DOCSLIB.ORG

The Shepherdess's Tomb

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Shepherdess's Tomb James Stevens Curl, ‘The Tomb in the Garden: A Few Observations on “The Shepherdess’s Tomb” at Shugborough, Staffordshire’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XXIV, 2016, pp. 53–64 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2016 THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN: A FEW OBSERVatiONS ON ‘The ShePHERDESS’S TOMb’ at SHUGBOROUGH StaffORDSHIRE JAMES STEVENS CURL he presence of the Mausoleum, Tomb, tomb: the shadow of one of the shepherds cast on TCenotaph, or Memorial in the landscape the monument alludes to the Spirit, or Classical garden has been the subject of numerous studies, Manes, and the inscription was interpreted to mean far too many to be listed here. Nicolas Poussin either ‘and I was once an inhabitant of Arcady’ or (1594–1665), in the second version of his painting that, even there, in Arcadia, ‘I’ (meaning Death) on the et in Arcadia ego theme (c.1635–6), depicted was ever-present (though there have been other shepherds in an Arcadian landscape studying the explanations as well, some turgid, some reasonable, inscription on a simple, rather severe Classical and some not). Standing to the right is a female Fig. 1. Nicolas Poussin’s second version of the Et in Arcadia Ego theme, known as ‘Arcadian Shepherds’ (reproduced from James Stevens Curl, Freemasonry & the Enlightenment: Architecture, Symbols, & Influences. (London: Historical Publications Ltd., 2011) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH Fig. 2. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens, Fig. 3. The ‘Lanthorn of Demosthenes’ at Shugborough reproduced from James Stuart & Nicholas Revett, (1764–9). (Photograph © James Stevens Curl) The Antiquities of Athens I (London: John Haberkorn, 1762), Ch. IV. Pl. III, engraved by Edward Rooker [1724–74]. (Collection James Stevens Curl) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH figure contemplating the scene. Yet, with Poussin’s eaves-tiles or on top of the crowning cymae of the vision, overt references to Death (e.g. skulls, bones, entablature, and sometimes occurring also on the animated skeletons, etc., that had been features of ridge, but there, too, the spacing would have been Baroque and earlier art) were expunged. A gentle governed by the distances between the covering- melancholy pervaded the lovely composition, and tiles. Furthermore, antefixa took typical palmette all allusions to the familiar horrors of decay, bones, or anthemion forms, set over twin scroll- or volute- decomposition, and dank, unwholesome graveyards like elements, and the upper edges of the upright were absent. Here was the peaceful, beautiful ideal, antefixum were shaped in accordance with the a place fit for reflection and memories, where death upper part of each frond, so were not smooth curves. was civilised (Fig.1)1. It was certainly a mighty The Shugborough antefixa, loosely based on those prompt in the first stirrings of what became the set over the entablature of the Greek-Corinthian campaign to establish garden-cemeteries. Order of the Lysicrates Monument in Athens, have The image often recurs, perhaps most rather crudely carved, somewhat un-Greek fronds, evocatively, in the so-called ‘Shepherd’s Grave’ resembling limp salad-leaves, carved on circular or ‘Tomb’ in the gardens at Shugborough, Staffordshire, where several celebrated fabriques were erected, designed by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart (1713–88): these include the ‘Doric Temple’ (1760); the ‘Lanthorn of Demosthenes’ (1764–9), derived from the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens,2 but omitting the tall, square podium of channel- rusticated masonry and blue Hymettos limestone on which the original stands (Fig.2), so that the impact of the ‘Lanthorn’ in the landscape at Shugborough is not what it could have been, and the ensemble looks truncated, stunted, and incomplete (Fig.3); the ‘Tower of the Winds’ (1764–5; Fig.4), based on the ‘Horologium of Andronicus Cyrrhestes’3; and the Triumphal Arch (1764–7), based on the ‘Arch of Hadrian’, Athens (Fig. 5).4 The strangely moving ‘Shepherd’s Grave’ or ‘Tomb ’, also known, significantly, in the eighteenth century as the ‘Shepherdess’s Grave’ or ‘Tomb’ (supposedly c.1758–60, but probably c.1755), consists of two rough-hewn Greek-Doric columns, with the flutes only partly carved,5 carrying a Greek-Doric entablature above which are antefixa-like ornaments spaced closely together (as they were on the Fig. 4. ‘Tower of the Winds’ at