It's a Hard-Knock Life...

At the completion of my Byronic wanderings on the continent and my return to Albion’s glorious isle, I am busy configuring next year’s diary, a veritable bedlam of research trips, Latin classes, conference presentations and the odd fellowship. So, here’s a quick distillation.

As well as actually writing my thesis (a minor inconvenience at 90,000 words), I will start the year teaching “Materials of Art and Architecture”, a means of inflicting my know-it-all swottiness on a class of unsuspecting teenagers for an hour a week. Once that ordeal is over and I have presented a paper of earth-shattering wisdom at the Courtauld Institute of Art’s early modern postgraduate conference, then comes the meat and two veg of PhD research, namely gallivanting around international museums and enjoying a taste of the high life.

First up, Vienna to see my Caravaggio and also a colossal Rubens retrospective at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, The Power of Transformation. Once I have had my fill of Rubens, opera, Käsekrainer and Mozarttorte, I will venture across the pond to New Orleans, this year’s location for the Renaissance Society of America’s annual meeting. 

After a short stay in New York City, I am back in Europe to complete an internship (“REP” in WRoCAH-speak) at the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, where they are preparing an exhibition on Flemish art for the building’s grand opening.

After wallowing in the city’s numerous thermal baths, not least the spectacular Rudas and Gellert and having put my non-existent Hungarian to good use, I’m in for a short spell in Blighty before packing my bags again for the AHRC’s International Placement Scheme in Washington D.C. Basking in the magisterial presence of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, I will research the history of Antwerp and my church at the world’s biggest library, the Library of Congress. 

For my perusal around the corner is the Folger Shakespeare Library, National Gallery of Art and numerous other hallowed institutions.

Did anyone say baseball?

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...!

Belshazzar & Berlioz

Rembrandt, Belshazzar's Feast. 1636-8, Oil on canvas, 167.6 x 209.2 cm. National Gallery, London.

Singing in the University Choir: Belshazzar's Feast and Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale

On the 14th June I had the pleasure of singing with the University Choir alongside the University Symphony Orchestra in this term's concert in York Minster. It was a marvellous and really rather grand occasion, directed by the brilliant Peter Seymour and fervent conductor John Stringer. The first half was Berlioz's stereotypically French Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale, performed mainly by the orchestra, with the choir bursting in at the end the final movement with 'Gloire! Gloire et triomphe!' The second was all Walton - the grandiose Crown Imperial followed by the iconic Belshazzar's Feast: מנא מנא תקל ופרסין‎ 

Belshazzar also featured the incredible visiting baritone, whom I had the delight to get to know after the concert, Benedict Nelson. I sang with the comparatively small tenor section of the choir, having joined this section to charitably try to boost it, since there are only about ten of them, compared to about sixty sopranos etc. It really was good fun, a fantastic culmination of the term's rehearsals and I believe the crowd thoroughly enjoyed it -- certainly a couple of friends of mine did! The mighty brass section may have at times drowned out the choir, but these things happen...

Look out for more termly Uni Choir concerts! I intend to remain with the choir - 'tis a fun hobby on a Monday evening!

Guest Post: Barbara Hepworth and Single Form (Antiphon)

Guest writer Susan Cohn writes an article on Barbara Hepworth, the focus of her Master's dissertation, and the artist's sculpture on exhibition in the local Yorkshire area...

Exhibition: Disobedient Bodies, The Hepworth Wakefield  Until June 18th, 2017

Dame Barbara Hepworth

Single Form (Antiphon), 1969

Bronze, 223.5 x 61 x 61 cm 

Barbara Hepworth initially carved this elegant, elongated vertical form Single Form, Antiphon in a natural boxwood in 1953 then had it cast in bronze in 1969 to reproduce the edition now at The Hepworth Wakefield in the dynamic exhibition Disobedient Bodies. The work has recently been restored and is on loan from the University of York’s art collection where it was originally placed within the natural landscape on the campus grounds outside the Jack Lyons Concert Hall. In the current exhibition Disobedient Bodies, Hepworth’s Single Form, Antiphon has moved from a dialogue with the outdoor landscape to multiple dialogues with brilliant fashion designs of the most current trends in the fashion industry and alongside sculptures of many of Hepworth’s former contemporaries such as Alberto Giacometti, Jean Arp, Henry Moore and Naum Gabo. Barbara Hepworth poetically articulates her inspiration for this sculpted form in her writing,

The forms which have had special meaning for me since 
childhood have been the standing form …. the inspiration 
always comes either from the artist in the landscape, 
feeling it, becoming it, or the spectator observing the 
figure in the landscape.  

Hepworth’s approach to sculpture was a technique of direct carving and her derivative of the ancient craft, one she learned early in her career from a master carver in Italy. She experimented with this method and adapted the process to capture her expression of a natural landscape in a sculptural form. Hepworth indicated in her writings that many of her works were locally inspired by the landscapes of Cornwall she experienced throughout her adult years in combination with forms of landscapes she fondly recalls from her childhood experiences in the Yorkshire West Riding area and the city of Wakefield. Her sensitive articulation in words of her sculptural expression by hand offers many poetic insights to a clearer understanding of her artistic sensibilities. In terms of her connection with nature and expression in material forms, she states:

All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. 
Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my 
father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the 
form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically 
over the contours of fulnesses and concavities, through hollows 
and over peaks – feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and 
hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, 
am the landscape. I am the form and I am the hollow, the thrust 
and the contour. 

