My afternoon session at Stowe was much more productive. In the morning I had spent my time capturing a sculpture on a secluded temple and in the process creating one of the most unsettling image I have ever created. In the afternoon I spent time with Queen Bess. Now for people of my age the face of Queen Elizabeth the First will always be the actress Glendale Jackson but of course when the sculpture at Stowe was made this wasn’t the case. The reason why I mention this is that when I was sitting there looking at the sculpture someone came past and said that it didn’t look much like the image that they knew. We don’t really truly know what Elizabeth actually looked like, her surviving portraits were more symbolic than realistic.
So does drawing look like Queen Bess? Who knows but it certainly looks like the sculpture I was trying to draw from the angle I was sitting. So the day at Stowe was worth the effort and money it cost to get there. I will no doubt be returning again and again during the summer to capture more and more of the features of this strange and wonderful place. It would be tempting to describe the gardens as Disneyesque in their total divorce from reality only the temples, statues and landscaping where on a much grander scale and were built to last. It is unlikely that Disney World will still be standing in 200 plus years time as most of the works at Stowe are.
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