Walking the Dog I, II, III by Peter Randall-Page
Via artdaily:
LONDON – Dulwich Picture Gallery will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2011 with its first ever acquisition of a piece of contemporary sculpture, purchased and presented to the gallery by the Art Fund in honour of Dulwich’s bicentenary. The work, called Walking the Dog I, II,III, is by leading British sculptor Peter Randall-Page, who is currently enjoying rave reviews for his exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Inspired by the Gallery’s famous building and its three founders, it is the first sculpture to be included in the permanent collection…
…At the Director’s invitation, Randall-Page then spent time at the Gallery, drawing and taking photographs, getting to know the building and the surrounding landscape. He was impressed by the simple proportions of the Gallery, designed by Sir John Soane in 1811, and was particularly struck by the “running dog” pattern that Soane had used as a decorative feature on the outside of the Gallery. This pattern related very closely to the naturally occurring patterns that have always informed his work. Other sculptural motifs on the Gallery – urns, and sarcophagi – occur in threes, relating to the Gallery’s three founders: Mr and Mrs Noel Desenfans and Sir Francis Bourgeois. In creating Walking the Dog I, II,III, Peter Randall-Page chose to echo these by selecting three boulders, carving the running dog motif on their curved surfaces. (read more)
The running dog pattern is an architectural motif “consisting of a repeated stylized convoluted form, something like the profile of a breaking wave.” It is also sometimes called the Vitruvian scroll after Vitruvius, a Roman architectural historian of the 1st century BC. I did not know that. Thanks, Encyclopedia Britannica.
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