BY POPULAR DEMAND | PAINSHILL PARK with Ian George

In the second lecture we look at the recently restored and reopened eighteenth century Surrey garden at Painshill designed by the Hon. Charles Hamilton between 1738 and 1773 which breathes much of the same unique British spirit. John Wilkes wrote to his daughter in 1772: "I … sauntered through the elysium of Mr Hamilton's gardens till eight in the evening, like the first solitary man through Paradise." 

DR IAN GEORGE AO has been an art critic and historian since the 1960's. His postgraduate work was in aesthetics. Since then he has served on the Visual Arts Committee of the Festival of Perth, as a Trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery and Vice-President of the Queensland Festival, had two terms on the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council and is a regular lecturer at the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of SA and the National Gallery of Victoria. 

IN PRAISE OF LANCELOT ‘CAPABILITY’ BROWN | 2016 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown who changed the face of 18th century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making serpentine lakes and flowing rivers, a magical world of green.

‘Capability’ Brown (1716 – 1783) is best remembered for landscape on an immense scale, constructing not only gardens and parkland, but planting woods and building farms linked by carriage drives, or `ridings', many miles from the main house. Although his work is continually reassessed, every landscape gardener and landscape architect since, both in Britain and around the world, has been influenced in one way or another by Brown.

image caption: A peaceful view across the water of Painshill's ruined abbey, courtesy of Fred Holmes, Painshill