Week 15: Quilts/V&A

Ugh. What a truly crap waste of money this weeks cultural pursuit was. I am not feeling on top form today so please forgive in advance my total disdain for the mound of wank that was the V& Quilts “exhibition”. Frankly, and this is not a sweeping generalisation I have been going to exhibs at the V&A now for over a decade, they should have their curatorial balls cut off. They are the most incompetent bunch of short sited half wits to ever grace a museum and should all be told to take a hike lugging their dusty, shoddy half realised decorative cardboard screens with them – the only thing they ever actually bother to produce - and their smug boring faces too. If you pay £10 for an exhibition you kind of expect something and this was the most underwhelming experience I’ve had, like EVER, in a gallery. £10 worth of pink paint.

Now, I admit that an exhibition of quilts was never going to awaken everyone’s interest. However, I am actually very interested in quilts. In fact I was a bit pissed off when I heard about the Quilt exhib a year ago as it was about 6 months prior to this that I had decided to make my own patchwork quilt and felt they were somewhat stealing my thunder. Ah the trials of a trail blazer such as myself. To put a bit of context around this I had at that time recently rediscovered the wander of sketching, having not laid pencil to paper since the end of my tad disastrous and much mocked (by me) Art A level. (It’s amazing what incompetent teaching will do to turn bright young inspired minds away from a particular pursuit – THANKS for that Mr Walsh maybe next time you could bother actually TEACHING people, and note to everyone else if you want to do fuck all for the rest of your life become an art teacher apparently you can get away with anything, or in this case nothing). Anyway, having rediscovered the joys of home based hobbies, something I will not go into now, I decided to turn my mind/fingers to similar crafty things and having been obsessed with a book as a child called Peaches at Midnight all about a patchwork quilt I thought why not. Then I decided it was really more of a winter pursuit and then I tried to sew on a button and reminded myself I fucking hate sewing more than most things and am shit at it and really don’t care so that was the end of that. Still stole my idea though.

Anyway, my point is I wasn’t against the idea to begin with and was actually quite looking forward to it, until I actually attended. Firstly, who in their right mind does an exhibition about quilts without even mentioning America????????? EVERYONE knows America is the king of quilts. In fact, the Wikipedia article on quilting barely even mentions Britain at all. It seems to be true that the tradition was held in Britain before the states but then when it did get going over there it was about 50000 times more interesting than any of the boring, I mean SO BORING, shit produced on this side of the pond. For example, one room of the “exhibition” was called Private Thoughts/Political Debates. This was obviously exploring how women, confined to the home BLAH BLAH BLAH were able to express their political ideas through their quilting. So, it became fashionable for companies to produce bits of fabric with prints on of famous historical scenes or contemporary scenes of battles etc and women would usually sew them into the middle of the quilt and thus the whole piece is politicised and also easy to date. Whoop-fucking woo. Actually that’s a bit unfair I didn’t know that before so, now I do. HOWEVER, in comparison to this America is SO much more interesting. For example, quilts are very much caught up in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Am feeling bit yuck so just going to quote Wiki directly here apologies:

“There are stories that certain quilts were used as signals [in the Underground Railroad] to help the slaves in their flight to freedom. The idea that a log cabin quilt would be hung on the line of a safe house was one. More recent stories tell of certain quilts being used to tell the slaves what they needed to do to get to safety.”

Well that’s pretty damn interesting and maybe would have somehow helped to liven up the revoltingly bland exhibition that this was. OR:

“During the Civil War quilts were made to earn money for the war effort and to give warmth and comfort to soldiers. The patterns were much like those made mid-century but the purpose was different. Quilts connected to the abolitionist movement and the Civil War were made for a cause […] In the north quilts were still made for fairs but now these fairs earned money to support needs that came about because of the war. In the south lovely quilts called gun boat quilts were made to pay for much needed gun boats.”

Instead what we have were a few dusty panels with something like ‘Wellington’ written in the middle. Thanks.

To be honest, I found the whole thing pretty damn depressing. We were meant, I think, to be looking on in wonder at these beautifully crafted bits of fabric but frankly all they said to me were thousands of years of confinement, repression and abject boredom. These poor fucking women had nothing better to do with their time, at all, and not only that there were seemingly the only way to express any ideas or comment on the world around them. It wasn’t until the 19th century at some point that quilting started filtering down to the lower classes, before that it was the exclusive domain of wealthy ladies as they were the only ones who had enough time and inclination to waste on these bits of pointless busy work. The rows and rows of little bits of fabric painstakingly sewed together were like cages keeping bored uneducated idol women inside, wrapping them up in their pointless lives – quilts as social cotton wool, horrid.

Maybe it would have helped if I had got an audio guide, but damn it those pricks weren’t getting anymore of my ‘hard earned’ dosh. At one point there was something of vague interested mentioned in passing:

“The government-funded Rural Industries Bureau (RIB), recognising the commercial appeal of regional quilts, promoted quilt-making as a means of binging income to households struggling to survive in a period of economic depression”.

Now, if I knew more about this I think it would be very interesting. However, the only information we are given other than this was from a 2 minute taped interview with an old women played out from an undefined point somewhere above our heads and totally drowned out by the general noise of the exhibition – in this case SCREAMING babies. I don’t mind crying babies, that’s what they do, but these unbearable women who take them to places like this and weal them around as they scream their lungs out should be lined up and shot. Not only is it basic fucking child abuse – pick them up and give them a hug you nasty bitch, but its also totally selfish to just to stand there and let them cry RUINING everyone else’s enjoyment – make them stop crying or take them out. Or give me back my ten quid you cunts. Anyway, the point is no real info was given and you couldn’t even hear the interview and instead we got to see 2 really hideous and boring examples of these types of quilts shown below. Wow, mind-blowing. ON THE INTERNET have managed to get some info on this related to Wales and the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century the tradition of quilting had almost totally died out:

“There was a resurgence between the two world wars when the Rural Industries Bureau established a programme to encourage craft industries in areas affected by economic depression. The quilts made during this time were mainly high quality quilts to sell as luxury items in wealthier areas. Sadly though, fabric production ceased during World War II, and after the war there was neither the necessity or the skills remaining to carry on the craft in any major fashion”

Throughout the exhibition they had mostly really bad contemporary pieces of quilting or art work related to quilting. Oh V&A aren’t you clever thinking of mixing in the contemporary with the traditional rather than just doing it chronologically –why don’t you give yourselves a big smug pat on the back and then I can give you a kick in the gut. Maybe if they had actually chosen some half interesting pieces this would have worked but of course, you didn’t. In fact was there even a Tracey Emin quilt in this show? I think not. Instead we got bland obvious clichéd pieces like the one by someone whose name doesn’t even come up on the internet and cant find a picture of her shitty little artwork but she SO CLEVERLY (??) thought to mirror the plight of woman at home with the idea of a quilt made up of sections of embroidery depicting household appliances or the covers of women’s magazines. This art work was produced last year. Yes, really, how original!!!!!!????????????????

