The true "Gothic era" of Britain commenced around the 1150s, after the Norman Conquests, through to the 1500s at the hieght of the northern French and European influences reached the shores of this island.
(This is not to be confused with the notion of the "Goths" who were northern European / Germanic warrior tribes which date back to the 3rd - 8th Century AD, but from who we do draw much of our Gothic association and images from. Examples of early books written in 700 AD - (Reference; Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Art: Geometric Aspects By Derek Hull (2003) Liverpool University Press), purely by hand would be the Lindisfarne Gospels and often had much embellishment painted in to them in addition to the text).
Whilst the Gothic genre was recognisably started in the mid 12th Century, the combination of Celtic, Galic and Mediteranian influences in art and textual design, I believe these were converging into what we now know today as "Gothic". It is merely a hunch, but if one looks into the development of these early Christian religious icons, together with the semi-Pagan art forms of earlier periods, it necessarily follows that Gothic forms would result...
'When … the loveliness of the many-coloured gems has called me away from external cares … then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven.'
Abbot Suger, De Administratione (translated by Erwin Panofsky, 1946)
Abbot Suger (about 1081–1151), who is often credited with inventing Gothic architecture, felt art was central to religious experience. In 1140–44 he renovated the eastern end of his church, the abbey of Saint-Denis. The first major building project in the new Gothic style, it would be followed by a series of great Gothic cathedrals, in Paris (Notre-Dame), Soissons, Chartres, Bourges, Reims and Amiens. Much of Saint-Denis was rebuilt in a later style of Gothic during the 1230s.
(Extracted from The Victoria and Albert Web Archives, (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/g/gothic-architecture/)
Around the 1400s, woodcut printing and paper making had advanced sufficiently enough for the start of mass produced books to commence. In 1423 the first ever recorded, woodcut was made and preserved for prosperity with a date embellished within it. (This is currently held in the John Rylands library in Manchester).
After the success of these woodcut paper press, the metal 'type' or text invented for the Gothenberg Bible came into existence. Early documents were originally created with this metal type, but with the woodcut illustrations included to complement them.
As mentioned, by 1489, these woodcut drawings worked in combination with metal (usually lead) pressed 'type'. (For example, see Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (before 1470, Oostzaan, North Holland – 1533) from the Netherlands. One of the most famous wood-cut designers).
Within these Gothic drawings, the subject of death often arises, as in for example, A the Knight Encounters Death, and the Devil, by Albrecht Durer, alledgedly showing Oliver De la Marche, - Published by Gotfried Van Os,(Printed in Gauda, Holland, 1486).
The new "printed" Gothic era of the Georgian was restored in the early 1700s when the first revival book of the Gothic, by Horice Walpole "The Castle of Atrantoe 1764... (see the BBC programme, The Art of the Gothic: Britains Midnight Hour, 1st Episode, "Liberty Diversity, Depravity: - by Andrew Graham Dixon). "The Art of the Gothic" is obtainable through BBC iPlayer. In the 1st programme of this series, Andrew Graham Dixon introduces the age of Enlightenment.
The book by Horace Walpole arguably launched the revival of the Gothic, which is ostensibly about a castle, a suit of armour and a tyrant. William Marshal was the name however, on the front of this book, and which it suggests (by Walpole rather mischievously), disappeared shortly after its publication. This gave the whole book some air of supernatural, sinister and pseudo-suspicious factuality, - even though it is complete fiction. An Englishman's House is his Castle was the Georgian mode of the era too, it was a culture of pride, of massive change, and of new learning, of enlightenment, the age of reason and logic (see Kant's trilogy written at this time too) to be shared by everyone. At the time in the mid 18th century, this rush in general society for "learning" was attempted to be suppressed by what was the ruling elite, the political aristocracy (who were the self appointed 'guardians' of culture, of the Greek and Classical arts, and massively privileged land owners), as they realised that as education was being handed down to the masses, potentially, they (the elite, the aristocracy) would, in time, lose power.