Shugborough (1764–5). Choragic Monument of Lysicrates) (Fig.6). (Photograph © James Stevens Curl) Normally, antefixa were decorative terminations of the covering-tiles set over the joints between the flat tiles of a roof, placed either directly on the THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH disc-like elements (reminding one of decorated sufficient care, for the Order, with antefixa closely oyster-shells, perhaps), whereas the Lysicrates spaced, is clearly delineated in Chapter IV, Plate VI Monument has elegantly carved, unmistakably (Fig. 7), of the first volume of Stuart and Revett’s Grecian anthemion motifs on horseshoe-shaped The Antiquities of Athens. It is odd, however, to have uprights: the continuous repeated elements at added those particular antefixa to a Doric structure: Shugborough have more in common with late- the two do not belong, and as there are no roof-tiles Gothic brattishing or cresting on chancel-screens, on the ‘Shepherd’s’ or ‘Shepherdess’s Tomb’ at rather than with echt-Greek work, but the spacing Shugborough, the crestings were anomalies, but it owes its origins to the Athenian original as recorded appears that the original antefixa were vandalised in by Stuart and Revett. Some commentators have the 1990s, so the ornaments that are there now are thought that the close spacing of the antefixa at not original anyway. Shugborough is most unusual, and thus rather rules So we have an aedicule with two rough-hewn out Stuart as the designer. Such commentators have Greek-Doric columns virtually identical to the obviously not looked at the Lysicrates model with exemplar we know was drawn in pen-and-ink, with Fig. 5. ‘Arch of Theseus, or of Hadrian’, Athens, reproduced from James Stuart & Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens III (London: John Nichols, 1794), Ch. III. Pl. IV, drawn by Stuart and engraved by Wilson Lowry [1760–1824]. (Collection James Stevens Curl) THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH Fig. 6. The ‘Shepherdess’s Grave’ at Shugborough, Staffordshire, with Scheemakers’s version of Poussin’s Arcadian Shepherds (reproduced from James Stevens Curl, Georgian Architecture in the British Isles 1714–1830. (Swindon: English Heritage, 2011) a wash, by Stuart, now in the British Library, except that the unfluted parts of the column-shafts are embellished with curiously un-Classical carvings to enhance the crude, primitive, archaic allusions, Fig.7. Detail of the Corinthian capital, and the lowest section of the column on the left entablature, and crowning antefixa-like elements has rudimentary carvings suggestive, perhaps, of decorated with anthemion, Choragic Monument of Neolithic decorations seen by Wright during his Lysicrates, Athens, reproduced from James Stuart & sojourns in Ireland when preparing his Louthiana Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens I (1748).6 These Doric columns support a Greek- (London: John Haberkorn, 1762), Ch.IV. Pl.VI, Doric entablature with six triglyphs on its frieze, and engraved by Edward Rooker (1724–7). (Collection James Stevens Curl) above the crowning cornice is a row of inaccurately- observed antefixum-like elements, more like shells, owing their origins to the unusual Greek-Corinthian Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, but singularly inappropriate in this case. Each metope of the frieze THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH Fig. 8. Detail of the mirror-image of Poussin’s Et in Arcadia Ego by Scheemakers. (Photograph © James Stevens Curl). is carved with a relief: at each end of the frieze the head in relief, one certainly male (possibly Pan or a metope is enriched with a laurel-wreath, perhaps Faun, therefore alluding to Arcadia), and the other suggested by the decorations on the Choragic probably female. This rather strangely assembled Monument of Thrasyllus, published in 1789 in aedicule frames a grotto-like arch taken almost Volume II, Ch. IV, Pl. III (with detail as Pl. IV), of straight from a design by Thomas Wright (1711–86)7 The Antiquities of Athens. The central metope also within which is a carved relief by Peter Scheemakers has a laurel-wreath, but with cypress-like fronds (c.1691–1781), the subject being et in Arcadia ego, but arranged in saltire fashion intertwined with it, and in a mirror-image of Poussin’s painting (Fig.8), and on either side each remaining metope has a human with the ‘tomb’ itself transformed into something THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIV THE TOMB IN THE GARDEN : ‘ THE SHEPHERDESS ’ S TOMB ’ AT SHUGBOROUGH grander, less simple, more