There was one quite good piece by Grayson Perry with lots of foetuses spinning round obviously drawing on ideas of the quilt as safety and comfort and its natural association with the bed and yet showing the tensions behind this. Blah blah. For the most part though the contemporary stuff was embarrassingly bad.

One other piece I did quite like was by the inmates of Wandsworth Prison who have a sewing club and together made this quilt. I like the ideas this articulates about the communal, shared work of making a quilt, giving people a sense of purpose but also a way to bond with each other and communicate their feelings about prison life to the outside world.

I can’t be bothered to waste any more of my time on this pitiful waste of space – don’t bother going, and if you meet anyone who claims to like it know that they are empty stupid meaningless people who should be slapped. Get a life.

Week 14: Archway last supper: Indian Meal

Hello everyone, today I feel a little sad not only because its Monday and that always make me want to weep profusely but also because it is the last week I will be living in my current north London abode with my lovely flatmates – next week am moving West with the pretty people and with an equally nice flatmate but am extremely sad none the less – it’s the end of an era!! To mark the end of over 18 month’s happy inhabitation yesterday I held my last Salisbury Walk dinner party (insert sad face here). Originally I was faced with the sticky task of catering for a vegetarian, someone who was allergic to fish and someone who doesn’t eat tomatoes, so a curry seemed like the only way forward. Luckily most of these picky arseholes dropped out but my inspiration remained. In total the dinner party consisted of: me, Jason, Chris, Nat, Emily, Sam and Diccon. And a very jolly band it was too.

Now, the fact that I have to pack up everything I own, cart it across London and lug it up 4 flights of stairs in less than a week should have somewhat dampened my spice buying enthusiasm but no, with many extra ingredients purchased I now have even more crap to carry around with me. Some of the less economical of you may say what’s the point? Dump them and buy more when you get there, but have done that now on so many occasions must have wasted about £50 worth of spices minimum over the last 7 years and not doing it again. Waste not want not etc.

So, I love making curries and don’t make them enough. They always reminds me of home as it’s something my dad always made traditionally and also for the last decade or so we have always had one as a family on Christmas eve. That is usually a much more bountiful feast than the one I cooked last night, the centre piece being a big old Rahn (yum yum yum) with various side dishes. I wanted to make my meal meat free but I did take one of the classic dishes we always serve with this which is The Lake Palace Hotels Aubergines in the Pickling style from the bible that is Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. I have my dads old version of this, vintage 70s brown encrusted and the aubergine page is barely visible from so many years of being dripped on. It smells a bit too but its authentic damn it and no curry would be complete without a dish from this cook book, as far as I am concerned anyway. Here is a brief description of this dish, which I have adapted slightly to make less greasy:

Cut 800g aubergines into quarters then chunks – not to thin, about 2 centimetres thick. Lay them on a rack or tray or something and oven-roast them until they have gone all brown. In the meantime fry a teaspoon of cumin seeds with about 2 teaspoons of fennel seeds in oil and stir for a few seconds. Then add a tin of chopped tomatoes and 6 or so cloves of garlic blended (separately) with a big hunk of root ginger, coriander seeds (ground) and turmeric, and some other stuff possibly that I can’t be bothered to look up right now. Stir this up and reduce to a thick paste then add the aubergine and heat through. Its bloody fucking delicious and the nicest thing that can be done with aubergines in my humble opinion, and believe me I love the aubergine, I especially love the name. Here is a link to the full recipe:

http://www.nibblous.com/recipe/183

A while ago I did buy another Indian cook book which had a recommendation from Nigel Slater on the front, who I increasingly hate, called 50 Great Curries of India. However, it’s total bullshit in comparison to Madhur Jaffrey and have never once actually cooked anything from it, although I do enjoy reading it. It has quite a few essays at the front on such subjects as ‘Culinary India, ‘the History of Indian cuisine, ‘the Philosophy of Indian Cuisine, ‘What is a curry’, ‘Planning an Indian meal’ and much more including detailed analysis of flavour, layering of flavour and extensive reference sections for all types of spices and other ingredients. In short it’s pretty extensive reading for the arm chair cook, as I most definitely am. From this book I may not have been able to cook any actual food but I definitely understand the culture of eating and cooking more in India because of it, so it is definitely very helpful for this blog. For one thing when making an Indian meal we are apparently diving into the cultural heritage of Ayuveda. This is basically the Indian tradition of medical and emotional well being – or whatever- and is based around the balancing of different humours (7 types) in the body (yes GCSE history of medicine here we come) different personality types and different flavours of food, or stimuli. There is a hell of a lot more to it than that obviously but principally Ayurvedic tradition dictates that all illnesses; mental or physical, should first be treated with food before drugs of some kind are tried. Food tastes can be divided into sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent and basically all meals have to combine these in different degrees depending on the personality of the eater, the seasons and their bodies. It’s also just a good idea to try and combine those different tastes to achieve proper balance, in taste and life. I didn’t achieve this totally last night but make a pretty good stab at it with my chosen menu.

Another important part of the Ayurvedic cooking tradition is the way the food is prepared and consumed. It should be prepared with love, which is why even in the richest Indian households the wives will usually cook for their families, even if the domestic help prepares the ingredients first. Similarly the food should be consumed in quietude and peace unlike western traditions of being as raucous and chatty as possible during meals. I particularly like the idea of food being prepared with love, mainly because it reminds me of the genius Sarah Michelle Gellar movie ‘Simply Irresistible’ which for some reason I have seen at least twice. This straight to DVD triumph centres around the main character, AKA SMG, who inherits a restaurant off a dead relative. For some reason, I forget why or how, she makes friends with a magical crab (yes really) who manages to make all her food taste the way she feels when she is cooking it, so if she is sad anyone eating her food feels sad, etc. It’s bloody great, and clearly inspired by Ayuerverdic principles.

