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The House was commissioned by the 1st Earl after his victory at The Battle of Waterloo, it was built by Adam Smith in 1771 and has remained the family home of the Wellsley family ever since.  It is still their home today because in the 1947 when the 7th Earl gave the house and it’s contents to the Nation, the agreement reached with the government was that the family would retain part of it as their home. Apsley House is now looked after by English Heritage.

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The large house is located next to the Queen Elizabeth Gate of  Hyde Park on the wide bend around Hyde Park Corner and overlooks it’s central green area on which stands (among other monuments) the Wellington Arch (also known as Constitution Arch)  and the Wellington monument.

Designed by esteemed architect Robert Adams in 1771 when it was known simply as ‘No.1 London’ and was the height of fashionable London. In 1947 the seventh Duke gave the house to the nation although the family have retained a suite of rooms (behind locked doors) and it remains their family home to this day. There is an imposing central square hall is tiled in a tiny ceramic tiles of a repeating black and white design,  there are marble busts of the important men of the day depicted as ancient Romans as well as a genuine first century bust of Cicero. In the grand stairway is a twenty-foot statue Napoleon himself commissioned from Canova, of himself naked, a toga draped over one arm and he carries a staff in the other hand. Apparently he didn’t like the finished sculpture, he was embarrassed by its athleticism and had it hidden away in the basement of the Louvre from where the British Govt bought it and presented it to Wellington as a gesture of gratitude.

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From 1815 to 1852 (when the first Duke died) a grand banquet was held on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo on the 18th June, and it always attracted large crowds lining the streets eager to see the famous invited guests. At first the banquets were restricted to thirty five guests as the dinning room could not seat more, but when Wellington had a special gallery built this increased the number to eighty five.  In the dining room is an enormous painting by William Salter of one of the banquets it shows soldiers in ceremonial dress all around the table, their feathery hats and glistening sheathed swords lying on the floor behind their chairs. It was a mark of your social standing or lack of it whether you were invited to the banquet in the dining room itself or had to make do with the gallery above.

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Nothing quite prepares you for the Plate & China Room, for the eight magnificently grand floor to ceiling polished mahogany display cases; they have the cleanest glass I have ever seen. In just the top half of the first cabinet are thirty-six fine china plates, twelve of which come from Prussia (the Prussian service was a gift given after the battle of Waterloo). The plates are all hand painted with scenes connected to Wellington’s life and they are gifts of grateful nations.

There are also display cases full of soldiers batons, swords and sabres(including those Wellington used at the Battle of Waterloo, intriguingly the silver mounts of his sabre’s scabbard which were made by a Martin Guillame Biennais of Paris who also made the mounts for Napoleon’s scabbard) and shields, vases, silver and gold lacquer boxes. In the middle of the room is a large rectangular finely detailed model of ancient Egypt complete with pyramids and sphinx.

nx’s, it was actually part of Empress Josephine’s divorce settlement from Napoleon, apparently she didn’t like it. There is the 104 piece Saxon Service of hand painted Meissen china, the Austrian Service from the Empress of Austria, the 66 piece Egyptian piece, and the Portuguese Service. Just how much china does one man need !

It was fashionable at this time to present national heroes with monumental pieces of silver and the four gallon Wellington Vase designed by Tom Stoddert R.A. is truly monumental, it was paid for by subscription. One of the shields is 3 foot in diameter, its border engraved with scenes from Wellington’s battle

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s and the centre is a proud relief of charging cavalry crushing the defeated foe at Waterloo with the Duke in the centre and a winged angel hovering above crowing him with a laurel wreath

Upstairs in the Piccadilly Drawing Room with its beautiful tall yellow silk walls and deep central glass chandelier there are paintings by Dutch masters.

• Lovers with Woman Listening by Nicholas Maes.
• Landscape with Travellers by Johannes Linglebach
• Landscape with Shepherds and Catto by David Teniers
• The Holy Family and St John, by Jan Brueghel
• The Gamblers by a follower of Caravaggio
• The Musical Party by Pieter de Hooch

In the Waterloo Gallery:

• Charles 1st on Horseback by Anthony Van Dyke
• St Joseph by Guido Reni
• St Fancis of Assissi by Pablo Estaban Murillo.

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There is a fascinating Astronomical Clock (the Wikki image shows the clock that’s in the Lund Cathedral and the hyperlink is to the clock in the British Museum). The fabulous ceiling is compartmentalized by plaster coving, the central scene is a high coloured sentimental scene of women flying along side horses. The almost ceiling high dark wood glass pained book cupboards contain nearly two thousand leather-bound text books. Hidden above them concealed mirrors double the space by reflecting light, and in front of the bookcase on one side of the room is a row of ten elegant Chinese ‘rosewood’ gilt inlaid chairs.

