Art Archivi - Classicult

The Temple of Augustus: an artificial landscape in Surrey

The Temple of Augustus: How ruins from Libya became the focal point of an artificial landscape in Surrey

Leptis Magna ruins to right of carriage path

Walking around the artificial lake of Virginia Water, past the artificial cascade, you come across the ‘Temple of Augustus’, another artificial addition to the royal landscapes of Surrey. But how did these Libyan ruins come to make up part of the grounds of Windsor Great Park?

The city of Leptis Magna was founded in the 7^th Century BC and rose to prominence in 193 AD under Emperor Septimius Severus who initiated a programme of enhancement through the provision of incredible docks, and a huge basilica complete with classical style columns. After his death in 211 the city began to decline, with the destructive tsunami of 365 and the invasion of the Vandals in the 5^th Century.

1816, Hanmer Warrington arrived in Leptis Magna with friend, Augustus Earle. Only a few years earlier, Thomas Bruce, 7^th Earl of Elgin had been hailed a hero by the British government on return from Greece with the stripped marble of the Parthenon, a response Warrington hoped to achieve with his presentation of the Leptis Magna ruins.

Louis XIV had taken 600 columns from the site and installed them in his palace in Versailles in the 17^th century, whilst Rouen Cathedral and Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Preps in Paris also sported Leptis columns.

Upon commissioning ships and creating an agreement with the Local Governor, Warrington came across resistance of the local Libyan people. Not a conservation effort, but a local quarrying issue, they defied the removal of the ruins. Cut stone had often been collected from these sites to aid building work whilst round columns were used as mill stones. They took to destroying the collected ruins as they were being loaded onto ships, leading to 3 columns still lying on the beach, having been abandoned by Warrington’s team.

After the destruction was accounted for, Warrington collected a vast collection made up of 25 pedestals, 15 marble columns, 22 granite columns, 10 capitals, 5 inscribed slabs and fragments of stone and sculpture. On arrival in Britain he was met with an unenthusiastic government who it is said were not ‘at all impressed or convinced of the value, either aesthetic or intrinsic, of the cargo.’

Temple of Augustus — Leptis Magna ruins beyond the bridge

Having sat in the forecourt of the British Museum for 8 years, King George IV’s architect, Jeffry Wyatville expressed an interest in using them to create a folly in the grounds of Windsor Castle, which then stretched as far as Virginia Water.

Named the ‘Temple of Augustus’, possibly as a reference to the King’s full name, George Augustus Frederick, the site consisted of the 15 columns arranged in a semi-circle, and 2 parallel colonnades. Down the centre of the ruins ran a carriage road, allowing King George IV to pass under the road to Ascot. Wyatville placed fragments of cornices along the bridge mimicking an arch in a city wall.

Knowledge of the classics was important in high society, and the introduction of follies, ornamental ruins built to serve purely as landscape features, showed a level of class and sophistication. As William Gilpin, contemporary architect, noted about the importance of a fake authenticity, “if the ivy refuses to mantle over your buttress… you may as well write over the gate, Built in the year 1772.”

All pictures taken by Scout Newby.

Bibliography

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Chambers, G.E., ‘The Ruins at Virginia Water’, Berkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol.54 (1954), pp.39-52.

Cooper, P., ‘How Ancient Roman Ruins Ended up 2,000 Miles Away in a British Garden’, The Atlantic, 10^th January 2018.

Earle, A., ‘Watercolour of The Ruins at Lebida (Leptis Magna), near Tripoli’, (1793-1838), RCIN 917055 <rct.uk/collection> [accessed 23^rd July 2020].

Gilpin, W., Observations on Several Parts of England relative chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (London; Strahan and Prefton, 1808), pp.69-75.

‘Sham Ruins’, Foll-e, Vol.45 (2012), pp.1-4.

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Lane, A., ‘The Ruins of Virginia Water’, Libyan Studies (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.67-94.

by Scout Newby

The Met Acquires Works by Pakistani Artist Lala Rukh

(New York, January 9, 2020)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the acquisition of two important works by the Pakistani artist and activist Lala Rukh (Lahore, 1948–2017): the collage Mirror Image, 1, 2, 3 (1997) and the digital animation Rupak (2016). The works were purchased by the Museum with funds from the Tia Collection, part of the private foundation's commitment to enabling the acquisition of works by South Asian female artists for The Met's Department of Modern and Contemporary Art. The Tia Collection's support of the Museum began in 2018 with the gift of Ranjani Shettar's installation Seven ponds and a few raindrops (2017).

The Met also announced that the Estate of Lala Rukh has gifted the Museum a group of six posters to compliment the acquisition of Mirror Image, 1, 2, 3 and Rupak. Rukh created the posters, which call for the equal rights and freedom of women, during her years with the Women's Action Forum (WAF), the Pakistani women's rights organization that she co-founded.

"These powerful works by Lala Rukh add great strength to our holdings of contemporary art from South Asia, and we are extremely grateful to the Tia Collection for their generous support and commitment to the Museum," said Max Hollein, Director of The Met. "We also thank the Lala Rukh Estate for their important gift, which further enhances our understanding of Rukh's practice."

The Met is the first museum in the United States to acquire Rukh's work. Considered one of Rukh's most important pieces, Mirror Image 1, 2, 3 (1997) was made in response to the aftermath and ensuing communal violence following the destruction of the Babri Masjid Mosque in Ayodhya, India, in 1992, including the riots that took place for years in cities such as Mumbai, Dhaka, and Lahore. To create Mirror Image, Rukh cut out newspaper images of the riots and acts of damage and then blackened them, using charcoal and other media, thus abstracting the images, and finally attached them in pairs to sheets of grid paper. The gesture of obfuscating the imagery was her riposte to the negative and propagandist impact that such widely circulated images could have.

The single-channel video Rupak (2016), the artist's final work, is the culmination of her abiding preoccupation with Hindustani classical music, a source of inspiration throughout her career. Commissioned for Documenta 14, Rupak is a stop-motion animation built around the percussive scheme of a Hindustani classical taal called rupak, which has a seven-beat structure. Rukh collaborated with composer musician Sunny Justin to compose the 12-second rupak taal table solo that forms the basis of the animation. Once the score was completed, Rukh devised her own method of transcribing the beats to paper. Over a two-month period, she would draw and re-draw the sounds of the rupak taal on a grid in a dot-based system. She made these dots using the angled tip of aqalam (a dried reed pen used in calligraphy). Rukh completed a set of 88 drawings that were then scanned and animated, with her marks coalescing as a single white dot that moves rhythmically along the screen.

About the Artist

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Lala Rukh was raised in a progressive and liberal household that instilled in her the political awareness that came to inform aspects of her practice in later years. She received her MFA from Punjab University in Lahore and then from the University of Chicago in 1976. Her time in the United States had an important impact on her art and activism, exposing her to the practices of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, John Baldessari, and Christo as well as a collaborative performance by Merce Cunningham and John Cage. She returned to Lahore in 1977, a time of an increasingly oppressive environment for women and severe Islamization under the military dictatorship of General Zia Ul Haq. As a result, Rukh involved herself with the women's movement and co-founded the Women's Action Forum (WAF), commencing a life-long commitment to political activism. She taught for 30 years at Punjab University, in the Department of Fine Art, and the National College of Arts, retiring near the end of her life. Alongside her teaching and activism, she maintained a rigorous studio practice.

About the Tia Collection

The Tia Collection is an international, private collection of modern and contemporary art based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Tia Collection is committed to supporting The Met in strengthening its holdings of South Asian art, with a particular focus on female artists.

Press release from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

by operatore