Anyway, my food was definitely cooked with love and quite a lot of intoxication, so that’s good. I also tried very hard to balance everything. For example there was lots of cumin which is ‘cooling’ and good for the digestion – actually pretty much ALL the spices are said to be good for the digestion but have to say my digestion didn’t feel too bloody good first thing this morning. It was very spicy in parts i.e. warming and also there was lots of lime which are sour, and tomatoes which are also considered sour (and surprisingly only introduced to the continent by the Portuguese in the 16th century) Rice and ghee are considered sweet along with the chutney and onions and garlic etc are classed to be pungent. Traditional Indian meals will rarely contain meat, and if they do (only really in the most affluent houses) it will be a very small amount. They will almost always have a dal/lentil dish, which is the traditional dish of India, rice or breads and a vegetable dish of some kind.

For my dal I made chana dal or small yellow split peas. This was a very easy recipe where I boiled a big pan of water with the yellow split peas, added turmeric, salt and ginger then covered and simmered for about an hour until it was like baby food. Then I heated oil in a frying pan and added cumin seeds and then chopped garlic until browned and poured the lot in with the curry – I also added a small handful of whole dried red chillies which I fried for a second or two first. It was gooood. I added a lot of extra water to make it soupy as this dish is traditionally served with breads to dip in. Surprisingly a large proportion of India wouldn’t serve rice with their curries it being quite expensive but I served basmati rice with cardamom pods, because I like it!!

For my third and final dish I wanted to use up a big bag of dried chickpeas I had in the cupboard so for the first time ever I managed to actually soak them for 24 hours before hand so they were ready to cook for another hour and a half til tender, then I could actually get round to currying the bastards!! Again from Madhur Jaffreys book I made Sour Chickpeas, or Khatte Chloe. According to old Madhur this is one of India’s tastiest snack foods, regularly served from street vendors so one to avoid if you don’t want to die of salmonella poisoning. Anyway this is generally eaten as a snack in India but fuck it here it’s a main ok???? After boiling the chickpeas forever, literally, cook a large amount of finely chopped onions in oil until slightly browned then add a small tin of tomatoes, cook down a bit, then add a tablespoon of ground coriander, a tablespoon of ground cumin and half a teaspoon of turmeric. Then add the chickpeas and some water and 2 teaspoons of gareme masala and a quarter of a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Then after cooking it for 20 mins or so add a small handful of chopped uncooked onion, a tablespoon of finely chopped ginger and a few chopped up chillies. Serve hot or warm with breads or rice.

Anyway, impressively it was all eaten and we then tucked into a bountiful selection of chocolate and chocolate biscuits kindly supplied by Nat and Emily which was perfect for balancing the delicate flavours blah blah blah and also made me feel very very sick. I have had many happy dinner parties, and happy times in general in good old Salisbury Walk and will miss it greatly. Never have I felt such sadness at leaving a house and although am very excited about my next place I will always think of my Archway days with bucket loads of fondness. Boo Hoo. Next week bitches, when I will be a West London girl once again.

Week 13 (sort of): Marisa Carneskys Dystopian Wonders/Roundhouse

So, Ok this isn’t REALLY week 13, I admit it – I actually didn’t do anything at all last week apart from lie on my arse on the Heath and stress out about my flat. HOWEVER, for one thing this isn’t bloody work, I don’t HAVE to do it and refuse to feel guilty for not managing it for one week. Secondly; I will do TWO cultural things this week to compensate and thirdly, come on none of you care anyway! OK?

So, to make up for my shameful lethargy and disorganisation last week I have managed, thanks once again to the fragrant Georgie, to do something so arty last night that post show I practically gave birth to a copy of Art Forum. Georgie kindly invited me last week and although very game I had no idea what it was going to be about save for this useful little blurb that I received on the day:

A morbid show-woman and a sinister preacher invite you to their bizarre exhibition of curious nameless bodies. Be wary how close you get to the exhibits and indeed the proprietors, for both have dangerous implications!

Delving into the strange worlds of waxworks and religious cults, creator of Carneskys Ghost Train, (now permanently situated on the seafront in Blackpool) Marisa Carnesky teaming up with charismatic performer Rasp Thorne, visual artists from the Insect Circus, illusion designers and circus skilled artists to present Part One of her new spectacular seven-part show.

Before I go any further, for those of you in the know please ponder on this: it was performance art, it involved blood, it involved tattoos – GUESS WHO WAS THERE BEGINNING WITH D??? It’s not hard to guess who if, like me, you patronised the Courtauld Institute in the mid-naughties. Nice that some things never change.

Now, back in the day when I inhabited the oh so arty world of the east end (somewhere I now go occasionally to get drunk and that’s about it) I actually visited the above mentioned Carneskys Ghost Train. It was about 5 years ago I believe and I was interested to see it is now a permanent installation in Brighton, where it no doubt belongs perfectly amidst the hoards of tattooed and pierced weirdo’s. I remember little I have to admit other than that it was a jolly good afternoon out. Back then it was all about the burlesque I seem to remember, and Marisa and friends delighted us with a collection of skimpy outfits and sprawling limbs. Although am positive it was about more than that, just cant for the life of me remember what. God, literally now I think about it I remember NOTHING I may as well not have bloody gone frankly wasted on me totally wasted.

Well, anyway, this was a damn site weirder and, although highly enjoyable, I’m not really sure what it was meant to be about!!! Instead I will give a nice description of the performance:

Firstly, we were taken to a strange bricked up room in the bowels of the venue. Many of you arty cultured folk will probably know it well but for those of you as ignorant as me it was a circular room, all brick, with archways around the side leading onto a hallway surrounding the central area, if that makes sense. We were first lead in by one of the main performers, a very small red head who spoke in a strange voice somewhere between camp Butlins redcoat c. 1959 and terrifying girls-school headmistress. She instructed us to follow her, keep in groups for our own safety and not touch ANYTHING. We dutifully filed in, although Georgies hysterical giggles echoed reassuringly around the halls and I was particularly amused when the man in front of us fell behind so he wouldn’t be stuck listening to our blonde mirth anymore – somewhat ruined the ambiance but for that I am very glad!! Anyway, she lead us around the outside first so in the middle we could glimpse a shadowy group of people wrapped in strange bandages and a man dressed as Cardinal Richelieu. Then we were instructed to go into the centre and stand there. Through one the of archways could be glimpsed someone, also wrapped in bandages, trying to affix to him/herself incomplete plaster casts of various parts of the body. The cardinal and other people continued to progress round the parameter in silence. The red head, in a mechanical bored voice then proceeded to show us, around the sides of the room, strange half models/half people wax work style things. Basically at first they looked like waxworks but then you realised they were breathing and it was women wearing parts of mannequins and papier-mâché style body suits. The women, grasping torch from chin height to make her look crazy, explained, in same strange voice, that she was responsible for caring for the ‘exhibits’, on pink satin mattresses, restoring them, caring for them, polishing their organs etc etc. For her, apparently, they were like her babies. Basically they were subtlety implying that parts of these, things, were made from real people and reanimated to show breathing, blood circulation, or in the case of one; pregnancy - the stomach splayed to show the insides including unborn foetus. We were all instructed to come forwards in groups of 5 and look closer, which we all dutifully did.