The windows to the rear of this room that look on to an inner tiny courtyard contain some beautiful stained glass panels, in front of the windows are two very large inscribed Chinese vases and between them a Greek vase whose intricate base is a tablet of multi coloured ceramic pieces in tight geometric design.

A large painting catches my eye; Snake in the Grass, Joshua Reynolds PAR (President Royal Academy) 1723 – 1792 this is a portrait of a bare breasted woman.  (Another example of male gaze being made acceptable by setting her in a classical pose).

The Study

I love this little room,  its an accumulation and celebration of Soane’s skill, expertise in collecting classical marble artifacts, plaster casts and moulds. Part of his passion and pleasure was spending time rearranging them to their (and his student’s) best advantage.  In this small space is his writing desk with a skylight above looking like a mini St Paul’s dome raised above a square glass column.   In the corner is a small sink with hand pump, a clever inclusion when writing and drawing with ink and nib would have often dirty the hands, disastrous on his amazing architectural drawings.

The Picture Room

Image by joellybaby via Flickr

Soane and his wife were one of the first people to collect British art,  he was a great supporter of the Dulwich Picture Gallery (pictured on the right, showing the ‘Pompeii Red’ that Soane loved) whose co-founder Francis Bourgeois commissioned him to build.  In Soanes tiny but painting crowded room are many paintings by Hogarth, they are wonderfully alive, full of goings-on making lively social satire and commentary.

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The Election:  this is series of four paintings commentating on the bribery and corruption that overflowed between the Whigs and the Tories during the 1754 General Election campaign for the seat of Oxfordshire. (See the image to the right, ‘Polling’ from the series).

The Rakes Progress: images available in part one of the Art Traveller journey around Sir John Soane’s House. The celebrated series of eight paintings is Hogarth’s stark critique of the greed of the age; it tells the story of Tom Rackwell who promised marriage to his sweet but poor love Fanny but when  he inherited his father’s fortune he ditched Fanny a true friend and gathered instead a pack of simpering hangers-on and lived as a libertine till his money ran out and debtors chased him,  then Fanny returned and paid his debts but he ran off and married an old rich hag,  he lost a second fortune and landed in The Clink the debtors prison where Fanny visited him and weeped,  finally Tom ended his days chained, naked,  syphilitic and mad in Bedlam hospital.

The Italian Count: by Henry Fuseli.  Also known by its alternative name of ‘Ezzelier, Count of Ravenna musing over the body of Meduna slain by him for infidelity during his absence in the holy land’.   It looks dark and moody and absurd, I don’t like it very much.

Downstairs

Down the short stone spiral stairway to the crypt is like stepping into a cultured Goth’s fantasy playground; the walls are bedecked in plaster casts of masks, statues stand in alcoves, there are various odd changes in floor level with single steps up and down, nooks, crannies, flickering candles (there’s a few carefully positioned down here today), sudden skylights casting lightness into the gloom.

The Victorians were fascinated with death and the paranormal, Tarot and Mesmerism parties were all the rage and Soane liked entertaining his friends down here. There would be musicians and party games, while wandering around admiring the marble busts, the two magnificent Japanese dog dragons, the prison chains, a roundel of George Frederick Handel and a large plaster eagle.  Dominating this space is an enormous stone sarcophagus, this is the original three thousand year old resting place of the Egyptian Pharaoh Seti the first,  it’s also open though empty and glass cased, it’s inner and outer walls are covered in amazing hieroglyph.

This is an amazing house of an amazing man, worth more visits … especially after it’s extensive renovations are completed.

SOME RESOURCES

Hogarth;  www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk

The Election, The Rakes Progress; www.soane.org.uk

Dulwich Picture Gallery; www.arttraveller.wordpress.com

The Italian Count: www.bridgmanartondemand.com

Seti’s Sarcophagus: www.londonist.com

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Believe the website when it tells you this museum usually has queues outside, I visited on a particularly cold late November day with heavy snow sodden skies ready to turn the town icy white and I still had to queue …. but my wait is at least not too bad and I’m pleased to avoid presumably picnic length summer queues. My other tip is more than most places I’ve been to this museum is best visited after a little preparatory reading – this blog post for instance !

After the required leaving behind of my large tote bag with the front door concierge and the optional purchase of the excellent £2 mini guide, I began my half tour (I only saw the ground and lower floors, I will do the rest another day) of this fabulous museum crammed with amazing exhibits. (the link takes you to a 360 degree panorama of the ground floor sculpture galleries). The variable light levels inside were at first a bit irritating but then I learnt that part of Sir John’s instructions to the trustees, and stipulated in the act of Parliament by which the house became a public museum, for giving visitors the most authentic experience of his house, is that the house must be kept as close as possible to the way he left it, hence candles, mirrors, large windows and skylights abound and only a few discreet description notices.

England at the time of Sir John Soane’s birth in 1753.

