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91:. Little Sparta survived numerous disputes, or "Wars" as Finlay termed them, regarding the rating of the Garden Temple. Finlay lived there until shortly before his death in 2006. The wars are documented in the papers of Graeme Moore, landscape artist who worked with Finlay, held by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.
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The key concept Ian established at Little Sparta was that of the ‘garden poem', sited within an ‘area’. Finlay defined the relationship between these poem-objects and their surroundings: "Usually each area gets a small artefact, which reigns like a small deity or spirit of place. My understanding is
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Over their 23-year collaboration Ian
Hamilton Finlay and Sue Finlay established Little Sparta as an internationally renowned composition, a combination of avant-garden experiment, Scottish wit and whimsy and the English landscape garden tradition. It comprised the front garden, the most intimate
135:: “The learning process. The love involved in this process. That loving absorption – the day-to-day tending of the poems. Their immediate surrounding areas, whether paved, grassy or covered with plants, always needed a lot of individual attention in the summer".
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extending around a small pool; and a series of paths, areas and sculptures in the wilder hillside landscape. Finlay conceived the garden as composed around inter-connected pools, burns and a small loch, Lochan Eck.
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The garden is now owned by the Little Sparta Trust, which plans to preserve the garden for the future by raising enough to pay for an ongoing maintenance fund. Trustees have included journalist
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208:. The Special Collections Processing Center (SCPC) of the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts. (April 24).
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that the work is the whole composition – the artefact in its context. The work is not an isolated object, but an object with flowers, plants, trees, water and so on".
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Sue Finlay, who undertook the majority of the planting and cultivation, describes the generosity of this creative process in her memoir
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The status of the Garden Temple is discussed in detail in Ian
Hamilton Finlay: A Visual Primer, Yves Abrioux (Reaktion Books, 1985)
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has said of Little Sparta that it is "the only really original garden made in this country since 1945". James
Campbell, writing in
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Finlay later extended the garden in the 1990s, creating a small
English Parkland in the former paddock. A walled garden, ‘
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83:'s nickname, the "Athens of the North", and playing on the historical rivalry between the Ancient Greek cities
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In
December 2004, a poll of fifty Scottish artists, gallery directors and arts professionals, conducted by
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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Sparta-the-garden-of-Ian-Hamilton-Finlay/303817088244?fref=ts
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New
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Wood Notes Wild: Essays on the Art and Poetry of Ian
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278:"Little Sparta goes a long way in poll on Scotland's greatest art"
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The garden was first established in 1966 and was originally named
79:. Finlay chose the name "Little Sparta" in 1983, in response to
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328:"Ian Hamilton Finlay: the concrete poet as avant gardener"
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Sculpture gardens, trails and parks in the United
Kingdom
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Nature Over Again: The Garden Art of Ian
Hamilton Finlay
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space, with many examples of Finlay’s ‘garden poems’; a
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119:"The present order is the disorder of the future (
357:Little Sparta: The Garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay
25:The "Grove above Lochan Eck" at Little Sparta
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466:Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes
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300:"Penniless poet's vision that bloomed"
206:The Many Battles of Little Sparta
254:. Little Sparta Trust. Archived from
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48:and his wife Sue Finlay, since 1966.
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326:Campbell, James (17 November 2012).
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355:Jesse Sheeler and Andrew Lawson.
298:Gibbons, Fiachra (30 June 2003).
133:The Planting of a Hillside Garden
476:1966 establishments in Scotland
217:Ian Hamilton Finlay, quoted in
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123:)" inscribed at Little Sparta
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252:"Contact the Trust"
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383:(1995).
376:(2008).
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71:History
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85:Athens
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