OK, there is a bit of punning going on with this Walking Tour of London Art blog, but, hey, it’s Sunday and we’re about to talk about a tree!

In last night’s post we made reference to how trees feature extensively on our London walks and then neatly used that to take you seamlessly into the Energy and Process wing of Tate Modern, where we proceeded to introduce Guiseppe Penone’s Tree of 12 metres.

We then left you hanging with the tantalising fact that you are, in fact, not looking at a tree, but rather you are looking at a carefully crafted piece of sculpture.

Our London walks are full of little surprises like this - things are sometimes just not what they seem!

What you are in fact looking at with Tree of 12 metres is a massive industrial timbered beam, that Penone purchased from a saw mill,  which he then proceeded to carefully chisel away at  in order to, if you’ll pardon the deliberate pun, take it back to its roots.

This recreated tree stands on two heavy bases of timber which are the reminders to us that it has been carved from a beam.

And if you look at the base of the piece of tree to the left you can even see the red paint stripe with which it was marked in the saw mill.

Then looking at the base of each half of the tree you can see the chisel marks left behind as Penone began carefully following the knots of the wood to take the beam back to its youth as a tree.

In effect you are looking at a Momento Mori of nature, of a dead tree that has been raised again.

We’ll continue with this post later today. In the meantime why not feast you eyes on the many different London walks that you can enjoy?