At this time London was the heart of England’s wealth and power and England ruled a vast Empire across the globe, thus the Regency era was one of unparalleled expansion of trade (with an Empire you don’t have to compete for trade), scientific enquiry (in this year The British Museum was founded) and the arts. The side of the river Thames was almost entirely industrialised with all commerce regulated and controlled by the Corporation of London through the Livery Companies, for instance on the river itself only Freemen of the Livery Company of Watermen and Lightermen could ferry passengers (think of them as latter day London cabbies (taxi drivers) with rowing boats instead of cabs). Women could run businesses however they could not rise to senior positions (ironic exclamation mark !).  However with this increasing wealth came a vast gap between the rich and the poor, whose lives were often ragged and beggarly made worse as with no access to clean drinking water, gin and ale were drunk in huge quantities, in 1750 every sixth house in the Bloomsbury area of London sold gin and eleven million gallons was drunk in England ! The following year legislation began and within a few years the figure had been brought down to two million gallons.

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The satirist William Hogarth whose Rake’s Progress hangs in Soane’s House drew great attention to the iniquitous social divisions.

On the right are just the first two of the eight large oil paintings that show the story of Tom Rakewell who inherited a fortune, became a Regency libertine and descended into destitution, debtors prison and finally syphilitic madness in Bedlam. (Apologies that the images are not in the correct order, I have tried !)

Sir John Soane

The son of a bricklayer, at fifteen he began working in te office of architect George Dance where he must have showed great promise as was entered as a student at the Royal Academy, where he would have received a very classically based education.  His early and improving talent quickly brought him a travelling scholarship to Italy, following his return via Ireland he settled in East Anglia where he had a modest architectural practise. He won the prestigious contract as Architect of the Bank of England – scandalously his façade for the bank was pulled down by a later post holder. With increasing success, fame and wealth he became an associate, then full member then professor of architecture at the Royal Academy. Apart from many other projects he was the architect responsible for; the dining rooms at No 10 & 11 Downing Street and the Dulwich Picture Gallery (England’s first purpose built art gallery) – this latter fact is personally interesting as I was immediately aware that the Pompeiin Red in Soane’s House seemed very similar to the Gallery Red I saw at the Dulwich Gallery.

In 1792 he bought the house at 12 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and having rebuilt it moved in with his wife and two sons. In 1813 he bought no. 13 and in 1823 no. 14. Having now rebuilt all houses and given them an integral front facade, he rented out No. 14 just using it’s stable yard area at the back as additional space for his museum which (along with his home) spread over the other two properties. He began collecting antiquities, statues, documents, paintings, sculptures and all the other truly amazing artifacts that make up his collection, he mostly acquired things from London auction houses and house sales and constantly added or rearranged his collection. The house was kept a busy place by the presence of his architectural, painting and sculpture students from Academy whom he invited to come and study the collection.  He was a sociable man and greatly enjoyed entertaining his friends especially for musical and mysterious evenings in his downstairs winding crypt with it’s pillars, crannies and nooks, sudden skylights, statues and that imposing enormous sarcophagi – that will be described in part two of this journey.

Resources

• Sir John Soane’s Museum London – A short description, Revised June 2009
• Sir John Soane’s Museum, 19.12.10 http://www.soane.org/
• Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, 19.12.10 http://www.soanefoundation.com/opening_soane_museum.html
• Sir John Soane’s Museum London Virtual Image Reality, British Tours Ltd, 19.12.10 http://www.britishtours.com/360/soane-museum.html
• TheDrinkShop.Com, 19.12.10 http://www.thedrinkshop.com/pages/pagetext.php?pg_name=ginhistory
• Watermen’s Hall, The Company of Watermen and Lightermen, 19.12.10 http://www.watermenshall.org/
• Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales (founder), 19.12.10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hogarth

This room creates a great change of pace from the vibrancy of the hallway, happily with it’s high ceiling and large size this room is grand enough to cope with it’s sombre brown and pale gilt wallpaper and as throughout the house the panelling and doors frames are painted and carved with long stems and leaves, gold inset roundels and buds and there is a magnificent glass chandelier.

The Dining Room

With it’s emphasis on red and busyness this dining room is  typically Victorian. The red wallpaper has a tight recurring diamond pattern of gilt, the floor to ceiling window doors opening onto the ornamental gardens have red velvet curtains that swirl onto and the red floor. All this Victorian redness is thankfully relieved somewhat by the patterned blue carpet  (non fitted of course – they didn’t come in till the 1960′s).  The room though not as over crowded (by our modern day tastes) as it would have been in Leighton’s time this room still has an interesting collection of fixtures, fittings, paintings and ornaments; for instance there is some of

Leighton’s large collection of enamel china bowls and ceramic wall plates, also a heavy dark wood dining table though not as big as one would expect and lastly there is a magnificently imposing fire place.

