Different Dimensions: Art and Adventures in Yorkshire

On a powerpoint slide, through a photographer's lens, within a mounted frame, behind glass, beyond the computer screen....the arts as we often know them are often contained and separated from us, flattened in the distant and abstract world of 'culture,' that, in the age of the internet and television, is more incomprehensively vast.   In a strange turn of events, the more available art has become to us through these avenues, the more we forget the reality of their presence; in the great sea of our image-laden world, the beauty and value of the image, for all its two- and three-dimensional impacts in and on our lives, has been diminished.

'Inside' the world of Barbara Hepwroth's art at The Hepworth-Wakefield Museum

This is why I think I particularly enjoyed a day in Yorkshire recently, encountering art in new ways in Wakefield.  On that lucky, blue-sky morning, a short jaunt away from York brought us to both the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the not-so-far-away Hepworth-Wakefield Museum.


The Yorkshire Sculpture Park was a vast reserve of nature and art, nestled together harmoniously on rising and falling hilltops of countryside.  Artists like Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore worked specifically to put this sculpture in the landscape, as the landscape itself had inspired them to create these beautifully voluptuous forms.  The textures, colours, sizes of the shapened metals came to life as the light changed, existing as they did with the trees and the birds, the meadows and the skies, and even the sheep!

A Henry Moore enjoying the company of a herd of sheep. 

Spotting an Anthony Gromley in the treetops. 

It was amazing to see the beautiful sculptures amid these beautiful and ancient trees, which were sculptures in themselves!

Can you spot the Henry Moore across the lake?

Bird-watching, beetle-spotting, and searching for the next sculpture. 

At The Hepworth-Wakefield Museum, the art was presented in a different but also equally illuminating way.  In the gallery context, the sculptures and paintings created a landscape on their own, shown as they were with other sculptures of the period and the drawings and processes it took to make them.  I am very fascinated by artists' drawings, especially as they move between two and three-dimensional, small and large spaces and works, and the museum presented Hepworth's and Moore's processes in particular very eloquently. 

A Henry Moore with some gorgeous drawings of Stonehenge and how the light of the moon plays on dark surfaces. So beautiful!

Hepworth's Mother and Child with some portrait studies in the background. 

The thing I loved about the presentation of these sculptures was the lighting. The surfaces, like in the landscape, were intensified, the colours deepened, and the shadows heightened. The interplay between the sculpture and its shadow was of particular interest to me. 

A gorgeous Hepworth painting. 

I loved the details.

Study for a Crucifix 

The Crucifix 

Sculptures creating landscapes of their own. 

Together, the Sculpture Park and the Museum made a real case for experiencing art in all its dimensions, whether it is explicitly a multi-dimensional sculpture or a painting, that has hidden dimensions, meanings and physical layers of its own.  Experienced in a day, I came away impressed by the case they made for art's multi-dimensional physical presence; how it emerges from, creates and engages landscapes of both the artist and the audience. 

To read more on Barbara Hepworth, consult Susan Cohn's earlier blog....

Photos by author and Simon Crouch

Overlapping Landscapes at the IMC

'Overlapping Landscapes: Past and Present Selves'

- My paper at this year's International Medieval Congress at Leeds

Having had such a hoot at last year's IMC, where I presented a paper on Cosmè Tura's 'Virgin and Child Enthroned', I immediately submitted an abstract for this year's congress. A year later, the abstract I had submitted happened to have predicted almost precisely what I am currently working on (genius!), and thus was born an interesting paper on overlapping times and spaces within single artworks. I progressed from Byzantine Old Testament landscapes evoked in New Testament scenes, to continuous narrative, and finally culminating in explorations of fifteenth-century Ferrarese paintings.  

This year I commuted from York, so didn't go the whole hog like last year -- sessions, pints, session, wine, more wine, partying, repeat -- but rather I attended a few fascinating panels, lunched with some friends I hadn't seen in a good while, attended more sessions, met new people at wine receptions or post-panel, and returned to York. 

Highlights were: session 1105 ''Another Dante', II: Salvation in and After the Commedia' (including an intriguing analysis of musical prayers in Paradiso and the status of Pagans in the afterlife); session 1206 'Living Religion in the City in Medieval Central Italy' (after which I had a cider in the sun with the delightful speakers); and session 1625 'Apocalyptic Alterity: Otherness and the End Times' (which was thoroughly riveting and engaged with pertinent modern-day issues, dealing with patterns of prophesying throughout the Middle Ages using a single case study and exploring notions of androgyny/hermaphroditism at the beginning times and end times and how the soul relates to the body's gender).

The true highlight, of course, was *my* session, which - alas! - was the 'graveyard' slot this year, the very last session of the conference. Funnily enough, I was presenting in the same room as last year, the difference being that last year the room had been packed out. Thankfully, about eight people did turn up, and they were all hugely interested and interesting. The panel was 1703 'World within Worlds: the Many Different Layers in Medieval Art and Literature'. One particular paper given by a certain Katja Weidner (with whom I went for a chat and a drink in the sun afterwards) intermeshed so fascinatingly - and I might say perfectly - with mine, though relating to an earlier medieval tale about a monk and a bird. Both our papers explored the intersections between different places, the visible and invisible, overlapping spaces and times, both even drawing on Augustine. The Q&A afterwards gradually transformed into a stimulating seminar format, speakers and audience all discussing avidly. I must say, the audience may have been smaller than some, but they were stellar! 

All in all, a good show.   

Conferences and Cathedrals, Seminars and Seminaries: Edinburgh and Durham

Over the past few months, conference presentations have allowed me not only to explore my work further, but to explore the cities of Edinburgh and Durham as well.

Several months ago, I kicked off a weekend in Edinburgh by giving a presentation at the university's Humanities Nineteenth Century Research Seminars, giving my essay alongside a paper on Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Presenting on a panel always stimulates me to make interesting connections - ones I wouldn't have expected to make - and that day I was fascinated to learn more about Emerson's poetics (which I have always loved), and to see the potential to analyse the theological elements of his expression, as both similar and vastly different from Burne-Jones's own poetical use of theology.

The remainder of the weekend was spent wandering up and down the blustery streets of the darkly towered city, never far from sleepy graveyards or chiming cathedral bells.

Surprise! Even found a Burne-Jones window!! 

A few weeks ago, I was thrilled by the opportunity to present at an extensive 3-day international conference on Catholicism and the Arts at Durham.  Set in the scenic colleges in and outside Durham - first within the city, at St. Chad's, and then a short morning jaunt on the bus to the ancient Ushaw College, a former seminary - it was the perfect place to present and hear about the dynamic intertwining of the arts and Catholicism, from 1850 through to today!  Headlining speakers included renowned Cambridge historian Eamon Duffy; Melanie McDonagh, a writer from the London Evening Standard; and the Irish Ambassador, Dan Mulhall.  Anna, a fellow University of York PhD in English Literature presenting on the poet David Jones, served as an excellent reminder that conferences are always more fun with friends!

Arriving at Ushaw College the second day of the conference.

The gorgeous Refectory, where the main conference dinner was served at the end of the second day. 

'The Professor's Parlour' - where I presented!

The Exhibition Hall

Uni of York girls have more fun! 

Never be afraid to set off and present at a conference: it is an integral part of graduate and post-graduate life.  I have been so grateful for all the suggestions I have received on my own research when I have presented, all the contacts I have made, and for the diversity of topics I have heard of when I have just attended or listened to other speakers! With these conferences in the books, I can only wonder where the next one could take me...!