Watts Gallery: Marie Spartali Stillman, G F Watts, Evelyn de Morgan

The Enchanted Garden of Messer Arnaldo

On Sunday we made one of our occasional pilgrimages to the Watts Gallery, Compton - home to a permanent collection of works by the Victorian painter G F Watts, and a short walk from the remarkable Arts and Crafts Chapel designed by his wife Mary. G F and Mary Watts lived in Compton at a house called Limnerslease, which has been recently converted to a new space for exhibitions, conservation and educational events, and is now called The Studios. This superb space allows us to see examples of Mary's designs across a range of media. The whole complex is now known as The Artists' Village: a community of late nineteenth century artists used to gather there around the sage figure of GFW, and the project today is to recreate that spirit with rooms for an artist-in-residence, a conservation workshop and opportunities for hands-on making that the Wattses would surely have blessed. In the spirit of community, the wonderful Chapel was made by local people under Mary's direction.

The main temporary exhibition there at the time of writing is the female Pre-Raphaelite painter Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) - the memorable name is formed by her Greek parentage (her father was the Greek Consul-General in London) and marriage to the American journalist William Stillman. Marie was by all accounts remarkably beautiful - when Swinburne met her, he wanted to "sit down and cry", which I suppose one should take as a compliment. We get a glimpse of her here in some photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron, posing as 'Memory, Mother of the Muses' and so forth, which I admit left me dry-eyed if somewhat intimidated by her lustrous and regal presence. Marie entered the art world as a model for the Pre-Raphaelites but also practised as a painter. Under the tutelage of Ford Madox Brown she worked in watercolour and gouache, creating rather dense-looking images which instantly say 'Pre-Raph': pallid beauties with waterfalls of hair stand before thick groves and rills depicted in loving detail. The subjects are generally still, contemplative scenes, often drawing on Italian sources: the Stillmans lived for some years in Florence and Rome, when William was stationed there as foreign correspondent. I particularly liked The Enchanted Garden of Messer Arnaldo, the climactic scene from Boccaccio's story of a lover performing an impossible task, analogous to Chaucer's Franklin's Tale. Here the contrast of Winter and Spring gardens has an undeniable charm and, while luxuriating in the historical costume and rich floral detail, we can also appreciate the rather skilful range of expressions, from the wondering guests to Arnaldo hiding a grin of smug satisfaction. Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni captures Dante's stone-hearted lady holding a globe in which Love is imprisoned. Daringly alluding to the Mona Lisa, this image distils a Victorian sense of the poetic, characterised by sheer profusion of beautiful objects. A photo of the Wattses at home has the same aesthetic - every available surface seems to be ornamented, and the spaces are crammed with fine furniture and objects of every kind. It all seems quite suffocating to a modern sensibility, or mine at any rate, though at the time it must have felt like a  fortress against modern industrial ugliness.




Evelyn De Morgan, The Gilded Cage

Elsewhere in the main Museum is a selection of G F Watts landscapes, ranging from Egypt to the Surrey hills. These are different from the Pre-Raphaelite amassing of detail, building large sculptural blocks of colour. They do connect with his great symbolic and allegorical canvases in some respects: one late landscape, apparently inspired by a dream, gives us a pregnantly symbolic easy path down and steep one up amid some mountainous pass. I was taken by the paintings of Evelyn de Morgan, saluted by GFW as perhaps the greatest female artist ever: lingering memories of a sensuous Ariadne in Naxos, a lady trapped with a scholarly spouse in The Gilded Cage, and some satisfyingly weird later pieces, such as a group of benighted souls going through a transformative passage of redemption that has to be read from the bottom up.

The Chapel remains the crowning glory - a palace of brick and terracotta and an assembly of figures amid Celtic interlace in some esoteric symbolic scheme which one day I shall get around to studying.  The Artists' Village is one of the best days out in the south. It enshrines a deep Victorian faith in the positive powers of art and beauty, a mindset which seems light years away from modern cool, hip, ironic and sensationalist attitudes on offer today. In the Aesthetic / Symbolic / Arts and Crafts / Pre-Raphaelite world of late Victorianism a religious passion is turned towards art and art production. I liked the anecdote in the film shown in The Studio. A painting came back from some gallery damaged. A furious Mary told G F he shouldn't exhibit there again. Ah, he said, but we must not let our emotions get the better of us. Let us remember that all our pictures are merely meant to serve. Which might in its way be cooler than anything our century has come up with yet.
 

Durham Cathedral

The Beginnings

The story of Durham Cathedral really begins further up on the East coast of England, on the little island of Lindisfarne. This site is important in the history of art, for it was here that the Benedictine community produced the Lindisfarne Gospels (before 721), one of the great illuminated manuscripts of the world. Less happily, Lindisfarne was also the first part of England to be attacked by Vikings (793) and in 875 further attacks led them to leave the island. Carrying with them the remains of their venerated Saint Cuthbert (died 687), the monks led a peripatetic existence until they settled in Durham in 995. There they built a church of some kind, the ‘white church’ of the tenth century, of which no trace remains.

