It’s been a huge honour that these last couple of years I have been asked to research, write and discuss themes related to art and war on behalf of the Mayor’s Charity here in Southend.
However, with our communal life made impossible by the Covid-19 pandemic and the need to keep everyone safe, the Charity itself has been suspended for 2020. Furthermore, public Remembrance Day and Armistice Day ceremonies have been severely restricted if not curtailed.
Southend Cenotaph
Yet, remember we must, one way or another.
Here I have posted some of the slides from our 2019 Mayor’s Charity Memorial Talk showing a range of paintings and drawing made by women artists working on the Home Front. Some of the artists you might find familiar, others not; certainly their art is an extraordinary insight into a time and place we, for the most part now, can only imagine.
This is only a small selection, but I hope they might inspire you to research these artists further. The best place to start is the Imperial War Museum website or via artuk.org
In the meantime, stay safe and take care. I believe there’s to be a two-minute silence ‘on the doorsteps’ of the nation.
So absolutely glorious to hear the two versions of “Jerusalem” at the Proms last evening – not only Hubert Parry’s traditional version, but Errolyn Warren’s delicious re-visioning “Jerusalem – our clouded hills” in which she
has added a blues feeling and African rhythm.
Subtitled ‘our clouded hills’, her piece is dedicated to the Windrush generation and encourages a communion of Commonwealth nations…
With more detail on the website, the Tate summarises the complex poem:
In Jerusalem, Albion (England) is infected with a ‘soul disease’ and her ‘mountains run with blood’ as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars. Religion exists only to help monarchy and clergy exploit the lower classes. Greed and war have obscured the true message of religion. However, if Albion can be reunited with Jerusalem, the story goes, then all humanity will once again be bound together with love.
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And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon Englands mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
Intriguingly, “Jerusalem” – the song we all know, with its music written by Hubert Parry and its orchestration by Edward Elgar – is actually from Blake’s poem “Milton” in which he recalls the possibility that Jesus had once travelled to England (Glastonbury) with Joseph of Arimathea.
And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills?
If so, and the dark satanic mills of Blake’s contemporary world – with its Enlightenment science and industrial rationalism – were obscuring the spiritual knowledge and perceptive vision that Heaven was once here, then
Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold: Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In Englands green & pleasant Land.
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It’s that ‘Mental Fight’ that is so important here – the power of art, poetry, the creative imagination – and takes us to Simon Schama’s new series The Romantics and Us in which (in part one, “Passions of the People”) William Blake also makes a significant appearance as “one of the founding fathers of Romanticism”.
Living in a “city growing fat with the profits of Empire” where everyday he saw the extremes of wealth and destitution, Blake was, in Schama’s (really quite emotional tone) “always reaching for that bit of Heaven as he sees everybody as potentially wonderful. That’s his adorable thing… that’s how he sees the world even in the middle of… filthy, cruel, ferocious meat-grinder London.”
I’d highly recommend watching it as Testament brings home the relevance of Blake today and Simon Schama marks the passions of William Blake, Eugene Gericault, Mary Wollstonecraft and others and the impact they’ve had on our subsequent histories.
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Have we, in 2020, entered a new Romantic Age?
Orc – a vigorous youth, surrounded by the fires of revolutionary passion – symbolises the spirit of rebellion and the love of freedom [Tate].
I’ve just watched James Fox’s “A Very British Renaissance: The Elizabethan Code” on BBC i-player (available for the next few weeks) and he highlighted two extraordinary paintings from the Elizabethan Age, well worth watching (from about 14minutes in).
The first stretches the concept of what a portrait might be:
It’s a “portrait” of Sir Henry Unton, commissioned by his widow in about 1596 and at the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately the artist is unknown, but the painting shows scenes from Upton’s life – from birth in the lower right hand corner to his death.
I find it quite amazing – indeed rather exciting! It seems to recall medieval church wall-painting rather than suggesting the ‘face’ portraits that would come to dominate British art.
The second rather fabulous painting James Fox discusses is again a portrait which currently resides in the archives of Northampton Art Gallery:
Sir Christopher Hatton, by an unknown artist again (although the artist has pictured himself at the bottom left).
In turn the painting includes all sorts of symbolism to decode – and what brilliant colours! – but to fully appreciate the whole it also needs to be turned about as the imagery continues onto the back.
There are some notes about the work online at artuk.org – including the possibility that the artist was from the studio of portrait painter William Segar (1554-1633) and even that an astrologer (depicted at the bottom right?) may have been involved in the painting.
Otherwise there seems to be very little information, so it’s fascinating to see the programme.
And how very intriguing these pictures are, so very “eccentric” – showing, as Fox says, that English Renaissance painting was experimental, rich and sophisticated.
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