Baroque, perhaps owing (Best of Wives, Best of Sisters, a Most Loving something to funerary monuments by James Gibbs Widower dedicates this to her Virtues), but this (1682–1754). attempted reconstruction is strictly exempli gratia, It has been suggested that the Grecian elements and interpretation is open to anyone who wants were the work of Stuart, and that the aedicule was to try out his or her hand.10 There have also been added to the Wrightean arch, possibly to protect suggestions that the inscription may allude to that it. The designers of this haunting ‘grave’ in an which is ephemeral, or to the transience of existence: English garden were thus Scheemakers, Wright, and in this reading, the V V may stand for the vanitas (probably) ‘Athenian’ Stuart (whose delineations of vanitatum in Ecclesiastes 1:2 and 12:8, but proposed the antefixa may have been misinterpreted by the phrases or ‘translations’ into Latin from Ecclesiastes person or persons who carved and constructed the do not really work or fit the inscription.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Classical Nakedness in British Sculpture and Historical Painting 1798-1840 Cora Hatshepsut Gilroy-Ware Ph.D Univ
    MARMOREALITIES: CLASSICAL NAKEDNESS IN BRITISH SCULPTURE AND HISTORICAL PAINTING 1798-1840 CORA HATSHEPSUT GILROY-WARE PH.D UNIVERSITY OF YORK HISTORY OF ART SEPTEMBER 2013 ABSTRACT Exploring the fortunes of naked Graeco-Roman corporealities in British art achieved between 1798 and 1840, this study looks at the ideal body’s evolution from a site of ideological significance to a form designed consciously to evade political meaning. While the ways in which the incorporation of antiquity into the French Revolutionary project forged a new kind of investment in the classical world have been well-documented, the drastic effects of the Revolution in terms of this particular cultural formation have remained largely unexamined in the context of British sculpture and historical painting. By 1820, a reaction against ideal forms and their ubiquitous presence during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wartime becomes commonplace in British cultural criticism. Taking shape in a series of chronological case-studies each centring on some of the nation’s most conspicuous artists during the period, this thesis navigates the causes and effects of this backlash, beginning with a state-funded marble monument to a fallen naval captain produced in 1798-1803 by the actively radical sculptor Thomas Banks. The next four chapters focus on distinct manifestations of classical nakedness by Benjamin West, Benjamin Robert Haydon, Thomas Stothard together with Richard Westall, and Henry Howard together with John Gibson and Richard James Wyatt, mapping what I identify as
    [Show full text]
  • Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control Andrew O
    Criticism Volume 58 | Issue 2 Article 9 2016 Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control Andrew O. Winckles Adrian College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism Recommended Citation Winckles, Andrew O. (2016) "Anna Seward and the Poetics of Sensibility and Control," Criticism: Vol. 58 : Iss. 2 , Article 9. Available at: http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol58/iss2/9 ANNA SEWARD At the 2011 meeting of the North American Society for the Study AND THE POETICS of Romanticism, Anne K. Mellor OF SENSIBILITY reflected on how the field has AND CONTROL changed since her foundational Andrew O. Winckles 1993 study Romanticism and Gender. She commented that, though women writers such as Anna Seward and the End of the Mary Wollstonecraft, Jane Austen, Eighteenth Century by Claudia and Mary Shelley have cemented Thomas Kairoff. Baltimore, MD: themselves as legitimate objects Johns Hopkins University Press, of study, this has largely been at 2012. Pp. 328. $58 cloth. the expense of a broader under- standing of how women writers were working during the period. In addition to the Big Six male Romantics, we have in many cases simply added the Big Three female Romantics.1 Though this has begun to change in the last ten years, with important studies appearing about women like Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mary Robinson, Joanna Baillie, and Hannah More, we still know shockingly little about women writers’ lives, cultural con- texts, and works. A case in point is Anna Seward, a poet and critic well known and respected in her own lifetime, but whose critical neglect in the nineteenth and twentieth centu- ries has largely shaped how recent critics interact with her work.