On the walls are some of his paintings;

• Mrs Henry Evans Gordon, 1871,

• Orpheus and Eurydice, 1864, (though in searching for that link I’ve found George Watts version that I prefer, it’s stirringly full of passion and movement that Leighton’s doesn’t come close to). There is also a striking painting called

• ‘Michelangelo Nursing his Dying Servant’ in three quarter view, the servant sat in an armchair rests his head on his masters shoulder, Leighton  thus appears to be saying that (his hero) Michelangelo was a good, caring and humble man – and as there is perhaps some hints of self portraiture here I wonder if he is seeking to have his audience regard him as having these qualities also.

The Moorish Hall

The Moorish end of the hallway has to be seen to be believed, a high walled square above which is a golden dome that at its apex has an area of yet further intense decoration. From this high point hangs almost thirty feet of the most decorative and fine metalwork chain holding up a magnificent coronet of lights.

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Every inch of this space is covered in glistening Moorish Byzantine ceramic tiles and dark wood filigree shutters both high up in the walls hiding and drawing attention to yet more curious crannys, and in the centre of it all rising from the floor the  water feature a single fine spout fountain.

I want to be drinking honey sweetened mint tea and wearing flowing silk robes – think Alhambra palace in your hall.  (the inserted image shows an example of intricate and rich Moorish architecture).

Upstairs - I’ve not left myself much time for up here.

Bedroom; small, almost austere, plain single bed.

Studio; is a wonderful space with light flooding in through its enormous windows, his paintings,  and sculptures are all around.

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• Clytie, a fabulously dramatic image of a Greek young woman on her knees arms outspread in supplication to a wide, colourful and glorious sky which was purchased with the help of The Art Fund, is a fabulous painting.

• Corrina of Ranges

• Clytemnestra on the Battlements of Aegis, she’s watching for the beacon fires which are lit to announce the return of Agamemnon

The Silk Room, the walls are covered on it and there are lots of paintings  by other artists in here:

• The Madonna of the Candelabra, Antonio Rosselino, late 15th century terracotta relief (a type of sculpture where the image projects out from a flat, or recessed, base) It was purchased with the help of The Art Fund

• Shelling Peas, John Everett Millais, 1889

• Desdamona, Lord Leighton

A few Paintings in other Locations

• Odalisque, 1860, in private collection … wonderful sensuous full length portrait of a young woman and swan

• Old Damascus, Jews Quarter, 1873, in private collection … I saw this lovely picture in the ‘Pre-Raphaelites and Italy’ exhibition in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

• The Music Lesson, 1877, Guildhall Art Gallery … this is also lovely I saw it when I visited this Gallery as part of my Art Traveller’s project.

Links

Lord Leighton’s House, main web site

Lord Leighton’s House, resources page

Art Fund’s Lord Leighton’s House page

Image by Gwynhafyr via Flickr

In a  select leafy and quiet area of London, on a road where almost all the houses are hidden behind high walls and higher trees I get the unmistakeable feeling that I’m walking down Quality Street and that the house I’ve come to visit is going to be a masterclass.

I’m not wrong,  my overall impression is of quiet green leaves,  imposing red bricks and deep blue mosaic tiles,  it is a truly stunning house and into this oasis I am welcomed by the staff and given free admission because of my Art Fund membership card.

The Hallway

This many pillared central  hallway is both cooling and calming,  it gives the impression of being a luxurious oasis designed for rest and philosophy.  What I mean is, without intending to be prosaic, this hall appears to rest the mind while engage the brain; the colours and tones are contemplative while its patterns and intricacies are stimulating and intellectual.

By my very rough estimate this hallway (not including the Arab Hall extension, more of that in part two of this journey) is fifteen feet wide and thirty-five feet long. The floor is made of tiny mosaic tiles designed with scrolling tendrils of greenery, the walls are highly polished azure blue tiles deeply and variously shaded, and against one wall an imposing dark wood staircase  There are also various carefully selected objets d’art on display; under the staircase is a statue of a Greek God I think, and many Japanese vases beside one of these is large very regal peacock (of the stuffed variety) it stands on the back of a two-seater settee which sits in the alcove created by the first corner of the stairs.  Even the pillars and statues, small not overpowering beautifully melt into & complement the overall design.

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Now I’m off to do some research on Fred …

Frederick Leighton 1830 to 1896 was born into a wealthy medical family in Scarborough, his father was a doctor and his grandfather had made the family’s fortune by being the physician to the Russian Royal family in St Petersburg.  Although Leighton’s father paid him an allowance throughout his life and had helped his son to study art he did not like it as career choice,  unless his son were to excel at it … which of course he did.

Frederick gained his general education at University College London before heading off to Italy to study art. During his time in Europe  he also stayed in Paris where he met the artists Ingres, Delacroix, Corot and Millet and when he came back to London he met and became friends with the Pre Raphaelite artists.

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Leighton’s art is very fine and classical,  so fine his brush strokes are almost invisible and so classical he became a leader of Classicism in Britain,  whose view of the human figure in art was that they should reflect the perfection of  classical statues of antiquity (a view that was diametrically opposite to that held by his friends the PRB’s).

