A New Start, A New Direction

I have just enrolled as a student (again), this time at the University of Wales, Trinity St. Davids.
I shall be spending the next year studying towards my PGCE (Secondary) with the ultimate aim of qualifying as an History Teacher.

Chris Gollon's, St. Ethelflaeda Diptych, Romsey Abbey

The St. Ethelflaeda Diptych at Romsey Abbey

Photograph: N.G. Howe

The diptych at Romsey Abbey, by the late Chris Gollon, depicting their Patron Saint and former Abbess, St. Ethelflaeda is a marvellous and thought-provoking piece of devotional art. It borrows from the conventions of both history painting, the highest form of academic art, and from caricature, at the other end of the spectrum. The artist’s influences, are most certainly the beautiful Norman Abbey of Romsey, where she was Abbess during the 990s, and the legends which arose up about her.

            The diptych is sympathetic to its location in the south nave aisle of Romsey Abbey, one bay west of the Old Abbess’s Door. Chris Gollon has skilfully blended soft tones, which compliment and blend in with the stonework around the painting. The left-hand panel depicts the Abbess Ethelflaeda in a nun’s habit, holding a pastoral staff across her. Light emits from her fingers, whilst in her right hand she is holding an open book of Psalms, which she is in the process of reciting. This image conflates the two best known “Legends of St. Ethelflaeda”, that of her reciting the Psalms whilst standing in the River Test, and of her reading the scriptures in the Abbey by light emanating from her fingers, owing to the candles having suddenly blown out. The right-hand panel adds to this, as it depicts a pillar candle on a stand, which has recently been extinguished, as evidenced by a small pillar of smoke rising from the wick. Light radiates back from Ethelflaeda, penetrating the darkness and casting a shadow behind the candle stand.

            When looking at the painting, one is immediately drawn to the light shining forth from the region of her hands, the fingers of which are deliberately elongated, in the manner of caricature. Another striking feature of the portrait is the elongated and twisted neck, again borrowed from caricature conventions. In this instance, in common with the fingers, Gollon is not suggesting that the real life Ethelflaeda had overly long fingers, or a giraffe-like neck, but seeks to draw attention to particular points which the artist wanted to get across. In the case of the fingers, to demonstrate, beyond doubt, the source of the light she is reading from. With the neck, the aim is to convey two, possibly conflicting, emotions. In the portrait, Ethelflaeda’s face is a picture of focus and concentration, clearly nothing is going to distract her or prevent her from completing the task in hand, reciting the psalms from 1 to 150. It is clear that she has been there for some time, as the book is open somewhere towards the middle. Having been stationary for quite some time, potentially for several hours, she is likely to be in some discomfort. The challenge facing Chris Gollon was, therefore, how to convey that discomfort without breaking the look of sheer concentration upon her face. The answer was to indicate or infer some small movement, without moving from the spot where she was stood. Her hands were already taken, owing to the light emanating from them due to the conflation of the two legends. Accordingly, Gollon sought to indicate Ethelflaeda’s discomfort via a slight twist to the neck, which has been elongated so as to draw attention to this, and, therefore, highlight the discomfort being felt by the Abbess due to her dedication recital of the Psalms, whilst glued to one spot.

            Another feature of the painting which has caused some controversy is the cropped hair of the Romsey Saint and her austere look. This debate has not been aided by the lack of iconographic tradition surrounding St. Ethelflaeda. Indeed, the Abbey’s seal contains a stylised image of a nun. The black habit she is sporting is entirely consistent with the Benedictine foundation of the Abbey at Romsey. Meanwhile, most nuns of the period would have had cropped hair, for similar reasons that monks had tonsures cut into their hair, as a mark of their calling and the fact that they had left vanity behind them. Had Chris Gollon painted her with a wimple, then her hair would have been concealed, and, therefore, would not provide a talking point, however, to have done so would have covered her neck, thus made displaying her discomfort all the more challenging. The lack of a wimple, could also be a nod to the fact that, according to her legend, Ethelflaeda would recite the Psalms in the River Test in a state of undress.

            Like so much of Chris Gollon’s work the St. Ethelflaeda Diptych is a piece which one needs to study for some time, in order to tease out all that the artist has sought to convey to his audience, rendering him a thought provoking artist. Clearly a style which draws from both high art and caricature, is not going to be without its critics, but the key here is that Gollon’s devotional work makes the viewer think and encourages them to delve deeper into the back story, be it a particular passage of scripture or the legends of a saint.

This diptych was painted for the Romsey Abbey leg of Chris Gollon’s national touring exhibition Incarnation, Mary & Women from the Bible in 2016. Each panel measures 59”x20” (150 x 51cm) and is Acrylic on Canvas.

New Career Path

In September I shall be embarking on a new career direction and going back to teaching and university, when I begin a PGCE at University of Wales, Trinity St. Davids.

Book Update

I am delighted to be able to announce that I have been awarded a Scouloudi Publication Award from the Institute for Historical Research for my forthcoming book: Statesmen in Caricature: The Great Rivalry of Fox and Pitt the Younger in the Age of the Political Cartoon, which will be published by I.B. Tauris in 2019!

Book Title

I have finally got a title for the book I have been writing from my PhD. thesis:

Statesmen in Caricature: The Great Rivalry of Fox and Pitt the Younger in the Age of the Political Cartoon

Hopefully it will be published in 2018! . . . Watch this space for more news. 

Subversive, Satirical and Scandalous: An Introduction to Eighteenth Century Caricature

I will be giving a talk on eighteenth-century caricature at Romsey Abbey on Wednesday 31 May for the 2F's Committee raising money for Abbey Funda. The talk will be in the Church Rooms starting at 19:30. Tickets £6 on the door and include pudding!

J.S. Bach St. Matthew Passion

Wow! What a Start to Passiontide!

I have just been listening to a superb rendition of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion (BVW244) at Romsey Abbey. 

It was a complete rendition of the 1736 Score on period instruments by the orchestras of the Bishop’s Consort under the direction of the Rt. Revd David Stancliffe (former Bishop of Salisbury), and led by Emily White and Morag Johnson.

Hugo Hymas san the part of Evangelist and Ben Rowath the part of Christus.

The whole performance was very moving and made great use of Romsey Abbey’s unique acoustic. Bishop Stancliffe’s aim was to recreate the feel of the 1736 performance, through the use of period instruments and two choirs of four people. This was particularly effective and provided a clarity that massed choirs can find hard to match. There is a great sense of crossover with the Evangelist joining in the church’s corales and Christus ends by singing of entombing Jesus in his own heart.

The performers all generously gave their time for free with a retiring collection being taken in aid of Relieving the Famine in Burundi.