The next significant date is 1066, the year of the Norman invasion led by William the Conqueror. Under the Normans, the Church in England was reconstructed: dioceses were redrawn, and bishoprics and other top jobs were, in many cases, given to Norman nobles. This colonial occupation also put Saxon England in close touch with international currents of thought and culture. And so churches and castles based on Norman models were constructed, and earlier Saxon constructions were destroyed to make way for them. The style of architecture the invader-occupiers brought with them was Romanesque (known as Norman in England), characterised by massive, heavy constructions, monumental and grave. The churches had much in common with fortresses, prompting the art historian Ernst Gombrich to call the style ‘Church Militant’. For churches were indeed conceived as fortresses, from which religious communities fought against the forces of evil.

Bishops

Durham now fell under the control of the new bishop Walcher (1071-80), a Lotharingian appointed by William I.  The first great building was the Bishop’s castle (which survives; Rochester in Kent is another example of castle and cathedral close together, and in both cases the castle looks over a river). The church was at this time run by secular canons, and Walcher planned to replace them with Benedictine monks from the monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow.

In 1080 Bishop Walcher was killed by native Northumbrians, apparently angered with him and his entourage at their ineffective response to invasions by Scots. The next Bishop was William of Calais (1080-96; also known as William of St Carilef), who installed Benedictines to run the church and set about the construction of communal buildings for them around a cloister (these were on the south side of the present Cathedral and very little remains). In 1092 the Saxon church was demolished and in 1093 work began on what was to become one of the great Romanesque cathedrals of Christendom, the Cathedral we see today. Bishops in those days were expected to raise the funds for such projects themselves, and often ended funding them personally. William – who was exiled for political reasons for some years – was succeeded as Bishop by Ranulph Flambard (1099-1128), who oversaw building to its completion ‘usque testudinem’, up to the roof. The entire building, then, took forty years, a timespan comparable to Cluny (1088-1130, 42 years) and Santiago de Compostela (1078-1122, 44 years).

Durham

Like any other cathedral, Durham served several purposes. It was the seat, or cathedra of the Bishop, the church where the monks sang their offices, and the shrine of the relics of St Cuthbert, whose great reliquary-coffin was placed behind the high altar upon nine columns, tall enough to allow prayers to be conducted below. Unlike churches on the pilgrim route, like St Sernin of Toulouse, pilgrim-tourists do not seem to have been encouraged: there was no ambulatory to allow easy access to the relics, and no crypt to accommodate popular devotion. Vistors and congregants found themselves shut off from the choir, the space reserved for the monks, by a great screen and would have seen very little of the hours of the day celebrated by the community.

Design

Durham’s design was based on the great churches known to the conquerors, like Jumièges and St Etienne at Caen. But it is significantly larger than these, and the same length as Old St Peter’s in Rome, which was clearly used as a distant model. Its plan is typical of the period: a West End, flanked by two towers, leads to a nave and two aisles. There are eight bays, marked by a stately rhythm of alternating compound piers and simpler cylindrical columns. These lead us to the Crossing, the central space where the nave meets the choir, marked by a central tower. To either side of the Crossing are the arms of the Latin Cross, the north and south transepts.  Beyond the Crossing the choir stretched for four bays, leading to the Eastern apse. The aisles on either side of the choir also led to eastern apses.  The Elevation is in three parts: an arcade, a gallery over the aisles (also sometimes called triforium or tribune), and an upper clerestory, to let in the light. Characteristic of the Norman style (as the Romanesque is called in England) is the absolute clarity with which all the modules, stories and sections are articulated. That is to say, it is immediately clear where one section ends and another begins, and how they are related to each other.

Main Features

There is much to marvel at in Durham Cathedral, which, seen on its rocky promontory  from the river Wear below, has the most stunning exterior of any of England’s cathedrals. Inside, building work extending over four decades leaves its trace, and it is possible to see where builders altered their plans as they went along: the design of the vaulting, for example, changes as it extends from the choir aisles to the transepts and then the naves. The wall passage in the clerestory seems to have been a later thought, and the decoration increased dramatically after 1099: by this time the building, which customarily started at the East so the monks could hold their services as soon as possible, had reached the nave. But to follow the intricacies of the design as it proceeded a more detailed guide is necessary.