    [Show full text]
  • Eighteenth-Century Sculpture and Its Interpretation
    Eighteenth-century Sculpture and its Interpretation Malcolm Baker University of Edinburgh PhD (by Research Publications) 2003 Eighteenth-century sculpture and its interpretation Publications by Malcolm Baker submitted for Degree of Ph.D by Research Publications The following publications are submitted for the above degree: 1. Figured in Marble. The Making and Viewing of Eighteenth-century Sculpture, London and Los Angeles, 2000. (65,431 words) 2. Roubiliac and The Eighteenth-century Monument. Sculpture as Theatre, New Haven and London, 1995, 207-273, 382-387. (23,337 words) (The text submitted by the candidate forms part of a collaborative work by David Bindman and Malcolm Baker; the volume is made up of several distinct authorial contributions and the responsibility of each author for different parts is clearly stated in the publication.) 3. They are accompanied by a Critical Review (10, 956 words) (Total word length: 99, 724 words.) Appendix I: Catalogue of Roubiliac's Funerary Monuments, forming Part III of Roubiliac and the Eighteenth-century Monument, 275-359 Appendix II: A list of ten related articles. 1 and 2, along with the Critical Review, were written solely by me. The text included under Appendix I was written almost entirely by me but incorporates some material provided by David Bindman and Tessa Murdoch. The articles listed in Appendix II were written solely by me, except for one article of which I was the principal author, the co-authors being Alastair Laing and Colin Harrison. I also declare that none of the above mentioned writings have been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification.
    [Show full text]
  • Erasmus Darwin
    ERASMUS DARWIN “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Erasmus Darwin HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1619 In London, William Harvey confirmed the fact of circulation of the blood. What remained to be figured out was the mechanism by which this was occurring — as we didn’t as yet know of the network of capillaries inside the tissue by which the circuit is completed. Between this year and 1628 he would be constructing his theory of circulation. THE SCIENCE OF 1619 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1621 The botanist John Tradescant joins the service of the Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers. At Oxford, founding of the 1st botanic garden in Britain, by Lord Henry Danvers, the Earl of Danby, 76 years after the founding of the 1st continental garden. This was probably inspired by John Tradescant’s garden of exotic plants in South Lambeth. THE SCIENCE OF 1621 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1690 Denis Papin published his first work on the steam engine, DE NOVIS QUIBUSDAM MACHINIS. The function of his steam engine was to raise water into a canal between Kassel and Karlshaven. He also used a steam engine to pump water to a tank on the palace roof, that supplied water for the fountains in the gardens. THE SCIENCE OF 1690 HDT WHAT? INDEX ERASMUS DARWIN ERASMUS DARWIN 1698 Thomas Savery’s “fire engine,” the first working steam engine, amounted to a pump operated by steam power which had no moving parts.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Moore Institute Online Papers and Proceedings
    Ed Allington and Ben Dhaliwal Reproduction in Sculpture: Dilution or Increase? 10 December 1994 Source: Henry Moore Institute Online Papers and Proceedings www.henry-moore.org/hmi This article has been downloaded from the Henry Moore Institute’s collection of Online Papers and Proceedings, an online publishing facility bringing you the most recent developments in sculpture studies from both inside and outside the Institute. Here you'll find proceedings from many of the Institute's international conferences as well as the latest research from both up-and-coming and established scholars. Copyright remains with the author. Any reproduction must be authorised by the author. Contact: [email protected] The Henry Moore