It can sometimes be easy to mistake the Reclining Connected Forms sculpture by Henry Moore for a very well-shaped shrub. However this bronze figure has stood firmly in the Library Square behind the Campanile since 1971, it’s smooth contours curving into the surrounding greenery and the picturesque Front Square beside it.

Henry Moore himself has said that “there are three recurring themes: mother with child; the reclining figure; large form protecting small form. In this sculpture I have united all three motifs”. The mother and child image can be clearly seen in the piece as the cocooning uterus-like shape holds within it what resembles a reclining horizontal humanoid shape.

This piece of sculpture was installed on campus after the removal of Henry Moore’s The King and Queen from the Library Forecourt in 1969. Moore felt that there was not enough natural light for his masterpiece, as it stood in the shadow of the Berkeley Library, and thus its removal resulted in the empty plinth which still remains beside the Pomodoro globe today. The King and Queen was displayed for two years after the close of the first showing in The Trinity Exhibition Hall in 1967. This was the first university art gallery in Ireland and was opened in collaboration with the Arts Council, running for a decade hence and playing a key role in displaying national and international works of modern art to Irish audiences.

Moore’s rounded, smooth forms stay close to his choice of material, and his suggested humanoid figures recall his influence by the works of Gaugin and ‘primitivist’ artworks, which he greatly admired. The oxidised green of the bronze and the simplistic flow of his work makes Reclining Connected Forms an interesting juxtaposition of sculpture to the surrounding neoclassical architecture in Front Square.