page_title: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red
section_title: Critical reaction
hierarchical_section_title: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red / Critical reaction
caption_attribution_description: Perfect
context_page_description: Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red was a public art installation created in the moat of the Tower of London, England, between July and November 2014. It commemorated the centenary of the outbreak of World War I and consisted of 888,246 ceramic red poppies, each intended to represent one British or Colonial serviceman killed in the War. The ceramic artist was Paul Cummins, with conceptual design by the stage designer Tom Piper. The work's title was taken from the first line of a poem by an unknown soldier in World War I.
context_section_description: Although the installation struck a chord with the public, it received negative reactions from some critics in the press. A. A. Gill of The Sunday Times called it "impressive" but "curiously bland". The Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones described it as having a "false nobility" and being a "prettified and toothless" memorial. Tom Piper said in response that "... it is a remarkably good thing that it is so accessible. We should not be trying to create something that is difficult to understand."
caption: An individual ceramic poppy
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