We were then instructed to follow her further and meet ‘the curator’. We were taken to a lecture room where a women, I’m assuming Carnesky herself, dressed in the trademark 1940s feminine aesthetic stood at a lecture podium and in scary Sarah Wilson old school art history lecturer style started explaining what on earth was going on. In an amusing parody of art history lectures, slide show and all, she explained the tradition of, oh bollocks can’t remember the word she used, but basically a weird made up tradition of depicting saints in wax with their insides exposed to the world. This must have been inspired by works similar to those in the recent Sacred Made Real exhibition at the National Gallery which I covered in one of my earliest blogs. These were CREEPY beyond belief; 17th century waxwork statues in full colour including glass eyes and horse hair depicting Catholic saints and martyrs. These scared the fuck out of me, they were totally weird, and wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they had indeed inspired this crazy show.

The lecture got odder and odder, pointing out how fairytales such as Snow White demonstrate our need to live for ever, for our bodies to remain in perfect tact long after we have gone. She then started drawing in even odder references such as the idea that on judgement day these waxwork saints would rise again, her tone becoming more hysterical and extremist as she went along. Finally she asked if anyone had any question and a girl, who I had earlier spotted as an obvious audience plant due to her 1940s coat and hairstyle, and who was the spitting image of a young Sophie Marceau, complete with sexy French accent, asked if she really believed these waxwork saints would come to life on the day of reckoning. She did indeed and it became increasingly clear that this was some strange cult that she wanted us all ‘to be apart of’. Enter Cardinal Richelieu who was in fact an evangelical southern preacher. He started talking in crazy evangelical southern preacher style for a bit and then some girl came on, also in 1940s clothes obviously. She was barefoot and stepping to the front of the darkened stage she inserted her feet into (really nice) high heals which obviously contained some kind of fake blood pouch because as soon as she put them on blood started oozing out all over the floor – she started dancing in a weird stilted way pulling the classic religious poses as some women (turned out to be the red heard from the beginning) sang warbly high notes. When this stopped the preacher started again shouting at us about the judgement day and whether we would be guaranteed a place on the silver staircase. Then another women came in, after the preacher had exposed a ladder made out of swords, and the woman rather impressively climbed up it, as I turned my head away in cringey disgust, No one else seemed that bothered by this but it made me feel really rather queasy. Then more strange preacher stuff and then another woman doing lots of upside down twists and things using a big swathe of material hanging from the ceiling. At that point it started getting a bit silly and I’m glad that strain of activity didn’t continue. Each time one of the women performed they would go over to a side of the stage and start mechanically washing their feet in a strange latrine style affair placed on a red platform. After the last women had finished the curator, in weird washed out zombie mode, went over to the basin, lifted it onto the floor and at some point obviously surreptitiously plugged in a false arm as she started gouging away at her forearm with a knife and got roughly down to where the bone would be. It was really gross. Then she, or maybe it was the preacher guy I forget, called on us to give our bodies so we too could live forever etc etc. That’s when the French girl got up, also in zombie mode, walked to the stage and lay down on the red platform. The curator then got a big chain saw style thing and locked the women in a big clamp and started pretending to drill into her. It looked pretty realistic. Then after that, she removed the clamp and the French women continued to lie there, apparently unhurt although when she was having the electric saw thing applied she did a pretty convincing job of looking like she was being drilled into,

We were then asked to go back to the round brick room where the preacher and the group of random bandaged up people were all playing as a band, and they were damn good. The preacher was the singer. By this time the various models/women around the sides of the room were animated, moving around and stretching in a gross way, their bodies covered with bloodied bandages. One ‘body’ which was meant to be an authentic ‘half woman’, was wearing a mannequin face which has detached partly and behind you could see her own face covered in blood. She started silently screaming and interacting with the red head, now dressed in burlesque style red beaded g-string outfit, and the two started doing this weird dance sort of thing half way between really disturbing and high slapstick style comedy. The French women was all the time wondering round the room in weird spaced out post orgasm style and started stretching in amazing ways around the walls. At one point she was suspended from the very top of one of the archways using just her hands. Then she started to do this amazing incredibly flexible animal like dance all over the model with the exposed womb, twisting and writhing and doing really rather impressive things. Then she went head first into the womb and disappeared entirely. And that was the end of it!!! It was bloody ace, NO idea really what it was intended to convey other than ideas about cults and saints and religion and immortality and shit like that but it was damn good fun! Apparently she is doing a whole series of them each lasting only a few nights an would be well up for going to some more!! It also stimulated my biannual ‘why can’t everything I own be 1940s’ obsession. Must steer well clear of ebay over coming days.

Week 12: Tyndale Monument/Berkeley Castle

Hello again world. I am currently typing this with the Controller of BBC Learning at the desk to my left, it’s freaking me out but am assuming he is far to busy and important to look over my shoulder and anyway have just spent about half an hour on Gumtree with him there which is much more clearly a non work task than this. On that note please let me know if you or anyone you know is looking for a double room to rent on a short term basis from the beginning of May.

Right, this weekend I returned to the maternal bosom and went home to the West Country, to be specific a small town just north of Bristol on the edge of the Cotswolds called Thornbury. Not only did this involve being waited on hand and foot, having steak and roast chicken and Eton mess and large amounts of gin and wine bought to me at all times of night and day but it also provided me with a rich and plentiful supply of cultural delights for my blog, it being a rich and plentiful neighbourhood. My mother has spent over 15 years lecturing me about the history of virtually everything in relation to these sites every time we went for a walk and at last it will come in use.

First port of call was a favourite walk of ours for many a year which is the walk from Wotton under Edge to the Tyndale Monument. Wotton is a very pretty very old village/town that gets its name from its position directly under a steep hill which is the edge of the Cotswolds, i.e. it’s under the edge. Basic huh? It seems to have been owned by the Berkeley's since time began, a family that you will learn more about in but a few paragraphs. Lucky you. Overlooking Wotton is the Tyndale Monument, erected in 1866 by the people of the area, and that is where we head for our walk as it’s on a big hill and can be seen for miles around.