In 1790 onwards, the 'masses' on the continent, who sparked the French Revolution arguably chose some of the naive result of this educational enlightenment.... For James Gilroy, in 1792, he depicts that 'satirised' image of what the French might have been doing on the other side of the English Channel, - during the revolution, (for example, theft, rape and debauchery, etc), whilst at the same time, British 'enlightenment' was being pushed forwards, - And an anxious age of change was upon them.
So the two Gothic visions, or forces were in contention. Gothic architecture, on the one side, of God and Religion, but also the Gothic Horror, of the subconscious, liberated with fear of change, from the Industrial Revolution; the 'scary' scientific experiments of the macabre, and notions emerging from public shows of science. For example, public lectures and spectacles of watching dead animals twitch, - through the application of the electrodes etc (akin to Frankenstein's monster) and other gory examples of experiments like gassing birds to death / or in vacuums.
In the same year that Mary Shelley published her works "Dr. Frankenstein", William Blake also created the painting of "Ghost of a Flea" which was an imaginative vision of horror in a somewhat Gothic style; The work's emergence was highly likely to have been the result of a development of a scientific drawing of a flea drawn through the lense of a microscope, however Blake portrays his "vision" (he apparently had many of them, a malady that plagued him from childhood), which also appealed to the public's Gothic sensibilities of the flea, but of course in monstrous and horrifying proportions.
William Blake was, in many ways a polymath, and transcended many disciplines such as poetry, philosophy, painting, and even publishing to some degree. In his poem "The song of Los", and his subsequent painting of "Newton" in 1805 William Blake was able to move from the purely representational to an image completely formed from within the mind. He was at odds with the new scientific age of discovery, and Blake being a highly religious man wanted to suggest the nievity of not only Newton, but mankind, in pursuing such notions of discovery.
I think that this is why Blake chose to show Newton as naked, - in other words, totally vulnerable, in his pursuits. He wrote something akin to this about mankind, and even names Newton in the poem, The Song of Los"
This gave birth to the genre of "The Sublime" a name coined by Edmund Burk, the taste for wilde nature. That which exites sensations of terror, - it is best enjoyed at a distance, hence it is a perfect subject for painting!
Going back to Andrew Graham Dixon's BBC television series, he talks about the development of the Gothic and the macabre, and the advent of easy reading for the masses.
Around the mid-1800s, the public were able to get cheap thrills by purchasing 'the penny dreadfuls", as they were known. Within them, Character examples include "Spring Heeled Jack. You can see from his images, in these very early comic books that he was the predecessor of Batman.
The availability of such books like the penny dreadfuls, being very cheap and associated with pictorial narratives, in addition to the written word, coincided with the improvements in literacy, but also the move away from the rural ideal which once characterised Britain, into the new urbanisation, together with the industrialised satanic mills and blackened slums, with general grimy-ness of this period.
The dark and somewhat sublime images captured in art, such as that of John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893), , his works "moonlight" (1880);
or "in peril" 1879;
or "Iris" (the fairy) painted in 1886.
A sense of the supernatural, and indeed, the sublime can be readily understood the apocalyptic forboding.
This is also a theme of John Martin and William James Mallard Turner...
The idea of the combination of the sublime with images of nature gave birth to romanticism or Joseph Ballard William Turner, 1836 wreckers coast of Northumberland. You can see that the now Victorian public and a yearning of the romantic heroism particularly made popular through stories such as that of Grace Darling up.
In protest to the mechanisation and industrialisation of everything, the art and crafts movement of William Morris was started in order to counter and reduce the poverty caused by the industrial revolution. For further information see the National trust Kelmscott house in Hammersmith, London. William Morris and the arts and crafts movement parked back to the nostril the nostalgic a deal of the pre-urbanisation period stop he recreated the wooden printing press and published books such as torso in 1896 from the Kelmscott press this derives its influence almost full circle back the rebirth of the Gothic.
