Blood Swept Lands and Sea of Red

There were 888, 246 poppies displayed in The Tower of London which was representing each British that have lost their lives during the first world war, where in the end there would be a sea of red where they could then disappear.

Paul Cummins was the ceramic artists who came up with this idea and created the piece while Tom Piper was the one who stage the poppies. Piper had the idea to create the weeping window, a cascade of poppies that spilled from a window, and the wave, which swirled out of the moat to form an arch over the entrance to the tower. The ceramic poppies are embracing around the building in waves of a flowing leave. All the poppies were handmade by Paul Cummins. Cummins got an inspiration to create this powerful visual artwork when he went through the first world war archives in Chesterfield records office, then found an unkown solider who died at Flanders that contain the line "The blood-swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread."


   
The poppies flowing from the window
The piece was display around the 5 August to the 11 of November 2014.

Tom Piper, when staging this artwork he decided to make it look fluid and bring an organic feel to it, so that people could see it as blood, water or life force.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/28/blood-swept-lands-story-behind-tower-of-london-poppies-first-world-war-memorial

"This article was amended on 31 December 2014. An earlier version referred to the Weeping Window as the Weeping Willow."

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary/poppies-in-the-moat