Tyndale was very important. He was born in 1490 very near the site of said monument and is thought to have taught the family of a local landowner for a while round the corner. He was educated at Oxford and at some point after this decided, inspired by Lutheranism and all that stuff, to translate the Wycliffe bible into English, so everyone could read the word of god and therefore hasten on the massive decline and eventual death of Christianity after everyone realised it was a load of crap. I should say here that if you’re offended by this hahahahahahaha - you a barbaric and delusional retard I have no time for you and neither does my blog and frankly I am offended by you. Anyway, translate it he did for the good of all mankind and, unable to print it in England he went to Germany where it was produced and smuggled back into England. By the time of his arrest in 1535 Tyndale had translated both the Old and New Testaments. He was sentenced to death and on 16 October 1536 was strangled and burnt at the stake at Vilvorden, near Brussels. His dying prayer: 'Lord open the King of England's eyes' was answered the following year Tyndale's English Bible was printed in England 'with the Kings most gracious licence'. The King James Version of 1611 also follows Tyndale's New Testament very closely. So, pretty important guy really. The Victorians being AMAZING as always decided to erect a big old monument to him on the top of the hill and it was done up again for the millennium I believe and you can now go all the way up to the top. This I did, going up a very tight and not un-scary spiral staircase and for some reason my legs still haven’t recovered. The view from up there was amazing though, especially in the almost-summer like day we had on Saturday.
On Sunday alas the weather was slightly less fabulous but not put off in the least we set out, this time accompanied by my father, to Berkeley Castle, but 15 mins drive from our house. Berkeley castle is the oldest inhabited castle in England and has been lived in by the same family for almost 900 years. Not bloody bad. Unlike many other castles it has not gone through significant modernisation over the centuries and the castle has expanded around a 12th century keep that still remains today. Much of the rest of the castle is 14th century. It was built appropriately enough to keep out the Welsh hoards, jolly good thing too. It was given by Henry II to Robert FitzHardinge, Governor of Bristol (who was descended from the Kings of Demnark), with power to strengthen and enlarge it, in roughly 1150. Its proper job fortified with holes for boiling oil to be poured down, a natural moat and crenulations etc. There are those slit windows for arrows and also trick stairs when you first come in with steps designed at different heights to trip people up when running up them. Clever. It was breached once by Parliamentarians during the English civil war, given back to the family a while later under the instructions that the broached walls, which took 3 days for the Parliamentarians to destroy, would remain ruined so the castle would never again be such a strong and therefore dangerous fortress. However, other than that it’s still a complete castle which is pretty impressive.

It is here that Edward II, according to legend, was executed by having a red hot poker shoved up his arse in 1327. A weak and unpopular leader he was also widely believed to be gay, hence the poker. I won’t go into details about Edward as frankly it would all be off Wikipedia anyway which is something of a cheat but he married Isabella and at some point sent her off to France to sort out a diplomatic issue. Whilst there the neglected Isabella took a lover; Roger Mortimer and it is widely believed that on her return the 2 of them plotted to invade England. Somehow they managed this and to cut a long story short imprisoned Edward here in Berkeley castle. They take great delight in showing off the dungeon which leads from one of the upstairs rooms in the keep down to courtyard level. Usually prisoners would have just been thrown down the hole and left there to die, assuming the fall hadn’t killed them to begin with. If that didn’t do it the household threw all their shit and animal carcasses etc in there in the hope that it would asphyxiate the poor old prisoner. Edward probably wasn’t thrown down the dungeon but installed in the room above, ready to be happily suffocated by the stench of rotting festering crap. He must have had a strong constitution though and alas it didn’t kill him. Isabella, wanting the guy to die of ‘natural causes’ left it for a while but eventually arranged to have him strangled in his bed by his jailors and alas the red hot poker story is almost certainly a myth. My mother use to take great, GREAT, delight in telling me his screams could be heard as far as Gloucester so she must have been very disappointed to hear it was all bollocks.

Other famous inhabitants of the castle include Sir Francis Drake who was good mates with the family and came to visit every time he was near by trying to find timber for his ships and also Elizabeth I stayed there at one point and shot all the Earls dear which apparently he wasn’t too pleased about. She turned up with her lover as well what an old whore. The bitterness between Elizabeth and the Berkeley family came to a head when the queen rode in the front gate with her entourage, Lord Berkeley rode out - a supreme insult.

The Berkeley family is very interesting indeed. I didn’t realise just how influential they were. For example; it was they, or rather a branch of them, who bought a great big house in London and, after a while, granted a large amount of their garden back to the city, or the crown or something, for a public square named, of course, Berkeley Square. This was sold off in 1919 for £2 million in order to restore the castle, probably a mistake I would have thought. One of the Berkeley’s was a philosopher and on his death had his significant library donated to Yale university with the understanding that it would be used to set up a new university on the West Coast which obviously, is now known as the University of California at… Berkeley!! I had never seen the connection as Americans always pronounce it bUUURRkley.

The castle is very lovely inside with some fabulous paintings, tapestries and furniture. Something that particularly took my fancy though was a chair/table/chest thing in one of the kitchens which would be terribly useful in my life as well as some beautiful Van de Velde ship paintings of the various ships under Berkeley command, it being a naval family. The family is also known to this day as being massively into hunting, the Berkeley hunt still takes place each year and they are famous for wearing yellow rather than the traditional red, or pinks or whatever it’s called. Horace Walpole, the subject of last weeks blog was also much taken by the place when he visited and bought several items. Anyway this has gone on for far too long and I have no doubt missed out all the most important things I saw oh well. It was a great day out though and an excellent venue for weddings which they clearly make most of their money out of. See you all next week!

Week 11: V&A/Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill

I don’t know about you but I feel like killing myself this morning want to be back in bed hiding from the cruel cruel world. I hope you had a delightful Easter weekend, mine was very nice but don’t worry, I wont bore you with all the details. Due to the fabulously long weekend this weeks cultural exploration is slightly late and having occurred a full 4 days ago please forgive me for forgetting large chunks of the exhibition, probably for the best anyway. This weeks cultural activity took place last Friday, when the bank holiday seemed to stretch before us like a land of dreams – why can’t I be back there?? WHY?? Accompanied by the beauteous John and Diccon we strode out in the pouring rain to South Kensington and the Victoria and Albert museum for the exhibition Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill.

As usual I must confess to my supreme ignorance re Horace and his hill, he was very important/famous/arty/loaded I do know that. I had heard of him and everything and knew he has stuff to do with Gothicism but, embarrassingly, I thought he was early 19th century not mid 18th – oops!!! Basically I have only ever really been aware of him in relation to Victoriana-arama, which sadly is true of most of the pitiful jumble of knowledge accumulated in my tiny brain, so there. Anyway, to cut a long and frankly highly homosexual story short he was the very rich and no doubt highly eccentric son of Prime Minster Robert Walpole and spent what must have been a not inconsiderable fortune collecting and housing his ever expanding collection of Gothic and Renaissance art and artefacts.