John Ruskin, also a member of the artistic elite of that period was very influential in our circles, but he was also a scientist, particularly in geography and geology. He was very much a scientist but also very much in contact with nature, but regretfully through his depression and mental illness was able to understand the apocalyptic reach that mankind seemed to be destined for, at that time.
The conditions were now right for the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement or "Brotherhood.
Dante Gabriel Rosetti, in his painting entitled Beata Beatrix in 1880 is a beautiful composition for us to analyse. It consists generally of an image of a girl 'in illumination', a sundial in the painting points directly towards the girls head. This alludes to both time and composition and an indicative dynamic that accentuates her head been pointed backwards.
Elizabeth Siddall was the wife and model of Dante Gabriel Rosetti. In this painting, he is depicting the story by the original Dante (of the 1300s), in which he reproduces the image of Beata Beatrix at the point of her death.
There is much allegory and symbolism in the painting; A poppy in the mouth of the dove, is an inference to the models' addiction to opium (through her consumption of Laudinum, which was used to treat her bouts of severe depression), and yet also alludes to a state of ecstasy. The strange dove-like bird, with a halo over its head, (to me) suggests some notion of purity, and meanwhile, the glowing light coming from heaven is drawing her up into its arms. There are two other figures in the background of the painting, that on the left in a kind of heavenly glow seems to be holding a source of light, some of which reflects on the main subjects' hair. The figure on the right is in semi darkness. Do these allude to an angel of god and religion on the left, and that on the right, to man's independent yearning for knowledge and literature (Rosetti was also a prolific poet)? - I am not sure, but the notion is a romantic one, which fits nicely with the themes and context of this painting...
Tragically, Rosetti completed this painting a year after his Elizabeth Siddal, - his beautiful wife and model, died, some say from the addiction to Laudinum, but others suggest suicide. The contemporary author Bill Bryson, suggests in his book At Home (2010), that Siddal may have been poisoned, "because she was a "devoted swallower" of Fowler's Solution, a so-called complexion improver made from dilute arsenic".
In many ways this image from the pre-eminent founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood goes full circle with the image of autumn leaves and the works by John Everett Millais, when they, in 1848 with William Holman Hunt, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris, already mentioned for the Arts and Crafts movement, and also the works of Edward Burne-Jones.
Rossetti's Art was also an influence upon the European Symbolists and was also one of the main sources to inspire the Aesthetic movement..
Around the 1400s, woodcut printing and paper making had advanced sufficiently enough for the start of mass produced books to commence. In 1423 the first ever recorded, woodcut was made and preserved for prosperity with a date embellished within it. (This is currently held in the John Rylands library in Manchester).
After the success of these woodcut paper press, the metal 'type' or text invented for the Gothenberg Bible came into existence. Early documents were originally created with this metal type, but with the woodcut illustrations included to complement them.
As mentioned, by 1489, these woodcut drawings worked in combination with metal (usually lead) pressed 'type'. (For example, see Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (before 1470, Oostzaan, North Holland – 1533) from the Netherlands. One of the most famous wood-cut designers). Within these Gothic drawings, the subject of death often arises, as in for example, A the Knight Encounters Death, and the Devil, by Albrecht Durer, alledgedly showing Oliver De la Marche, - Published by Gotfried Van Os,(Printed in Gauda, Holland, 1486).
The new "printed" Gothic era of the Georgian was restored in the early 1700s when the first revival book of the Gothic, by Horice Walpole "The Castle of Atrantoe 1764... (see the BBC programme, The Art of the Gothic: Britains Midnight Hour, 1st Episode, "Liberty Diversity, Depravity: - by Andrew Graham Dixon). "The Art of the Gothic" is obtainable through BBC iPlayer. In the 1st programme of this series, Andrew Graham Dixon introduces the age of Enlightenment.