Two central features in Durham stand out: the ribbed vaulting and the carved decoration. Of these, the first has received most attention in histories of architecture as it is a groundbreaking structural development.  It also holds the onlooker’s gaze, which can follow an engaged shaft up a composite pier, ascending theough gallery and clerestory and continuing in an unbroken line across the ceiling and down again, a thrilling drama in stone. From the point of view of materials, ribbed vaulting is lighter than barrel or groin vaults, and so a good solution to the great problem of all stone vaulting – how to carry the immense weight, with its downward and lateral thrust, and yet have some wallspace available for windows?  In a ribbed vault, instead of a solid mass of stone, a frame of ribs stretching diagonally between piers carries an infill of light masonry. There is some reason to believe that initially this vaulting was only intended for the Choir, to mark it as a space of unusual sanctity (again, Old St Peter’s in Rome could have been the model, with its stone ciborium over the altar; Kilpeck in Herefordshire is an example of a Romaesque church where ribs are used only in the sanctuary). Then at some point, the argument goes (though nothing is certain), it was decided to extend tibbed vaulting into the transepts and then into the nave. As the work went westwards, changes were made to the angle of the arches and the size of the columns. There were other arguments for this project besides the practical ones. Aesthetically, the ribbed vaulting suits the design of the rest of the building, with its bold geometrical shapes and criss-crossing lines. And the stone vault would have increased the value of the Cathedral as a status symbol for diocese, Church and Crown. The ribbed vaults and pointed arches of Durham look ahead to the Gothic style of the next century. Yet oddly builders of the time appeared to be less excited by them than architectural historians today, since churches with fully ribbed vaulting do not appear in England until the late twelfth century.

The ribbed vaulting is also part of the second notable feature of Durham, its decoration. It is a wonderful example of the Norman style, with its emphasis on repeated geometrical designs, simple, bold and clear. The engaged shafts, running from the floor to the vault, have already been mentioned: these add to the vertical thrust of the building, in counterpoint to the horizontal march from West to East. This horizontal movement is made more interesting by the alternation of great composite piers, where a central column has shafts and internal half-columns attached, acting as internal buttresses, and smaller cylindrical piers. This creates what are called double bays, with two sets of diagonal rib vaults between each set of composite piers, which are joined by transverse pointed arches.  Decoration renders the great stretches of stone interesting to the eye, presenting intricacy amidst the vast scale of the building: the arches have undulating patterns carved on their underside, called soffit rolls. Columns are carved with spirals, chevrons, lozenges and flutes. Elsewhere such decoration would have been common in painted walls, but in Durham it is carved into the local sandstone itself.  If this geometrical design hints at an Eastern or Arabic source, that sense becomes stronger in the interlocking arches on the inner walls of the aisle, which are echoed on the exterior. We can see these in Islamic architecture, and in English gospel books of the period.

Later changes

Durham today is still largely the Norman Cathedral of the late eleventh century. But there have been some changes. In c.1175-80 the Galillee Chapel was added at the Western end, a five-aisled building in a more Gothic style, which served as porch and Lady Chapel. Here is deposited another relic, the remains of the great Anglo-Saxon monk and historian the Venerable Bede.  In the thirteenth century, the eastern end of three apses was replaced with a long arm, like a second smaller transept, known as the Chapel of nine altars. This allowed several monks to say divine office simultaneously, and would have made it easier for pilgrims to circulate. The great central tower was not completed until 1500, only 40 years before Henry VIII dissolved all English monastic communities in the Reformation. Over time the wooden furnishings of the Norman church have disappeared, along with the rood screen and pulpitum which would have blocked the laity off from the clergy. Yet it is still possible to imagine standing in the great nave, with less light than today, and candles flickering across wood, textile, stone, paint and metal. The total effect of architecture goes well beyond the forms laid down in stone.

The Encounter

Years ago I listened, mesmerised, to a radio drama called Mnemonic, about the frozen body of Otzi the Iceman, who died some 5,000 years ago. Scientists speculated, other voices added a poetic commentary, and the story was spliced with a parallel love story from the director / narrator's experience. The theme was memory, and how imagination works with and recreates memory in our excavations from the near and distant past. Excavating this listening experience, I can't remember if then I would have recognised the voice of actor Simon McBurney (as I certainly would now), or how much if anything I knew of his company Théâtre de Complicité, makers of works which weave stories from found materials - what is now called devised drama - and bringing in techniques from the latest stage technology to traditional mime to make the stories ring. I'm pretty sure I had no idea that what I was listening to was a stage work, as it seemed to speak so directly through sound.

