Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red
| Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red | |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | |
Installation at the Tower of London from the south entrance
|
|
| For the centenary of the outbreak of World War I | |
| Established | 17 July 2014 |
| Unveiled | 11 November 2014 |
| Location |
51°30′33″N 0°04′31″W / 51.50912°N 0.07528°WCoordinates: 51°30′33″N 0°04′31″W / 51.50912°N 0.07528°W moat at the Tower of London |
| Designed by |
Paul Cummins Tom Piper |
|
Total commemorated
|
888,246 by ceramic poppies |
| Statistics source: Tower of London Remembers | |
Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red was a work of installation art placed in the moat of the Tower of London, England, between July and November 2014, commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. It consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, each intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War. The artist was Paul Cummins, with setting by stage designer Tom Piper. The work's title was taken from the first line of a poem by an unknown World War I soldier.
The work's title, and Cummins' inspiration for the work, came from a poem by an unknown World War I soldier from Derbyshire, who joined up in the early days of the war and died in Flanders. The poem begins: "The blood swept lands and seas of red, / Where angels dare to tread / ... ". The poem was contained in the soldier's unsigned will, found by Cummins among old records in Chesterfield.
The Tower of London moat, in which the work was set, was used in the early days of the war as a training ground for City of London workers who had enlisted to fight – the "".
The work consisted of a sea of ceramic red poppies, which were individually hand-made at Cummins' ceramics works in Derbyshire, and some at Johnson Tiles in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent. The poppies were added to the installation progressively by volunteers. The 497,000 kg of the Etruria Marl-based Etruscan red earthenware used, as well as the majority of the manufacturing equipment and materials, were supplied by Potclays Limited in Stoke-on-Trent There were eventually 888,246 of the flowers, representing one count of the number of British and Colonial military fatalities in World War I. The sea of flowers was arranged to resemble a pool of blood which appeared to be pouring out of a bastion window (the "Weeping Window").
...
Wikipedia