The book by Horace Walpole arguably launched the revival of the Gothic, which is ostensibly about a castle, a suit of armour and a tyrant. William Marshal was the name however, on the front of this book, and which it suggests (by Walpole rather mischievously), disappeared shortly after its publication. This gave the whole book some air of supernatural, sinister and pseudo-suspicious factuality, - even though it is complete fiction. An Englishman's House is his Castle was the Georgian mode of the era too, it was a culture of pride, of massive change, and of new learning, of enlightenment, the age of reason and logic (see Kant's trilogy written at this time too) to be shared by everyone. At the time in the mid 18th century, this rush in general society for "learning" was attempted to be suppressed by what was the ruling elite, the political aristocracy (who were the self appointed 'guardians' of culture, of the Greek and Classical arts, and massively privileged land owners), as they realised that as education was being handed down to the masses, potentially, they (the elite, the aristocracy) would, in time, lose power.
In 1790 onwards, the 'masses' on the continent, who sparked the French Revolution arguably chose some of the naive result of this educational enlightenment.... For James Gilroy, in 1792, he depicts that 'satirised' image of what the French might have been doing on the other side of the English Channel, - during the revolution, (for example, theft, rape and debauchery, etc), whilst at the same time, British 'enlightenment' was being pushed forwards, - And an anxious age of change was upon them.
So the two Gothic visions, or forces were in contention. Gothic architecture, on the one side, of God and Religion, but also the Gothic Horror, of the subconscious, liberated with fear of change, from the Industrial Revolution; the 'scary' scientific experiments of the macabre, and notions emerging from public shows of science. For example, public lectures and spectacles of watching dead animals twitch, - through the application of the electrodes etc (akin to Frankenstein's monster) and other gory examples of experiments like gassing birds to death / or in vacuums.
In the same year that Mary Shelley published her works "Dr. Frankenstein", William Blake also created the painting of "Ghost of a Flea" which was an imaginative vision of horror in a somewhat Gothic style; The work's emergence was highly likely to have been the result of a development of a scientific drawing of a flea drawn through the lense of a microscope, however Blake portrays his "vision" (he apparently had many of them, a malady that plagued him from childhood), which also appealed to the public's Gothic sensibilities of the flea, but of course in monstrous and horrifying proportions.William Blake was, in many ways a polymath, and transcended many disciplines such as poetry, philosophy, painting, and even publishing to some degree. In his poem "The song of Los", and his subsequent painting of "Newton" in 1805 William Blake was able to move from the purely representational to an image completely formed from within the mind. He was at odds with the new scientific age of discovery, and Blake being a highly religious man wanted to suggest the nievity of not only Newton, but mankind, in pursuing such notions of discovery.
I think that this is why Blake chose to show Newton as naked, - in other words, totally vulnerable, in his pursuits. He wrote something akin to this about mankind, and even names Newton in the poem, The Song of Los"
The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers. The book provides a historical context for The Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los, and also ties those more obscure works to The Continental Prophecies, "Europe" and "America". The second section consists of Los urging revolution. (Erdman, David and Bloom, Harold. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. New York: Random House, 1988. footnote. p. 905).In this same period, a new wonder for the wild strength of God's creations, - such as that for the great open wild majesty of nature; for the huge imposing mountains of the Alps, (or even here in Britain, such as Gordale Scar, in the Manor of East Malham in Craven, Yorkshire, the Property of Lord Ribblesdale, painted by James Ward in around 1812), were also being represented.
_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) |
| Gordale Scar, Yorkshire, by James Ward (1769-1859) painted circa 1812 |
This gave birth to the genre of "The Sublime" a name coined by Edmund Burk, the taste for wilde nature. That which exites sensations of terror, - it is best enjoyed at a distance, hence it is a perfect subject for painting!
Going back to Andrew Graham Dixon's BBC television series, he talks about the development of the Gothic and the macabre, and the advent of easy reading for the masses.