Strawberry Hill was his country residence near Twickenham. I have to say if I had the means for a country seat I would have gone a little further afield than provincial old Twickenham. I suppose it can’t be too far away from London as you would want to be able to access it fairly easily and not put people off coming for weekend parties. Ahh, can you imagine being able to hold your own country house weekend parties, only ones NOT full of posh wankers!?! Would have hunting and fishing and shooting and cream teas on the lawn with croquet and me wearing a big hat and playing charades whilst pissed like in Northanger Abby or whichever one it is. Which one is it? Who knows.

Anyway, I digress massively. Strawberry Hill is currently undergoing restoration and will open to the public again in late September and, top tip here, if you to the exhib at the V&A which is £6 or free to students; at the back of the guide is a token for 2 for 1 entry to the house which is valid for a year once it opens. Not bad. This brings me nicely to what was my overriding experience of the exhibition: it’s basically a dirty great big advert for the grand re-opening of Strawberry Hill later this year. Now, it’s not that I mind this or anything, in fact I know it’ a good, nay great thing to publicise this great national treasure chest etc. But, in my heart of hearts I do object to it, yet know not quite why. I think, maybe, if the house was unrepaired or a thousand miles away or protected by a fire breathing dragon or something I would understand but it’s not, it’s in bloody Twickenham and if you just waited a few months then got off your fat arty arse you could go and see all the objects in situ, where they belong. Obviously some of the pieces are stand alone fabulous works of art or historical interest or whatever. Great. But some of it, some of it IN the exhibition, was stately home junk shop crap that no one really cares about unless it’s in situ. For example; some paintings AFTER Poussin, some paintings AFTER Holbein, some paintings once thought to be by someone mildly important and since proved not to be. Who the hell cares? This stuff would look great on the walls of a fabulous stately home designed around its collection, but here!! Frankly, and this is a personal opinion I know; I wouldn’t pay to go and see an exhibition of real bloody Poussins let alone some 300 year old rip offs who the hell cares about them?

The whole exhibition, to me, seemed to hinge around one thing: the viewers ability to successfully visualise the usual Strawberry Hill setting for the objects. The curators even included floor plans of the house in the exhibition guide. The first thing the viewer sees when walking in is a load of, quite pretty, sketches and paintings of the exterior of the house. Throughout the exhibition there are images of the interiors including architectural plans, satirical sketches and informal visions of the rooms. Great but again, what’s the point? Just go to the sodding house it’s NOT THAT FAR and NOT THAT LONG TO WAIT. I felt continually throughout the show that the viewing experience was somehow displaced and alien, post modern in a bad way. I don’t really need to see millions of, frankly quite amateur landscapes of some house. They would look lovely in the reception hall, or the downstairs loo, but aren’t worth anything to anyone hanging on the walls of the poky V&A exhibition space surely? I am positive I am very very wrong about this, but for me it is undeniably how it felt. It was a feeble reflection.

The exhibition was curated oddly around a sort of zigzagged corridor. Apart from fashion exhibitions I have never been to a well curated show at the V&A. Everything always looks shoddy and badly thought through, shoved into corners with absolutely no understanding of space or light. They also have a really bizarre fetish for shoddy, wobbly looking faded cardboard screens with some insipid and depressingly faded looking pattern on. I have never been to a non-fashion show there that didn’t give me the impression leaning against a wall would knock the entire exhibition down like dominoes and we would be left in a room that hadn’t been dusted for about 35 years. They love beige as well, why?

Disregarding all this for a moment the house does seem wonderful and I am very much looking forward to going at some point. Walpole acquired the lease in 1747 stating "I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill", and he asked his friends for objects and enlisted the help of his friends Richard Bentley, who was an artist and draughtsman and John Chute who was responsible for much of the main elevations of the house and the interiors. He spent the rest of his life filling it with various pricey objects, writing histories, criticism and founding a printing press there in 1757. His novel, "The Castle of Otranto", the first Gothic novel was inspired by the rooms there.

Seemingly every element of the interior and exterior are based on models from Gothic buildings both around the country and abroad. I greatly admire this – it reminds me of a documentary I saw a few years ago about Paul Daniels and Debbie McGees house which is new but built out of elements of old buildings to create a totally random jumble of architectural styles and influences. You can’t help feeling it all smells very much of new money, even if it doesn’t. It does look beautiful indeed and I like the fact that it was a hub of artistic and intellectual society. Towards the end of the exhibition there is a small section on female artist who Walpole somewhat patronised there.

Each room was ‘themes’ – a bit like a 13 year old girl crossed with Vegas. There is a Holbein room and a specially designed circular or octagonal or something room for the display of his most important treasures, which he housed in a really odd cabinet also displayed in the exhibition.

A few things that stood out for me where:

The wooden cravat c. 1690 Walpole wore to greet his guests one weekend; he must have been some CrAzY dude:

I was also fascinated by the toothpick case c. 1780 given to him by a friend as a gift. Who gives friends toothpick holders? What was said ‘friend’ attempting to tell him???:


Anyway, an altogether odd exhibition I felt but non-the-less worth a visit.

Week 10: Hampstead/Keats House

Hola everyone. I am taking the opportunity of an all staff meeting to run off, hide and do my blog. Oops. Due to the clocks going forward and me not waking up til 3 yesterday I couldn’t sleep last night and was consequently late for work this morning. Because of this I forgot to shove the 2 books in my bag that this weeks cultural exploration was based around so luckily you will be spared some of the more painful details. I will say that this weeks exploration was the most explorative yet though. Last week I had a dentist appointment mid day on Monday and it was only until about an hour before that I realised I had no idea where it was and couldn’t find our A to Z anywhere. So, as always, I turned to my trustee neighbourhood library which I LOVE. Whilst browsing their travel and maps section I came across several local history guides as well as walking guides for all different places in London including Hampstead and Highgate, both of which I live very near to. There was also another book called ‘The Streets of Hampstead’ by the Camden History Society. Fab fab fab. The delightful, and ridiculously lucky Georgie is currently abiding in a rather massive mansion on the edge of Hampstead Heath where she is dwelling RENT FREE, bitch, so we both decided to do the Hampstead walk so she could be even more smug about her neighbourhood, which in my opinion is far and away the nicest part of London.