The painting on the right is called Flaming June,  I think it’s fabulous and it’s his most famous and last work, done in 1895.

Link: ArtMagic website for a collection of large thumbnail images and bibliography.

He lived life at an amazing rate and as for success well he was feted from his first sale – which was to Queen Victoria.  He travelled extensively in Great Briton,  Europe,  Africa and the Middle East, returning again and again to Italy, France,  and particularly Spain and many Muslim countries from where he collected art and ideas.  He created business partnerships so he had agents in various countries whom he trusted to collect artifacts for him and ship them to his new London home being built to magnificently display and celebrate his collection.  The result of so much work,  travelling and success was that he was elected into the Royal Academy, where he was a respected teacher for many years and eventually rose to become its president until ill-health forced him to cut back on his hyperactive lifestyle at which point his friend Sir Everett Millais (previously a leading PRB) took over from him.   He became the first artist to be made a Peer but he died the next day,  making his the shortest peerage on record,  he lay in state at The Royal Academy before being buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Back to Lord Leighton’s House

The Study

In a side room off the central section of the hallway is the study with it’s connecting double doors giving on to the vestibule area (where the ticket desk now stands) – making a classically imposing barrier between the two areas is another beautiful statue Icarus I think – it’s nude and has wings (I really need to know more about this subject !). In here there are paintings and drawings all around; stacked on the floor, hung on the walls and piled on chairs. Having just been to The Red House I make a moderately educated guess that the curtains are a William Morris design.  On the desk are various items of Leighton’s correspondence; telegrams, letters, studies for paintings.

The Drawing Room

On the opposite side of the hall is the carpeted yet creaking Drawing Room and in here I find an amazing ornate marquetry table it’s inlaid design depicting sea gods and sea creatures that seem to be floating in a bubble with a sailing ship nearby. Although the inlay is badly damaged with cracks and piece missing the table is still a magnificent piece of furniture.  In the large bay window hang lace nets and decorative bunched curtains, and on  the ceiling in a gilt banded orb is a soft though distinct painting; the description tells me that its actually a copy done in 1987 for the restoration, the original however was itself also a copy of another painting, one by Eugene Delacrois;  Study for La Paixvient Consoler Les Hommes 1849 – 54.

More coming soon in part two of this journey ….

Web Links

Lord Leighton’s House the home page for the house, including a link to their amazing interactive display of the house – that is worth a look, really.

Learning Resources Page buried in the above site is a wonderful collection of information, but it takes a bit of digging to find it (I have emailed them my thoughts)

In the upstairs drawing room, the most used room in the house in Morris’s day is a painted Latin inscription above the fireplace it reads ‘Art lives a long time though life is short’.  In here is an enormous specially made construction, the lower part a bench settle, the backrest is doors of inset cupboards, above which are shelves and it’s top has been fashioned into a minstrel’s gallery accessed by the built in wooden steps on either flank. On it recitals would have been given and it would have provided another level from which general riotous fun and games such as food fights were conducted. The ceiling of the room they painted a vibrant geometric and floral design and there is a piano, which was originally owned by thier freind and PRB painter Ford Maddox Brown on it while he couldn’t play, his guests frequently did and his children frequently distracted their father.

In 1870 Morris and Rossetti together leased a farmhouse in Oxfordshire called Kelmscott Manor, many of the fixtures and decorations from The Red House were installed here. Unfortunately William’s personal story is still a sad one here, Jane and Rossetti who had long been attracted to each other began an affair – much discussed in the gossip column’s and parlour rooms of London. William who had serious, tempestuous, chivalrous and somewhat socially inept character was unable to compete with Rossetti’s charisma withdrew, he hoped this would allow the affair to go away and Jane to return to him.  During this time he went on study tour of Iceland. He had previously studied Icelandic folklore and wanted to find inspiration for more designs. While I sit in this room making my notes from one of the regular tour guides bringing around a group of people I learn that on this expedition he travelled on a pony called Mouse. When he came back home he found that the affair had faded and the marriage survived,

The house of course had other owners after Morris who were obviously entitled to make changes, however I do think it’s sad that the dark gothic style decorations that would have covered the surfaces where whitewashed away. Mind you I don’t suppose I could have lived with them for long either; I wonder if it’s just to big a reconstruction job for the National Trust.

Morris and Jane Leave The Red House

Morris’s business which was based in London faltered and as it did, so did Morris’s dream for the Red House, his countryside idyll. Far from becoming a joyful creative  community of artists in reality it had become a sad drain on his energy. Neither were in good health, he had rheumatic fever and Jane was poorly and grieving the death of her father;

and Morris still needed had to

Image by failing_angel via Flickr

make the 2 hour commute to London each day, so after just five years he sold up and moved on. Eventually he buying a factory site on the bands of the Wandle river at Merton Abbey Mills in Wandsworth London where, with the help of new and innovative dyeing techniques the business succeeded. Morris & Co. is now an internationally recognised brand of high quality interior design products.