The latest Complicité production is The Encounter, a one-man show performed by McBurney. It's based on a book about the experiences of photojournalist Loren McIntyre in the Amazon in 1969. An experienced traveller, McIntyre didn't mark a path back to his plane and ended up as a kind of prisoner-guest of the Mayoruba tribe, deep in the jungle. In his time with them, he finds the tribe on a journey, erasing their settlements and destroying their belongings, as they follow the river in an attempt to go back to the beginning, to remove themselves from time. Only out of time will they be safe from the invasions of the white man and modernity. Even more remarkably, McIntyre finds he can communicate with the headman, whom he calls Barnacle, without speaking. This telepathic channel is referred to by one Indian (the only one he can communicate with verbally, through the mutual language of Portuguese) as 'the old language'. McIntyre called it 'Amazon beaming', the title of a book by his friend Petru Popescu which is the main source for the production.  He never experienced it again, and never made a big deal out of it. In fact, it only came to light in a discussion, years later, about the problems of communicating with Indians when there is no mutual tongue. Nothing in the recounting suggests it was a boast or an exaggeration or a fabrication. McIntyre was a highly successful and by all accounts rather retiring explorer and had no need to embellish his real-life experiences.


The Encounter stages this story with no pretence at realism. McBurney plays himself, McIntyre and other parts including the likeable Portuguese-speaking Cambio and uses simple mime techniques: a long pole becomes an aeroplane, an arrow, a thorn bush, and plastic water bottles are enough to evoke the tools and accessories of a whole tribe. Less simple is the remarkable 'binaural' sound technology which sends different sound channels into each ear: the audience is required to wear headphones throughout the performance. There is a mixture between live, recorded and looped sound, often overlaid with music. Walking through a mound of tape is recorded to represent the sound of walking or dancing in the jungle, simple vocal sounds are relayed and superimposed to create an aural tapestry of the Amazon at night. Sidelight throws deep shadow which is enough to suggest the depths of the jungle, and there are some vivid light effects on the giant canvas at the back. But the techniques and technology are not sitting up to be admired in this show. They serve themes of communication, rapacious modernity against the primeval world of the Indians, and take in the voices of anthropologists, mathematicians and the actor's invisible daughter who can't get to sleep.


I couldn't get to see it in London, but thankfully caught it on the final day of the live stream. I watched it in the late afternoon and then almost immediately in the evening (using up all the data allowance of my phone). It was simply a spell-binding experience, stimulating, moving, thought-provoking. It seemed to me that whether I 'believed' the mythology of the tribe, or the strange phenomenon of beaming, was beside the point. What matters is what is being said through the material about connections across individuals and cultures, about time, and the need to get lost and find home again, and find it changed. McBurney's performance is a wonder. The Chieftain's's words outlived the broadcast. They are holding us still in time...  Some of us are friends ...

Andy Warhol

A brief but enjoyable visit to the exhibition of Warhol pieces from the Hall collection at the Ashmolean. Brevity of attention seems appropriate to work that is about - to the extent that it is 'about' anything -  a world of flashy celeb sensation, ephemeral fame, the replacement of the gaze with the glance. From my own porous memory, a few days later, what clings? Early silkscreen flowers which convey, beneath the deadpan cool of the Warhol image, an actual sense of beauty and excitement in making; a minute or two watching the various films on simultaneous display in Room 2, and being held by the scratches in the film and wavering light in Empire (1964); a huge screen print portrait of Joseph Beuys - another master of the self-image, and solemn prophetic critic of Western materialism - gazing gloomily across at the array of portraits of the once famous on the opposite wall; aleatoric creations in oxidized urine and a Rorsach image, made in some kind of nervous satirical dialogue with the Abstract Expressionism which represented a completely opposite aesthetic. Where Pollock & co. proclaimed the heroic and isolated soul of the artist taking form in unconsciously guided  paint, Warhol's works give us the deliberately vacuous maker, absorbed into the shallow anonymity of a superficial world of easy fun and brash sensation.

One might, on an astringent day, feel moved to criticise a lack of individual draughtsmanship, a reliance on facile technique, but that seems to be the point: the easily captured and reproducible image is the image of a world based on commerce and populist rhetoric, visual and verbal. Warhol could draw quite well - and did, in his fledgling days as an illustrator - but preferred to make drawn portraits by tracing photos with a thick carpenter's pencil, denying the possibilities of nuance and subtlety. In the last room, copies of kitsch religious imagery, ads and slogans (Heaven and Hell are Just one Breath Away) add up to a kind of commentary on last things, following Warhol's near-death experience when he was shot in 1968. Warhol heralded the infinite inanities of social media, self-branding, and fashion - our versions of the icons which fascinated him in the churches of his youth. The show is disconcertingly honest in holding up a mirror to our nature, turning pop images into a new iconography. It's all fun to look at, and very cool - but also one senses that coolness and facility leaves out almost everything that gives the human story any interest and dignity. It's beguilingly difficult to tell whether Warhol is providing some kind of critique of modernity or simply embodying its vulgarity. He was obsessed with money, fame and attention. Perhaps in a clever ironic way, perhaps not.  But he was certainly a voyeur (in a very literal sense, as one panel reminds us) and a valuable recorder of his age. The record that he leaves here is like a room where a party has taken place, bearing the acrid after-party taste of futility. The melancholy of the glossy polaroid snap.