Anna Beketova explores one of Leeds’ top attractions and unearths some of its artistic delights, including the current ‘In Cloud Country: Abstracting from Nature’ exhibition

Next weekend if you find yourself craving some more aesthetic stimulus than the graffiti strewn streets of Hyde Park, jump on the number 36 bus – 20 minutes and £3.50 later you could be swooning at the delights of Harewood house’s Corinthian columns, having scones in the parlour or chasing new rave flamingos. Go before the 30th of June and you can additionally bare witness to the extensive ‘In Cloud Country: Abstracting from Nature’ exhibition; a works on paper celebration of the natural world. The display is both scattered around the oppulantly decored bedrooms from the 18th century, and then continued under the house below stairs; the white walled Terrace Gallery. Whilst the rooms upstairs allow for marvelling at gold leaf collages, star constellations and John Constable oil painted clouds, the gallery provides a refreshing burst of modernism and contemporary. Expect gothic stone etchings from Henry Moore, recordings of Richard Long’s 100 mile walk , and a New York school wave from Robert Motherwell. Then walk out of the terrace doors and let the breathtaking nature of Harewood’s own gardens, with its violet blooms, penguin pools, and Epstein fountain, overwhelm you.