Art
A kinetic sculpture (Circle of Light, 1980) by Liliane Lijn hangs from the ceiling of Midsummer Arcade. The mechanism has not operated for many years. It was originally floodlit at night and is on the axis of the midsummer sun on which Midsummer Boulevard is accurately orientated.
Silbury Arcade contains three bronze figures (Dream Flight, Flying Carpet and High Flyer, 1989) by Philomena Davidson Davis, former president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. Nearby, in Deer Walk, a mosaic pavement (c. AD 320) from Bancroft Roman Villa is on display. These works were previously sited in Queen's Court.
Before being redeveloped, Queen's Court also contained:
- a sundial and associated bollards (Bollards, 1979) by Tim Minett
Oak Court contains:
- a stainless steel sculpture (Acorns and Leaves, 2000) by Tim Ward
- the Concrete Cows (1978) by Liz Leyh
The Midsummer Place building contains:
- a bronze seat (Sitting on History, 1996) by Bill Woodrow
- a stained-glass window (2000) by Anne Smyth
- an animated clock with a frog that blows bubbles (2000), conceived by Kit Williams, and similar to the clock at Telford Shopping Centre.
In 1981, the building and its surrounding vicinity were used for the filming of the music video Wired for Sound by Cliff Richard. Filming took place at the eastern end of Midsummer Arcade (the distinctive tiling outside the John Lewis department being clearly visible), outside Norfolk House and in nearby underpasses. The building was also used as a location for still photography on the first self-titled album by Duran Duran.
Read more about this topic: Central Milton Keynes Shopping Centre
Famous quotes containing the word art:
“The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The classicist, and the naturalist who has much in common with him, refuse to see in the highest works of art anything but the exercise of judgement, sensibility, and skill. The romanticist cannot be satisfied with such a normal standard; for him art is essentially irrational—an experience beyond normality, sometimes destructive of normality, and at the very least evocative of that state of wonder which is the state of mind induced by the immediately inexplicable.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)