Some of you may have seen this sculpture here before, known variously as the Shrewsbury Slinky, or by its actual title The Quantum Leap. It sits between the River Severn and a busy traffic system, sited on a narrow slice of public space, not large enough to be called a park.
The architectural designers, Pearce and Lal, describe it as a piece of geo-tectonic sculpture, inspired through “the influence of objects and materials central to the development of Darwin’s thought: rock, fossils, zoology…” It was commissioned by the Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council to commemorate the 2009 bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth.
And the reason it’s here?
Charles Darwin was born and brought up in Shrewsbury. His father, Robert Darwin was a wealthy doctor and financier, son of physician and free-thinker Erasmus Darwin. His mother Susannah was the daughter of famous potter, Josiah Wedgwood. A family, then, much used to serious thinking, unafraid to challenge established boundaries and in many domains.
Charles lived at The Mount, a grand house built by his parents, across the Welsh Bridge (glimpsed in the photo above), and so not far from Quantum Leap. He spent his early years exploring the 7-acre family garden, as well as discovering plant and animal life in the countryside all around. He would later claim that he could not help but be a naturalist.
After attending the local Unitarian School, he transferred as a boarder to the prestigious Shrewsbury School (founded in 1552 by Edward VI), which in Charles’ day occupied the building that is now the town’s main library. Outside the entrance is the late Victorian tribute to the man who would go on to write On the Origin of Species, the astonishing (horrifying to some) work that addressed and consolidated his years of careful observations and research.
At sixteen, Charles left Shrewsbury to follow his older brother, Erasmus, to Edinburgh Medical School, where he lingered for two years, largely disinterested in studying medicine. An angry father then sent him to Christ’s College, Cambridge where he was to study for an arts degree as a prelude to becoming a country parson. This plan did not work out either. The influences and contacts met with at Cambridge led to his taking up a self-funded position as naturalist aboard HMS Beagle on an expedition tasked with survey work across the southern hemisphere. He was 22 and the voyage lasted five years. When he returned he had tomes of notes and extensive collections of mammals, birds and plants. So began the concentrated work of study, classification and cataloguing.
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But what about The Quantum Leap?
Like many others, I’m not really sure what to make of it. I see the connections with dinosaur fossils, the DNA double helix, but the concrete used to cast the blades is unappealing; the whole effect ‘heavy-handed’ somehow. However, I do like the way it curves through different planes, although at the same time find myself wondering how the initial plan might have translated with more finesse into bronze or iron. Looking at the Anish Kapoor C-Curve posted earlier this week, I’m wondering what marvellously sympathetic creation he might have come up with, had he been given the brief.
One of the most obvious problems is the siting. It’s a piece of public art that has not only NOT been given enough space to speak for itself, but has been sited on the edge of the town centre where most people will not see it. A commemorative work left largely unseen and at the cost of one million pounds! At which point words fail me, so I’ll leave you with more photos and see what you think about it.
#GeometricJanuary Day 24