Around the mid-1800s, the public were able to get cheap thrills by purchasing 'the penny dreadfuls", as they were known. Within them, Character examples include "Spring Heeled Jack. You can see from his images, in these very early comic books that he was the predecessor of Batman.
The availability of such books like the penny dreadfuls, being very cheap and associated with pictorial narratives, in addition to the written word, coincided with the improvements in literacy, but also the move away from the rural ideal which once characterised Britain, into the new urbanisation, together with the industrialised satanic mills and blackened slums, with general grimy-ness of this period.
The dark and somewhat sublime images captured in art, such as that of John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893), , his works "moonlight" (1880);or "Iris" (the fairy) painted in 1886.
A sense of the supernatural, and indeed, the sublime can be readily understood the apocalyptic forboding.
This is also a theme of John Martin and William James Mallard Turner...
The idea of the combination of the sublime with images of nature gave birth to romanticism or Joseph Ballard William Turner, 1836 wreckers coast of Northumberland. You can see that the now Victorian public and a yearning of the romantic heroism particularly made popular through stories such as that of Grace Darling up.
In protest to the mechanisation and industrialisation of everything, the art and crafts movement of William Morris was started in order to counter and reduce the poverty caused by the industrial revolution. For further information see the National trust Kelmscott house in Hammersmith, London. William Morris and the arts and crafts movement parked back to the nostril the nostalgic a deal of the pre-urbanisation period stop he recreated the wooden printing press and published books such as torso in 1896 from the Kelmscott press this derives its influence almost full circle back the rebirth of the Gothic.
John Ruskin, also a member of the artistic elite of that period was very influential in our circles, but he was also a scientist, particularly in geography and geology. He was very much a scientist but also very much in contact with nature, but regretfully through his depression and mental illness was able to understand the apocalyptic reach that mankind seemed to be destined for, at that time.
The conditions were now right for the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement or "Brotherhood.
Dante Gabriel Rosetti, in his painting entitled Beata Beatrix in 1880 is a beautiful composition for us to analyse. It consists generally of an image of a girl 'in illumination', a sundial in the painting points directly towards the girls head. This alludes to both time and composition and an indicative dynamic that accentuates her head been pointed backwards.
Elizabeth Siddall was the wife and model of Dante Gabriel Rosetti. In this painting, he is depicting the story by the original Dante (of the 1300s), in which he reproduces the image of Beata Beatrix at the point of her death.
There is much allegory and symbolism in the painting; A poppy in the mouth of the dove, is an inference to the models' addiction to opium (through her consumption of Laudinum, which was used to treat her bouts of severe depression), and yet also alludes to a state of ecstasy. The strange dove-like bird, with a halo over its head, (to me) suggests some notion of purity, and meanwhile, the glowing light coming from heaven is drawing her up into its arms. There are two other figures in the background of the painting, that on the left in a kind of heavenly glow seems to be holding a source of light, some of which reflects on the main subjects' hair. The figure on the right is in semi darkness. Do these allude to an angel of god and religion on the left, and that on the right, to man's independent yearning for knowledge and literature (Rosetti was also a prolific poet)? - I am not sure, but the notion is a romantic one, which fits nicely with the themes and context of this painting...
Tragically, Rosetti completed this painting a year after his Elizabeth Siddal, - his beautiful wife and model, died, some say from the addiction to Laudinum, but others suggest suicide. The contemporary author Bill Bryson, suggests in his book At Home (2010), that Siddal may have been poisoned, "because she was a "devoted swallower" of Fowler's Solution, a so-called complexion improver made from dilute arsenic".
In many ways this image from the pre-eminent founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood goes full circle with the image of autumn leaves and the works by John Everett Millais, when they, in 1848 with William Holman Hunt, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris, already mentioned for the Arts and Crafts movement, and also the works of Edward Burne-Jones.
Rossetti's Art was also an influence upon the European Symbolists and was also one of the main sources to inspire the Aesthetic movement..
No comments:
Post a Comment