Institute is a world-recognised centre for the study of sculpture in the heart of Leeds. An award-winning exhibitions venue, research centre, library and sculpture archive, the Institute hosts a year-round programme of exhibitions, conferences and lectures, as well as developing research and publications, to expand the understanding and scholarship of historical and contemporary sculpture. The Institute is a part of The Henry Moore Foundation, which was set up by Moore in 1977 to encourage appreciation of the visual arts, especially sculpture. To subscribe our newsletter email: [email protected] www.twitter.com/HMILeeds 1 Ed Allington and Ben Dhaliwal Reproduction in Sculpture: Dilution or Increase? Ed Allington INTRODUCTION TinTin is reeling backward, a dynamic spiral beneath his feet, Hergé’s sign indicating movement. Snowy is beside him mimicking the ‘take’ and emphasising it. In one hand TinTin holds a suitcase, under his arm a parcel which contains an Arumbaya fetish, perhaps the very one he has just travelled through South America to find.
    [Show full text]
  • Katharine Esdaile Papers: Finding Aid
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8x63sn4 No online items Katharine Esdaile Papers: Finding Aid Finding aid prepared by John Houlton, Marilyn Olsen, Catherine Wehrey, and Diann Benti. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © November 2016 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Katharine Esdaile Papers: Finding mssEsdaile 1 Aid Overview of the Collection Title: Katharine Esdaile Papers Dates (inclusive): 1845-1961 Bulk dates: 1900-1950 Collection Number: mssEsdaile Collector: Esdaile, Katharine Ada, 1881-1950 Extent: 101 boxes Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2203 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection contains the papers of English art historian Katharine Ada Esdaile (1881-1950). Much of the collection relates to her research of British monumental sculpture. Notably the collection includes more than 600 chiefly pre-World War II visitor booklets and pamphlets produced locally by British churches and approximately 3500 photographs taken or collected by Esdaile of sculpture, often funerary monuments in English churches. Language: English. Access Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services. Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Mary Steele, the Author of Danebury and the Power of Friendship, a Tale with Two Odes by a Young Lady
    Georgia Southern University Digital Commons@Georgia Southern Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of Spring 2008 Resurrecting the Anonymous: An Introduction To Mary Steele, the Author of Danebury and The Power of Friendship, A Tale with Two Odes by a Young Lady Amanda J. Holmes Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd Recommended Citation Holmes, Amanda J., "Resurrecting the Anonymous: An Introduction To Mary Steele, the Author of Danebury and The Power of Friendship, A Tale with Two Odes by a Young Lady" (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 174. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/174 This thesis (open access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies, Jack N. Averitt College of at Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Georgia Southern. For more information, please contact [email protected]. RESURRECTING THE ANONYMOUS: AN INTRODUCTION TO MARY STEELE, THE AUTHOR OF DANEBURY AND THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, A TALE WITH TWO ODES BY A “YOUNG LADY” by AMANDA HOLMES (Under the Direction of Timothy Whelan) ABSTRACT Published anonymously in 1779 Danebury, or the Power of Friendship, a Tale with Two Odes, has retained its anonymity for over two centuries. Evidence found in the Reeves and Steele Collections housed at Angus Library; Regent’s Park College, Oxford identifies the author as Mary Steele, a provincial young woman with a Nonconformist background who was an active participant in a literary coterie that included other published authors such as Mary Scott, Anne Steele, and Hannah More.
