Splendor in the Grass

While Henry Moore (1898-1986) intended his monumental sculptures for viewing in the open air, what he visualized were the graceful fields defined by hedgerows in the pastoral landscape surrounding Perry Green, his home and studio in Hertfordshire. Nevertheless, as the poet and novelist Sir Stephen Spender wrote about Moore in his memorial address, “he discovered the nobility of nature, on stone — the wearing smooth of pebbles, the nervous rhythms of rocks, the upward twisting of tree trunks.” Nothing better describes the rugged landscape of the New York Botanical Garden, where 20 Moore sculptures have been judiciously placed along the hills and dales of its 250 acres. The exhibition, co-curated by NYBG and the Henry Moore Foundation, will be open from this Saturday until November 2, giving the public an opportunity to view the works across the seasons.Most of the sculptures could be seen last year in a similar exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the 300-acre garden in Surrey, England. At that site, the sculptures were placed closer together in an arc spread out between two public entrances — deep within glades of specimen trees or along famous site lines to prominent vistas. The New York experience benefits from their isolation in the landscape where they are in conversation with the grandeur of the garden’s natural, dramatic features rather than with each other. And yet, a visitor can take them all in during a single outing along pathways under majestic trees and in individual gardens, even in the rain when the garden is at its fragrant best with brilliant greens and the wet bronze sculptures glow with reflected light.Moore sculptures are frequently seen in museums or in the lee of Modernist buildings, particularly those designed by I. M. Pei. And New Yorkers may remember that in 1982, 25 Moore sculptures loaned by the Wichita, Kan., collector George Ablah were installed in the city parks of all five boroughs. But seeing his sculptures sequentially in one venue, as never before in America, visitors will come to know intimately the themes that engaged Moore over a lifetime — interlocking or internal-external forms, totemic uprights, mother and child, and reclining figures.To begin at the beginning, the showcase in the Orchid Rotunda of the Library Building displays a potpourri of the shells, petrified wood, flint stones, clay fragments, and animal bones. Moore collected these items and they inspired him to translate their abstract forms and tactile qualities into the maquettes, also on view, for many of the larger sculptures. This detritus from his studio along with his tools for both modeling and carving offer a private view into his techniques and creative process.During hours spent in the London Underground’s air raid shelters during World War II, Moore was deeply affected by the rows of women and children lying under thin blankets, huddled together in fear along the station platforms at night. His numerous drawings on this theme possess the dignity of draped sculptures from antiquity. And his subsequent sculptures of either reclining figures or mothers and children — eight featured in this exhibition — no matter how abstract or fractured, retain these classical qualities. “Draped Reclining Mother and Baby” in the Rock Garden literally envelops the eye with sheltering contours, and “Reclining Figure: Angles” on Azalea Way projects movement with the tautness of the drapery folds. With luck this striking foil of an immense azalea hedge in pinks, magentas, and peaches will stay in bloom for early visitors to the show.Moore’s “Oval with Points,” positioned in the Ross Conifer Arboretum on a direct axis with the Visitors’ Center, relates to features of an elephant skull in his studio that was also the basis of an important album of drawings. Its central void serves as a window on the landscape behind, an outcropping of schist whose rough texture here and elsewhere in the garden highlights the patina and textured surfaces of the sculptures themselves. Since one can view the works from different angles, the sculptures yield surprises as, for example, when the bulky parts of “Large Two Forms” are suddenly aligned, showing a perfect oval framing the trees beyond. One can imagine how in later months the preponderance of bronze will blend with the backdrop of autumn color, especially of the copper beaches.Anita Feldman, curator of the Henry Moore Foundation, found delight in the contrast between NYBG and both Perry Green and Kew. The New York site, she said, offers an “unspoiled virgin forest with a river running through it along with individual gardens and manicured plantings.” The exhibition was tailored for New York to achieve harmony between these wild and planned elements of the garden’s landscape and the sculptures. While the Palm House at Kew was the focus of several surrounding sculptures, in New York, the curators decided to select only one, a working model for “Standing Figure: Knife Edge” in chalky white fiberglass, like a bone, to place in the dark reflecting pool under the dome of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.“While the art complements the landscape, the exhibition will also focus visitors on the genius of the place that is NYBG,” the garden’s vice president of horticulture and living collections, Todd Forrest, said. Not only will visitors gain an appreciation of Moore and the natural forms that inspired his sculptures, they will experience the botanical garden through fresh eyes, retaining the memory of the Moores even when they are gone. Moore understood this in 1951 when he wrote: “The thing is that sculpture gains by finding a setting that suits its mood; and when that happens, there is gain for both the sculpture and the setting.”May 24 until November 2 (Bronx River Parkway and Fordham Road, the Bronx, 718-817-8700).

Splendor in the Grass

Splendor in the Grass

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