Alas it wasn’t until about half way through the walk that I realised the meaning behind the title of the walking tour book. Mystery Readers Walking Tours of London was not, funnily enough, similar to mystery shoppers or mystery diners but was actually a book based around MYSTERY NOVELS. I couldn’t work out why they kept on going on about characters from a random book I had never heard of. Oops. Luckily Hampstead is so pretty and so full of historical wonders that it didn’t really matter. Apologies Georgie. Despite this I managed to glean some very interesting info such as the name Hampstead deriving from the Saxon word for homestead, Boudicca is reported to be buried under Parliament Hill (amazing), it is the highest place in London with the deepest tube and it was once a forest but was stripped bare after the Great Fire of London in 1666 to rebuild the city. There you go, if you’re like me you’re already learning something new today well done!

We started our walk at the tube station and went down the High Street to Rosslyn Hill. The Streets of Hampstead book went on at some length about the history of the high street such as its widening and other fascinating facts like that (?) but interestingly enough some of the streets coming off the high street used to have covered entrances until things like busses got in the way. The guide gave us a choice between going down Pilgrims Lane or continuing on down Devonshire Hill to Keats House which we decided to do. Devonshire Hill was once owned by someone with a title, that’s all I can remember oops but god the houses are nice nice nice down there and the beautiful spring weather made it even more god damn desirable. Ho Hum. I hope the people who live there are incredibly unhappy so there.

I have never been to Keats House before and it was quite enjoyable, although not the most earth moving of experiences. I hasten to admit that alas I am not his biggest fan in the world but that’s definitely due to my ignorance and laziness as opposed to not enjoying his poetry. In fact when standing in the room they think was his study I very much enjoyed reading the laminated card with Ode to a Nightingale on – it was here that he wrote this amongst other great pieces. It actually made me want to read some Keats as some point which I will endeavour to do, at some point. Apparently the garden was also very inspiring to him or something. The entrance fee was £5 which was a bit steep I thought seeing as they didn’t have an awful lot of stuff there but there were some very nice prints and paintings and in general it was a joy to be in such a beautiful Regency property.

After leaving Keats house we returned to Pilgrims Lane which was the home over time of many great artists and arty types including Ben Nicholson who lived at number 1 and Jacqueline de Pres and her man who lived a couple of doors down. There is also a weird nautical sculpture stuck to the wall of one house where a guy called William Johnson Cory once lived. He was a notable Eton tutor and made up the Eton Boating Song which is apparently important to those whose parents don’t love them enough but he was also forced to resign for being a big old gay-o and went to live there. When I Googled him just now to get the correct spelling of his name it said he was married though so not sure if my book was embellishing the truth a bit or if this was a marriage of convenience etc. Anyway, we walked down there onto Willow Road and briefly considered going into 2 Willow Road the National Trust Modernist gem but I am more up for doing that in the summer when I want to laze around on the Heath all weekend and will drag myself in there for half an hour so I have something to write for that weeks blog.

After this we wandered back to Georgies house so she could pick up her camera learning on the way about the delights of Hampstead as a spa in the 18th century which is where road names such as Well Walk and Flask Walk come from. It was here where people came to sample the health giving Chalybeat spa water. However, it was known to have such a horrible taste a chaser was needed which is why there are so many pubs in Hampstead. On the way back to Georgies we passed by a drinking fountain on Well Walk which claims to pump this out, It wasn’t working alas but had a cool inscription which I didn’t think to wrote down oh well. On googling the word Chalybeat I came across this interesting bit of info which takes me back to my favorite part of my Courtauld Undergraduate degree which was all Victoriana –arama. I had to do an essay on Ford Maddox Browne which incorporated the slightly controversial and politically laden topic of Hampstead Heath during the 19th century. Here you go:

However, was it not for a heroic battle fought by local residents in the 19th century, Hampstead Heath would have long since disappeared beneath a concatenation of Victorian developments. In 1829, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, Lord of the Manor, attempted to push the first of several Private Acts through Parliament that would enable him to build on the heath. Local residents, led by the banker John Gurney Hoare, were outraged, and began a campaign to save the heath that would last until Sir Thomas’s death in 1869. On one occasion, Sir Thomas decided to order the planting of thousands of willows, turkey oaks and firs upon the open heath, an action that brought a howl of indignation from Dickens, who protested at ‘such violation of virgin heathland’. However, Sir Thomas’s brother and heir, John, proved more amenable to local opinion, and in 1871, sold his estates hereabouts to the Metropolitan Board of Works and the cause was won.

After a quick tea break at Georgies house we were off again, over to Jack Straws Caste, that poor Georgie was very disappointed by understandably. It is thought to be the highest pub in London and took its name from Jack Straw who was one of the leaders of the 1381 Peasants revolt and apparently addressed the baying hoards here from atop a hay wagon which became known as Jack Straws Castle. Alas it was bombed to bits in World War 2 and that weird ply-wood thing was constructed in its place in 1969, a decade not known for the beauty of it’s architecture. From there we walked down the winding path to the Vale of Health which I always thought of as being more of a street rather than the area it in fact appears to be. According to the internet the name the Vale of Health, recorded in 1801, may have originated as a euphemism which was exploited or as a new name invented in a deliberate attempt to change the image of the place by the local builder as it had been considered a bit of a pestilent swamp type place before this. This is very upsetting to me as I had been lead to believe that it was given that name due to the great plague never reaching its heights, but apparently not. Damn it, hate it when that happens. Anyway it was the centre of all things arty back in the day and Byron and Shelly amongst others lived there as well as DH Lawrence. It was uber pretty, although the residents must be more than a little irked by the massive skanky falling apart caravan site next door for all the people who work at fun fairs to live on. NICE. On that note there was also some kind of gypsy wedding going on round the corner – my god the outfits. From there we walked out across the heath, the very very muddy heath, and home. Very nice day indeed.

Week 9: Painting History: Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey/National Gallery

Hello all and welcome back me. Apologies for my absence yesterday and last week; I had the day off yesterday and last week I was recovering from the cultural overload that was Israel – I firmly believe my excess holiday activity made up for the following weeks total abject laziness though. To catch up on what I got up to on my holiday (or what the weird Christians on the way back would have called a ‘pilgrimage’ – funny that) read the 3 mini-blogs listed below. I had a lovely time indeed.

This week I was fully back on the cultural trail thanks to the lovely Andrew whose press pass got us in free to the National Gallery exhibition: Painting History; Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey. It would have been £8 otherwise!!! Luckily I still wasted lots of money on postcards, audio guides and most importantly a lot of coffee. Think I sent about £30 on coffee this weekend actually, oh dear.