    [Show full text]
  • The Face of Shakespeare S
    Is this the face of Shakespeare? David Shakespeare May 2021 Today you are going to be looking into the the faces of William Shakespeare. The problem is which if any is genuine. Our story is set in the early 18th century and at its centre is one very interesting portrait. Let me put everything into context. The Chandos Portrait William Shakespeare had rested in posthumous an anonymity during most of the Restoration period, but interest in him was growing again in the late 17th Century with improvement in printing techniques and the growth of the entertainment industry. Later as we shall see the marketing of Shakespeare took on a distinctly political edge. A series of publications of his work began to emerge and along with the printed word came illustrations. There was therefore an obvious need for images of the face of Shakespeare. And this the so called Chandos portrait was pretty well all there was to go on, a 16th century portrait of a rather dishevelled man, which was of rather dubious authenticity !1 This the frontispiece of Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 edition of his works. The first to bear illustrations.The source for the engraving is not hard to recognise. Elsewhere in the publication is this illustration of William Shakespeare from Holy Trinity church Stratford upon Avon, specially made by Gerard Van der Gucht. Well not exactly. !2 He based it on a previous engraving dating from 1656 by Wenceslaus Hollar. Hollar Van der Gucht High forehead and a similar design of tunic….yes. But the tiredness has gone, and an aged face is replaced by one of bright disposition, by staring eyes, a neat beard and curly hair.
    [Show full text]
  • Interpreting Epidemic Disease at Eyam, 1666-2000
    Working Papers on The Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel? No. 02/05 A Dreadful Heritage: Interpreting Epidemic Disease at Eyam, 1666-2000 Patrick Wallis © Patrick Wallis Department of Economic History London School of Economics May 2005 “The Nature of Evidence: How Well Do ‘Facts’ Travel?” is funded by The Leverhulme Trust and the ESRC at the Department of Economic History, London School of Economics. For further details about this project and additional copies of this, and other papers in the series, go to: http://www.lse.ac.uk/collection/economichistory/ Series Editor: Dr. Jonathan Adams Department of Economic History London School of Economics Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE Tel: +44 (0) 20 7955 6727 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7955 7730 A Dreadful Heritage: Interpreting Epidemic Disease at Eyam, 1666-2000.1 Patrick Wallis Suffering has sanctified its claim to notice, and the curious and enquiring traveller feels a melancholy pleasure in tracing out the records of the ravages made in this little village by that depopulating scourge of nations2 Abstract Eyam is an epicentre of Europe’s plague heritage. Every year, tens of thousands of people visit the Derbyshire village, drawn by stories of its catastrophic plague and the heroic response it elicited. The story they are told - of a self-imposed quarantine preventing disease spreading to the surrounding area - is an exemplary narrative of a selfless community under strong, positive leadership. But although the plague of Eyam in 1666 is one of the most famous outbreaks of epidemic disease in British history, the narrative is largely a fiction; produced not by doctors, but by poets, writers, and local historians.
    [Show full text]
  • Joseph Willems's Chelsea Pieta and Eighteenth-Century Sculptural Aesthetics Matthew Martin
    Joseph Willems's Chelsea Pieta and eighteenth-century sculptural aesthetics Matthew Martin The question of the extent to which porcelain figures were considered 551 sculpture - that is, figural works bearing an independent meaning, viewed Chelsea Porcelain Factory, Londe.% (manufacturer) and engaged with as such, rather than objects which were seen as components England c. 1744-1709 subsumed into a larger decorative scheme - in mid eighteenth-century England Joseph Willeas (designer) is one of interest. In general, porcelain has acquired overwhelmingly decorative Flanders/England 5.1715-1766 Pieta c.1761 (detail) connotations in art historical discourse and this has overshadowed its place porcelain (soft-Pnete) in sculptural aesthetics. The medium falls foul of the aesthetic critiques of 55.55 28.1 622.8 on National GellerydVictoria, neoclassical theorists such as Winckelmann and Goethe, as it is seen to embody Melbourne the phenomena of material illusionism (one material being employed to imitate Purchesedtbrough TheArt another) and miniaturisation, both identified by Ludwig Giesz in his influential Foundation ofVictori.with the isolate nce of the Alcoa study Phdnomenologie des Kitsches as art historical criteria for kitsch.. The Foundation, GOVernor. 1989 failure to consider the work of the modeller of porcelain figures as an exercise in (D24989) compositional creativity is symptomatic of the more general failure to consider porcelain figures as art and their creators as artists. Being manufactured from moulds, porcelain figures have been placed in the category of reproductive, serially produced objects, and as such are assumed to provide only the most tenuous access to the independent creative processes of the artists responsible for these works.