Related Articles

• William Morris in Ireland, from the Gaurdian Newspaper

• Arts & Crafts: The Designs of William MorrisRetrospect (apartmenttherapy.com)

Apart from being doused by a short but enthusiastic bout of rain it was a perfect English summer’s day and as was truly fitting for such a beautiful garden a fete complete with bunting, deck chairs and sandwiches with their edges cut off was in full swing when I arrived at The Red House, the home that William Morris had built for himself and his beautiful wife Jane. (the large image below is a painting of Jane by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, isn’t she lovely?)

William Morris

Attended Oxford University where he met and became great friends with Edward Burne-Jones, EBJ was there studying divinity planning for a life in the priesthood. However he and Morris grew bored with the stultifying atmosphere of their leaden antiquated study materials and devised their own curricula instead which brought them to the poets and philosophers and through the writings of John Ruskin to the work of the PRB’s. After hearing Rossetti speak on the subject at a working men’s college (a job Ruskin had found for the cash or ‘tin’ (as DGB called it) they dedicated their lives to art and the values of the PRB’s.  In later years with the building of The Red House Morris had hoped that Edward and his wife Georgiana would come and live in one wing of the house and together they would establish a community of artists however when the time came the Burne-Jones’s had been hit hard by the sudden death of their new born babies and this never happened.

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The Morris’s marriage was not an easy one; William was in fact so exuberant and excitable that some sources claim he was in mentally unstable.  While Jane who was a real ‘stunner’ (a word used the PRB’s who used to actively search for ‘stunners’ to be their models and frequently their lovers) grew increasingly attracted to Rossetti – he also was charismatic and beautiful (neither of these of a characteristic the unfortunate William possessed). Some say that Rossetti, who was this time married to his waning muse the tragic Lizzie Siddal , encouraged William and Jane to marry thus to keep Jane within his circle so he could continue to see her

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was an art movement founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everet Millais and William Holman-Hunt in 1848, later followers included William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones (the black and white image below Jane’s is that of William Morris and Edward Burne Jones) and John William Waterhouse. The PRB’s were the YBA’s of their day, that is they were young, talented, opinionated and often shocking. For instance they rejected the teaching of their tutors at the Royal Academy who held that only acceptable representation of the human figure whatever the subject of the painting, was one based on the classical idealised perfect human form found in ancient statuary.  Instead the PRB’s believed that the human figure should be accurately and naturalistically portrayed, anything more than this was just frivolity. The PRB’s aspired in their work for realism and truth. They loved literature and poetry, especially Keats, and beautiful tragic heroines were often the themes of their work.

The PRB’s personal lives were very tangled up together. So much so the BBC were able to make a delightful romp (of artistic accuracy) about them called The Desperate Romantics.  For John Millais wife was once the wife of John Ruskin, the famous art critic,  (Millais one time friend, supporter and mentor to the PRB’s). Later Millais paints his famous painting of ‘Ophelia’ (the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who mad with grief throws herself in a river and drowns). The model for the painting was was Lizzie Siddal (Millais had her lying in a bath so long the water turned cold and she almost died of pneumonia), Lizzie was Rossetti’s lover and later his long suffering wife (until she committed suicide). Dante probably the most scandalous and charismatic of the lot, had two great loves in his life one was Lizzie, the other the wife of his best friend and business partner, Jane Morris. This affair was well known and gossiped about across London, in response to which William the gently melancholic / frequently drunkenly jovial giant went abroad, outwardly for a design finding expedition for his company but in reality to vacate the Red House leaving Jane behind in the hope the relationship with Dante would somehow resolve itself; it did with Jane leaving The Red House with her husband when he sold it to take lodgings in London nearer his growing business.

Back to the history of the house …..

The architect of the house was Philip Web who married his own practicality with an intuitive and deep understanding of Morris’s Pre Raphaelite taste for the simple lines of romantic medievalism, which he saw as being both beautiful and functional. Here William was the exuberant host of many open house parties for their friends and family were they all decorated the house during the day painting directly on to the walls and furniture, using each other as models and then by dusk they would feast and wine and play games.

Unable to find the perfect mix of function and beauty in the fixtures and fittings he wanted for the home he had built for his bride, he began producing first the designs then the products himself. His designs so proved popular with this friends and acquaintances he began a commercial company founded on them.  was the founder the Arts & Craft movement in this country,

I think it’s fair to say that for the Morris’s their short five years at the Red House was a roller coaster of excitement and heartache; there were painting parties, dinner parties, gaiety, scandal, heartache and despair which ended in Morris taking an extended trip around the continent leaving his wife behind in the house with another man. In this hothouse of talent and trouble Morris grew his ideas and his business and the result was Arts & Crafts movement

This old photograph show’s the Morris and Burne-Jones families together.

