Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-5-48
Title Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta: Poetics of Artifact in Landscape Art
Author email katerina.kochetkov@gmail.com
About author Kochetkova, Ekaterina Sergeevna — Ph. D., head lecturer. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, GSP-1, 119991 Moscow, Russian Federation.
In the section International Art of the 20th and 21st Centuries: Modernity and Contemporaneity DOI10.18688/aa188-5-48
Year 2018 Volume 8 Pages 495506
Type of article RAR Index UDK 712.03+7.038.6 Index BBK 85.118
Abstract

This paper addresses the unique example of landscape art in the second half of the 20th century — the so-called Little Sparta, a park created by Scottish artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006). In this work, which was in the making for 50 years since 1966, there are certain elements rooted in the long-standing tradition of English landscape gardening; yet, this practice is reconsidered, and incorporates the experience of Conceptual art, as well as Postmodernist irony. Since Finlay was not only an artist but also a writer, the literary component plays a major part in his garden — in particular, the concrete poetry movement that maintained the indivisibility of the text’s message and its appearance. The present paper focuses on the concept of ‘garden poems’ or artifacts, which include objects, inscriptions, and natural surroundings. To create these artifacts, Finlay used the synthesis of various literary and artistic methods. The current paper investigates some of them, such as manipulations with the scale of objects and their material qualities, ways of visual and rhythmic organization of text, principle of vocabulary entry, playing with meanings and sounds of words, philosophical interpretations of everyday items, and searching for palpable forms to illustrate abstract notions. The classical theme of genius loci is of special importance here, as it is rendered unconventionally through ‘signing’ the landscape and positioning ‘focus frames’ within it, to guide the viewer’s eye.

Keywords
Reference Kochetkova, Ekaterina S. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Little Sparta: Poetics of Artifact in Landscape Art. Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art: Collection of articles. Vol. 8. Ed. S. V. Mal’tseva, E. Iu. Staniukovich-Denisova, A. V. Zakharova. — St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg Univ. Press, 2018, pp. 495–506. ISSN 2312-2129. http://dx.doi.org/10.18688/aa188-5-48
Publication Article language russian
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