If you walk along the path today from Whitby to Robin Hood’s Bay where Hepworth summered as a child with her family, you will see the rolling hills as they rise and fall alongside the cliffs embracing the waves along the shoreline of the coast. You can almost follow her feel the curves and lines of the forms as she carved them patiently and carefully out of the natural wood. The spiralling lines moving upward along the figure of Single Form, Antiphon seem to grow up from the base or the land if it were one of the ancient stones Hepworth observed and studied that still stand tall in mysterious formations in the Cornwall area. The subtle piercing holes of her sculpture are carved to allow a binocular view of the surrounding landscape, now the gallery conversations, previously in view of the outdoor ponds, greenery and flowers, birds and animals, of the campus landscape.

The original wood sculpture, it is on view at the Oxford University Ashmolean Gallery

Dame Barbara Hepworth

Single Form (Antiphon), 1953

Boxwood, 223.5 x 61 x 61 cm

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

In its natural setting, it was located near the Jack Lyons Concert Hall at the University of York  

This was the view of Single Form, Antiphon in dynamic dialogue with fashion designs in Disobedient Bodies

While visiting The Hepworth Wakefield, for those interested in further information on the making of bronze sculpture from original and plaster sculptures, there is the brilliant permanent collection in the next gallery of the plasters Hepworth donated to the museum. This includes informative videos, tools, illustrations, and gallery labels with explanations of the process of casting bronze from plasters and original materials. Many of Hepworth’s feature marble, wood, paintings, textiles and bronze works from the collection along with her personal library also now on display in The Barbara Hepworth Exhibition.  

Susan Cohn is currently a Masters student at the University of York, from Winnipeg, Canada. 

Living Letters, Winding Roads, and Glowing Windows

The lesson I have learned again and again during the course of academic study: Research can take you anywhere.  This becomes a deeper and greater truth as one moves from an undergraduate interest, fevered Masters work, to the long-sustained journey of a doctorate.

Arriving at the British Library this past week for the first time, I thought my time there would have been the adventure in itself. The gaping brick archway, the interior plaza, the clatter of locker doors and feet dashing up and down successive stairways as Academia's labourers, young and old, marched in and out of darkened reading rooms like bees in a hive. It was like a train station for any and all kind of querying researcher - the glassy, mirrored elevators even announced the 'stops' at each floor, rattling off: 'Social Sciences Reading Room, Music Room, Manuscript Library....'

And as a great heap of albums was plunked before me in the Manuscripts room, I thought for sure I would never leave! Windowless and chilled by air conditioning, the room enclosed researchers who seemed motionlessly absorbed in their own work.  As I began to comb through Burne-Jones's accounts of the weather, of complete and incomplete commissions, of dinner parties joyful and tedious, I felt that I too would be bound up in my albums - much like the other researchers, much like the letters themselves!

However, the reading of the letters brings you on an imaginative, investigative journey through the realms of another person's world, other people's times - the places and things they loved, hated, or just thought about on a regular basis.  It is a mystery, piecing together the hints and fragments of their lives through the scribbled notations of a quickly-moving, rapidly-thinking artist's hand.  And this time, the mystery led me beyond my imagination, out of the library and to the heart of the experiences many of the letters recounted. 

Later in life, Burne-Jones spent much time by the seaside, supplementing his health with the fresh salty air and designing quietly in his studio.  Writing to his young friend Mrs. Haskell, he recounts the joys and struggles of  his work, of missing grown children, of a nagging wife...of his both hopeful and sorrowful relationship with God and heaven.   He specifically addresses these topics when recounting the characters he sees regularly at his church - obsessed with the high-booted, 'very very old' Vicar who is fond of hunting - and the windows that Burne-Jones not only designed but paid for himself, dedicating them to his daughter there.  When they were put up in 1893, Burne-Jones made a point of explaining the event and describing the pieces to Haskell:

The window is up and looks bummy [can anyone tell me what that might mean in this context? haha] and glows - the grave-digger says it's the splendidest thing in Sussex.

There are 3 lights – and on the left hand is Gabriel and under him a little panel of the Annunciation and he says – but of course in Latin which is his native tongue “I am Gabriel the Archangel, the messenger of great joy."  

And in the middle light is Michael – and under him a panel of his fight with the dragon – and he says I am Michael the Archangel, captain of the hosts of heaven."  

And then comes Raphael (not the painter) and he has a little picture under his of a guardian Angel leading Angela [Thirkel - his granddaughter] through the streets of London and he says – “I am Raphael, keeper of the Lord’s little ones."

And I daren’t ask how much it will cost to make – it’s the only way if you want anything, not to ask how much – and there it is – it’s a thankful offering for Margaret and it said in Latin in a very narrow band.

And it glows and glows the window does.

I was exuberant!  This was very exciting to find for my research, as often Burne-Jones's involvement in church and religious life is questioned - this sustained conversation about religious life and its significance for his personal and artistic goings-on go far to deepen our understanding of the role of his faith in his life and art (complex as his faith - or any one else's for that matter - is).  

A 'double-check' on the letters' addresses and letter-headings revealed he was writing from Rottingdean, where he had his home at the 'North End House' across the street from the church of St. Margaret of Antioch.  This required a bit more digging - an investigation not to be undertaken in the cool shadowed spaces of the British Library but out onto the roads, into the sunshine and to the (never-before-seen) English seaside! 

So as they say in the movies: "ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!!" 

A two hour drive to the swelling hillsides of Sussex brought me not only to the windows, but the very town Burne-Jones talked of walking through - the seaside air he breathed - the house he lived in and wrote from -  the church with the 'very' old vicar and the windows he took such pains and care and love to dedicate to his daughter.  They were just as the gravedigger described, just as he himself said: 'the splendidest thing in Sussex'; all 'bummy' and glowing!  That day, the letters came to life! 

St. Margaret of Antioch's

The glowing 'bummy' windows

Burne-Jones's home right across the town square.

And just down the street - the beach!

Some shots of the beautiful blue-sky town. 

The memorial to Edward Burne-Jones and wife Georgiana at the church.