiful bouquet of camellias in 1912, whereupon they immediately became her favourite flower.

And, as I'm very happy to take my style lessons from Coco Chanel, all I've got to say on the subject is, "Vive la Camellia!'

The flowers are open for viewing until 30th March from 10:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. every day except Monday. Admission is £5. You can find out all about them here: Camellia Festival

Enjoy!

Bonny x