Companion Pieces

IF YOU’VE NEVER VISITED PAINSWICK ROCOCO Garden, which is situated just outside one of the prettiest villages in the Cotswolds, do hurry there immediately. And if you already know and love it, then a return visit over the next few months is certainly in order. For until 8 September, the garden will not only offer its usual and varied delights but will also be transformed into a contemporary sculpture park. Art Unbound, a specially curated, completely singular exhibition of outdoor sculpture would be a good thing anywhere, but in Painswick the interplay between modern art and an 18th-century setting is particularly special.

A Rococo garden is a wonderful thing. If those words conjure up a French painting depicting a party or courtship scene in an elaborately decorated garden, you’re on the right track. Built to entertain rather than impress (though always that too), a Rococo garden is a theatrical space, small in scale