1943
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
The Pagoda, Alton Towers, Staffordshire is a 1943 watercolor by Barbara Jones, a British Romanticism work, depicting Pavilion, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows a small wooden pavilion with curved roofs and hanging lanterns. It sits on a flat base in a grassy area, surrounded by tall, thin trees. The sky above is painted in soft blue and white brushstrokes, giving it a calm, dreamy look. The pavilion’s design looks inspired by East Asian styles, but it’s actually a British garden structure. The artist used light watercolor washes to keep the scene simple and peaceful. If you like this, check out the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more examples of pavilions and garden art.
This watercolor depicts a replica of the To-ho pagoda in Canton, positioned within the grounds of Alton Towers in Staffordshire, surrounded by trees and shrubbery. It was created as part of the "Recording Britain" project, a wartime initiative that employed artists to document Britain’s landscape and cultural heritage between 1940 and 1943. The scheme, funded by the Pilgrim Trust and overseen by Sir Kenneth Clark, aimed to preserve a visual record of places and traditions perceived to be at risk from war damage or modernization. The work reflects the project’s broader effort to capture a…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Barbara Mildred Jones (25 December 1912 – 28 August 1978) was an English artist, writer and mural painter. She is known for curating the exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade (1951) and her book The Unsophisticated Arts (1951).
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