Lecture: England’s World Image Garden: Biddulph Grange, its Aesthetic background with reference to China and Egypt

A new lecture by Robert M. Craig, Wednesday March 4,  6:30pm Dekalb Historic Center (old courthouse Decatur), free and open to the public

Rudyard Kipling’s "A Song of the English," captured the spirit of 19th century global expansion, and the phrase "the sun never sets on the British Empire," often attributed to Kipling, reflects this world-wide reach.  British explorations to foreign lands resulted in new discoveries and collections with notable aesthetic impact on English culture.  Earlier 18th century “grand tours” had taken English aristocrats (and architects/artists) to Italy, especially Rome, and country houses and garden temples of the Hanoverians adopted primarily ancient classical forms [Stourhead and Stowe}, with occasional neo-gothic (“gothick”) follies providing alternative imagery.  However, as early as the 1740s architect William Chambers traveled to China, and a century later, at the start of the Victorian era, artist David Roberts sojourned to Egypt where he was among the first to record ancient Egyptian monuments, publishing a portfolio of lithographs which dazzled the British. During the 19th century, plant collecting expeditions were sponsored by Kew Gardens, by Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth, and by major London nurseries with James Bateman at Biddulph Grange among the nation’s notable collectors.  New exotics from the Far East and Americas were transported to England by such plant collectors, and for a quarter century from 1842, Bateman “brought the world to Biddulph,” creating garden areas (vignettes) named “Egypt” and “China.”  This illustrated lecture traces the aesthetic background of the new interest in Egypt and China, culminating in an armchair tour of Biddulph Grange.