    [Show full text]
  • The Response to Fame of British Women Poets
    Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. 'All that fame bath cost . ' : The Response to Fame of British Women Poets from 1770 to 1835. A dissertation presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University Rachel Anne J ones 1996 ii ABSTRACT The years 1770 to 1835 produced a considerable number of famous women poets . They were famous at a time when there was a conflict between the ideology of the feminine and the implications of being a published woman poet . Looking in particular at the most successful female poets of the period , I trace the various ways in which they perceived and dealt with that conflict in their lives and their poetry . I argue that the women poets of the period were a diverse group and cannot be regarded as homogeneous , and as such they responded to fame differently. They did , however , share some of the same ideological pressures , and I contend that they all found fame more or less burdensome . In my first chapter I establish the socio-historical conditions in which the women poets were working , with particular reference to the position of poetry during the period . In my second chapter I examine the women poets (More, Barbauld, Seward , and Williams) who were directly influenced by the Bluestocking group , looking at their experience of fame and how fame is treated in their poetry .
    [Show full text]
  • Church Monuments Vols I–XXXI (1985–2016) Authors
    Church Monuments Vols I–XXXI (1985–2016) Authors Alexander, Jennifer S., Hodgkinson, R.W. and contracting in eighteenth-century English Hadcock, Sue A., The Gylbert monument in sculptors’ workshops. X: 90–108 Youlgreave church: memorial or liturgical Baldry, Tony, War memorials and monuments: furnishing? XXI: 94–111 a centenary approach. XXVIII: 109–123 Anderson, Freda, Three Westminster abbots: a Bayliss, Jon, Richard Parker ‘the problem of identity. IV: 3–15 alablasterman’. V: 39–56 Antonovics, Atis V., The tomb of Lady Richard and Gabriel Royley of Burton- Frances Waldegrave at Chewton Mendip upon-Trent, tombmakers. VI: 21–41 (Somerset): new documents on a late- A Dutch carver: Garrett Hollemans I in Victorian sculptural commission. XXIV: England. VIII: 45–56 112–117 An indenture for two alabaster effigies. Arnold, Janet, The jupon or coat-armour of the XVI: 22–29 Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral. ‘What stronger circle can Art-magick VIII: 12–24 find?’ Thomas Skippe, the seventeenth- Askew, Portia, Early medieval Purbeck marble century Skippe monuments at North grave slabs from Southwark. XIII: 15–16 Tuddenham (Norfolk), and Thomas Heywood. XXV: 121–132 Badham, Sally, Richard Gough and the A discovery at Salisbury cathedral. XXVII: flowering of Romantic antiquarianism. II: 90–95 32–43 The monument of William, Lord Parr, at London standardisation and provincial Horton (Northamptonshire). XXVIII: 78– idiosyncrasy: the organisation and working 88 practices of brass-engraving workshops in Epiphanius Evesham: a ‘new’ discovery. pre-Reformation England. V: 3–25 XXVIII: 133–138 Medieval minor effigial monuments in West Bergé, Willem, Sculptors on the move: and South Wales: an interim survey.
    [Show full text]