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Furniture and Interior Design of The Red House

The Dining Room

Philip Webb designed the dresser in this room which is huge providing ample room for laying out all the food and drink for the parties.

Hallway

The leaded light stained glass windows set in to the outer wall of the short corridor leading off the main entrance hall are beautiful.

Dining Room

This is a large square room, white square wainscoting, with Morris designed wallpaper, a red brick chimney with a polished brass hood and ceramic Delft tiles on either side. In the corner standing vertically on a stretcher frame is a newly restored tapestry of Aphrodite (the design was inspired by Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’) which was designed by EBJ and stitched by his sister Bessie and his wife.

The Red House, part two will be published soon.

Sierra Leone

Under my feet the lino flooring is pattened life a leafy jungle floor but the most dramatic part of this display is above my head. As the soundscape fills my ears with the sound of a jungle war zone I look up and suspended individually on almost invisible plastic threads are hundreds of bullets and shards of glass, they appear frozen in time and about to burst into deathly life.

Aside: I can’t continue reading details of the conflict  and I don’t want to construct a few lines of synopsis, that would be incredibly inadequate. Instead a couple of websites …

Sierra Leone Civil War, Wikki

Fergal Keane’s Account, BBC

Afghanistan

There is a sad small book here, an A5 sized thick pad of papers with just one detail on each page in black lettering.  The details are the names of the British military personnel who have died in Afghanistan since the conflict began in 2002. The book is added to whenever someone dies, its pages are in reverse order so the first page records the latest death. When I visited the last first page had been added just three days earlier.

Aside: I’m beginning to have a better understanding of what the army does and an even more than usually sour feeling about the failure of diplomats, politicians and dogma of all kinds.

Northern Ireland

There is an amazing and sobering oil on canvas painting entitled Peace Tower by John Keane. It’s about 4.5 x 10ft tall, the canvas is rust red, the lower third of the tower is covered in thick impasto swirls and dabs of brown, black paint; earth uprooted colours. Then where the land meets the sky there’s an 18 x 10 inch tall corrugated metal fence and in the middle of this divided land looms the tower. Like a giant macabre mushroom, it’s thick brown stalk supports the observation area almost totally enclosed in defensive metal plating from which coils of barbed wire are suspended. Behind the monster the skies are turbulent grey white and black.

A British Army observation tower as used in County Armagh. Aside: I’ve searched for an online image of the painting to link to but cannot find one sadly. However the artists website is very much worth a look at – he specialises in War paining.  John Keane’s Website

Aside: Here are two quotations I found on John Keane’s website I find particularly moving

“We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.”
George Orwell

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Early Shots Exhibition

This exhibition explores the early history of British war photography.

The photograph was invented early in the nineteenth century (after the breakthroughs of Daguerre and Fox Talbot) Frederick Scott-Archer invented a wet plate collodian process of photography (this fixes a negative image to glass instead of paper however it needed very bulky cameras and long exposure times, neither good for war photography).  John McCosh, a surgeon in the Bengal medical team developed his interest in photography in 1840 when in Edinburgh for further medical training and was a skilled photographer by the time he was involved in the Second Sikh wars in 1848 –9 and the second Burman war 1852-3.

There are amazing images here, reproductions of photographs taken from 1848 onwards. Aside I felt let down when I discovered they were reproductions, this complicated feeling came from trying to hold on to the conflicting thoughts that while the paper behind the glass might not significant the image on it is and if this is true then it follows that the image can be seen as a separate entity from the paper/canvas/screen/wall (etc) that it lies on.

Art Gallery at National Army Museum

This long dusky pink gallery is quite deserted and so silent my tinnitus usually masked by hubbub now resounds off the walls.  Ornate golden framed paintings hang heavily on their long chains almost overcrowding the walls. The polished wood of the floor is only visible for a couple feet either side a sumptuous navy blue carpet.

All the paintings in here are portraits or landscapes featuring military personnel doing various military type activities and although the subjects or styles don’t excite me I can’t help trying to apply the lessons of the book I’m reading; to look at the artists use of colour, perspective, narrative, diagonal or balanced lines.

• Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount of Wimbledon 1631, oil on panel by Mierevelt. This painting was an Art Fund supported purchase.
• Skinners Horse at Exercise 1840, oil on canvas by John Reynolds.  This is shows the amazing horsemanship skills of the 1st Battalion Irregular Cavalry. My notes just say ‘WoW!’
• Home Again 1858, oil on canvas by Harry Nelson O’Neil.  This Art Fund supported painting shows soldiers returning from the Indian Mutiny disembarking from troop ships in Gravesend. There is a lot of bright bold colours, lots of movement and foreshortening as the crowds almost tumble out of the painting into the gallery.
  