Firstly, I love love love Lady Jane Grey – it’s one of my top 3 favourite pics in the National Gallery which is saying something. Unwisely, and not true to form, last week I started reading the Brian Sewell review of the exhibition in the Evening Standard. He was very silly indeed. I didn’t read after the first 2 paragraphs as he was talking such total smug bollocks but he started attacking my beloved Lady Jane Gray, ATTACKING it, when everyone knows it’s amazing- I mean for god’s sake they have based an entire exhibition around the fucking thing. Prick. Anyway, Brian was claiming the National Gallery didn’t have any proper History paintings and now never would. I have to say after seeing this exhibition I think this can only be a good thing as clearly we know neither how to appreciate them nor, more worryingly, how to look after them. It turns out Lady Jane Gray was presumed destroyed in the Tate flood in the 1920s and it wasn’t until the 1970s that anyone bothered to even unroll the canvas to have a look! When they did so they found it in almost perfect condition – they only opened it up to look for another painting by someone else! Shocking. Also, upstairs, they had another massivo painting by Delaroche called Charles I Insulted which had been bombed during the war and suffered major shrapnel damage and the first time it had been unrolled since 1941 was 2009!!! WTF???? WHY would they not do so before? I understand if they didn’t have the money to restore it before now but for god’s sake they could have at least opened it up to have a look sometime in the last 60 years surely?? Really bad form.

Anyway, this is all very interesting when discussed in terms of the reception of both Delaroche’s work and the whole genre of painting he worked within. Clearly Delaroche had fallen quite significantly out of favour sometime between his death and the beginning of the 20th century. This is something the curators return to throughout the exhibition and use somewhat as a framework. However, they don’t seem to draw any real conclusions about why he was so unfashionable for so long except that, apparently, according to them, come the 20th century no one cared about the past anymore (??? – really??).

Rather than being a straight out Delaroche show they have chosen instead to set him within his artistic milieu discussing artists who would have influenced him and then following through to artists who he would have influenced, which I found an interesting approach. The exhibition begins with a room of Troubadour paintings. This was a style of painting which found great popularity in the later part of the 18th century and early 19th century (I THINK) and was a reaction to Neoclassicism (why oh why anyone would want to react against Neoclassicism I have no idea but there you go different strokes for different boats). Pissed off with the constant unrest and regime changes of the last few decades artists turned to the newly opened Musée du monument français in Paris; a museum housing the remains of any medieval art or architecture that had not been destroyed by successive generations of political extremism. It became hugely popular, imbuing the medieval past with a romanticized image of a simpler, nobler time, filled with Christian goodness and appropriated as the usual escapist fantasy idyll. In painting this new style united Neoclassicism, and a more romanticized (pre Romanticism obviously), domestic form of art usually involving some delicate and touching family or domestic scene. Images such as this are a bit like a precursor to the Victorian domestic parlor painting with supposedly accurate historical details in costume and setting married with the 19th century taste for gentle and whimsical interior scenes; it’s basically Neoclassicism-light. These, I have to admit, are all pretty grotesque but am not in the least bit surprised they were so popular around this era. It was the fashion for this genre which secured Delaroche’s popularity during his lifetime. Annoyingly I can’t seem to find a single image from this room of the exhibition though sorry.

This use of supposedly detailed historical realism bought Delaroche to England where he sketched backgrounds to some of his most famous paintings including the Princes in the Tower. Themes such as this were highly popular during this period and Delaroche uses the story to full effect creating a canvas bursting with suspense and fear. This image is particularly interesting as it demonstrated Delaroche’s superior understanding of space and gesture as dramatic device. Originally conceived as a portrait style canvas; additional strips were added to both sides to include a dog and a locked door. These additions are what make this image so successful, the small animal sits up with ears raised in the direction of the locked door which displays just a crack of light and the unmistakable shadow of someone on the other side – scary. This lead to one of the more interesting rooms of the exhibition which demonstrates the influence of theatre on Delaroche’s work. When I mentioned this to my friend John he rolled his eyes and said something along the lines of ‘oh god not that bloody theme again’; but in fairness I really do think it applied to Delaroche’s style! It turns out he was good mates with playwrights such as the FAB Dumas and even designed stage sets for some plays during his lifetime. This helped him to develop an understanding of space as a dramatic devise – realizing that the absence of action/figures on a canvas could be as dramatically effective as a canvas packed with action and drama. Likewise the firm clear gestures of his figures are often borrowed from stock acting poses of the era. He also returned to themes for paintings which had been recently popularized by stage plays etc.

Assassination of the duc de Guise at Blois: 1834

One of the most interesting outcomes of this theatrical influence was his use of the window or an opening off stage as a dramatic element in the composition and narrative of his paintings. This can be seen in images such as the Princes in the Tower but also paintings such as Strafford led to Execution where the emotive hands of Charles I sticking through the window are able to express all the torture and humility needed.

Another interesting nay great piece is Cromwell – another v big painting which saw Delaroche once again returning to themes from British history. This caused a massive stir when it was shown at the Salon of 1831. Themes from this period of British History were very poplar in France at this time as it was easy to draw parallels between the British unrest of the 17th century and the French political upheavals of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this wonderfully creepy painting Cromwell stands over the coffin of his arch nemesis Charles I, holding back the lid and contemplating the demise of the great man within. Here we see the new contemplating the old, the unrest and uncertainty of ‘democracy’ face to face with the old order of King, monarchy and unswerving devotion and obedience to the crown. .

Other masterpieces in the show included, obviously, the great Execution of Lady Jane Gray along with other woks such as Young Christian Martyr, which was based on his wife and Marie Antoinette leaving the Convention after her Sentence. These all demonstrate some kind of weird fixation with innocent yet condemned tragic female figures, a trend he seemed to move away from after the death of his wife yet demonstrates the influence of Troubadour painting on his work.

The rest of the exhibition concentrates on the studies for the Execution of Lady Jane Grey, including some really inappropriate letters between him and the likely model, an actress he was clearly knocking off. It was so gross actually, nothing to do with the art what-so-ever just a chance for everyone to laugh at the poor guy in love – everyone knows soppy love letters should never be read out of context and all this part of the exhibition proved was that Delaroche wanted to get his end in and consequently wrote a lot of cheesy rubbish – it was really cringey poor guy. There was also a room showing examples of later artists influenced by Delaroche including a Beautiful painting by Gerome – see below:

I could go on an on about the FAB use of purple drapes and strange heavy carved wood barriers in front of the paintings but luckily for you all i wont as need some lunch!

See you next week xxx