• Patient Horses, A Royal Artillery Gun Team in Action 1882, by Elizabeth Southerden-Butler (later Lady Butler). Christie’s auction house website says she is ‘… arguably the greatest military painter of the nineteenth century …’. She exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1892. I found her paintings amazing the horses were so full of movement and life, just amazing.

  Image via Wikipedia

This image is one of hers and images do not do justice to the paintings. I’m not sure if this is actually one of the one I saw however it is very similar and standing in front of them you could almost feel the strenghth or sadness or ferocity coming off the horses in her pictures.

• Under Fire, A Gun Team of the Royal Field Artillery in Training on Salisbury Plain 1816, oil on canvas mounted on wood panel, by Lucy Kemp-Welsh.  The caption underneath the painting tells me she was a very gifted horse painter and did the illustrations for Anna Sewells ‘Black Beauty’.
• Marble bust of our Flo’ – as us nurses call Florence Nightingale, done in 1862 by Sir John Steele.

I had even timed my visit so that I was really hungry when I got there and had a valid reason for delaying seeing the exhibits by going straight to the café.  Which was actually quite a surreal experience; the café seating is in the main entrance hall and blends into the open plan shop selling the whole array of army related products. Across it all rave music seeped from the cd player in the café which that day was staffed by two young women both wearing giant fluffy pink bunny ears and one of whom using a table as a pillow and was fast asleep.  I think the bunnies had over done the clubbing the night before.

Whilst sitting there I began to write these notes …. ‘I don’t want to be here, if it wasn’t for this project I wouldn’t have come.  So I suppose I hope to learn today how our army is an instrument of peace not war.’

Exhibition: Making of Britain

I only stop to see a very little of this as I wanted to move on to the modern sections. However in here there is an impressive model of an English archer from 1415, all males from childhood onwards had to own a bow and arrow and practise with it regularly. A skilled archer could shoot ten arrows per minute and was paid about two and half pence per day (about £160 today). The model has bare legs which apparently for a soldier at Agincourt is accurate as the soldiers were racked with dysentery and trouser-less was less impeding …. eugh …

Exhibition: Adverts and Army Home

Image via Wikipedia

This exhibition explores the varying roles of the British Army across the world in over forty years.

I first come to five adverts for joining the forces, these pictures are framed like museum paintings. The reason for putting them in this setting is I think to create a sense of reverence for the Army roles at the beginning of the exhibition, the ornate frames ask me to treat the objects like museum pieces.  Trying to instill reverence is interesting as it takes the mind away from less savoury references one might have for soldiers; the emotion prompted is awe rather than fear.

The five gold framed adverts are mounted on supports that allow you to walk around them and on their reverse sides are mounted five black framed photographs whose images commemorate the army’s loss and bravery; a row of medals,  a marching band and a military coffin being brought home.

There is a mock up of an army home.  I’m not sure why it’s here unless to indicate that the army looks after soldiers; it’s a nondescript plain looking home though.  In here I leaf through a new soldiers information book and look at the card notice which tells me about the equality policy of the army; it says it includes the many races and religions it doesn’t say anything about gay men and women.  Aside: I have just checked Wikki and found out all sections of the armed services do actively recruit gay men and women.  The equality card is not quite as inclusive as it should be.

Exhibit: Hospital Section and a TV

Like the army home, there is another mock up of part of army life. This one is of a military hospital or small part of one. Above our heads is a TV showing a rolling stream of news items relating to the army, the sound is up to far.

Exhibit: Conflicts Around the World

You can click the link below to be taken to National Army Museum clear and well presented pages on this exhibition.

This large and illuminating part of the museum first shows me how the government has four options when considering how Britain should respond to an area of conflict in the world.

• Not to send in the army at all.
• Send the troops in as observers.
• Send the troops in as peacemakers.
• Send the troops into combat.

On the floor laid out in front of you is a large map of the world which shows areas of the conflict in the world over the past decades and a colour coded information showing you what option the British Govt took. There is also a computer terminal in which you could make your own choices in various areas of conflict, and as I’m beginning to learn some valuable lessons I’m cross when I find it is not working.

This large area of the museum is filled with various displays which you can walk into or view from outside, there are also different soundscapes with each display triggered I suppose by sensors somewhere in/near the display. The displays are really interesting, they seem particularly created to elicit emotion as well as deliver information.

Some of the areas of conflict:

• Troops sent in to South Osseti 2008: they went in as unarmed impartial observers to support the cease fire.

• Rwandan Genocide 1998: In just one hundred days in 1994 around 800,000 people in Rwanda were massacred as Hutus slaughtered Tutsis (aside: as I type that I keep looking at my notes, surely I got that figure wrong. I’ve checked again, it’s correct and I’m truly horrified). The vast majority of British troops were sent in as peacekeepers or aid workers. In the course of the operation they may have returned fire or engaged in combat.

Part two of the Journey around The National Army Museum coming soon.