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Citation for Kenneth Muir’s VC from the London Gazette

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V C War hero on the 70th Anniversary

It was in the Korean War, rather than the Second World War, that Kenneth Muir’s courage as a soldier, and as a commander, was to be truly revealed. The south eastern Asia country of Korea had been occupied by Japan since 1910. Following Japan’s total defeat in 1945, the north part of Korea had been made into a communist state under Kim Il Sung, and south of the 38th parallel, a democratic state under Syngman Rhee had been created. On 25 June 1950, the communist north invaded the south, and British troops were sent to support Rhee’s country (as part of a United Nations force commanded by the Americans). Chester born Kenneth Muir, and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, were amongst the very first British troops to begin fighting on the Korean peninsula, as part of what soon became known as the 27th (Commonwealth) Brigade.

North Korean troops quickly occupied most of the south, apart from a small area around the south eastern port of Pusan. In September 1950, UN forces, including the 27th Brigade, began to push outwards from this so-called Pusan Pocket, and on 23 September 1950, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders became involved in a desperate battle for the strategically vital Hill 282, in the province of Seongju. Major Muir, who was second-in-command of the Highlanders, first became personally involved during the effort to extricate casualties from Hill 282. He led stretcher parties onto the hill at a time when the Scottish soldiers were being overwhelmed by counter-attacking North Koreans. Muir led the fight against the attackers, and called in U.S. airstrikes to assist his men. Tragically, the Americans hit their allies rather than the North Koreans, in one of the first and worst examples of ‘friendly fire’ in the Korean War. Muir and his men had little option but to retire some way down the hill. It was at this point that Major Muir organized and led a counter attack, involving thirty men of all ranks, which again took the summit of Hill 282, despite overwhelming odds. Ammunition was running low, however, and it was here, at the head of his men, and firing a two-inch mortar, that Kenneth Muir was cut down and killed by enemy fire. As a result of his actions, Muir was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, and he was also given the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) by the Americans.

Kenneth Muir’s parents received their son’s VC from King George VI, in person, during a 1951 Buckingham Palace ceremony. Muir’s father, Garnett Wolseley Muir, never really recovered from the death of his son on Hill 282, and in 1954, obviously burdened by grief and sadness, he took his own life. Garnett Muir, just as much as his son, Kenneth, was a sad casualty of the Korean War.

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Charles James Hughes 1853

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Charles Hughes: A Man for all Seasons

Charles James Hughes was born in Applegate Street, Northwich, on August 16th, 1853, and grew up to become one of the great sporting figures of Victorian Cheshire. He was a notable figure in the development of both rowing and cricket in Northwich. He also indulged in athletics, and became a figure of national importance in the development of association football.

Yet, Charles Hughes was much more than just a sportsman. His 1901 census returns show that he was an auctioneer and valuer, by occupation, setting up his own auction house business under the name of Charles Hughes & Son. He also became a Justice of the Peace, an honourable auditor of the Victoria Hospital on Winnington Hill, a Conservative political agent during four Northwich parliamentary elections, and a governor of Witton Grammar school. The Northwich man was clearly prepared to take on many different roles, and he proved to be rather good at them all.

However, it is for Charles Hughes’ role in developing the game of association football that he chiefly deserves to be remembered. He was a co-founder of Northwich Victoria F.C. in 1874, and played in the team’s first recorded game against Stedman College, in that same year. Sadly, his playing career came to a premature end in 1877, when he broke his ankle after a hefty tackle from an opponent in a game against Hanley Rangers, at the Drill Field, Northwich.

It was at this point that Hughes made the transition from being a player to being a football administrator and official. Crucially, he did this at a key time in the evolution of association football, when proper rules were being formulated for the game, and when leagues were being established. The ex-Northwich Victoria player became a co-founder of the Cheshire Football Association in 1878, and he stayed on as the Honourable Secretary of the Association for the next 30 years. In addition, Hughes acted as the Vice President of the national Football Association in 1901.

Charles also became a football linesman and referee of some distinction. Few if any modern footballers make the transition to become a linesman or referee. The massive salaries on offer to players mean that further involvement in the pressurised activity of officiating at a football match simply isn’t wanted or desired. – It was different in Charles Hughes’ day, however. He seems to have gravitated to refereeing, and being a linesman, with considerable ease and enthusiasm. In 1891, the Northwich auctioneer refereed the FA Cup Final between two of the founders of the English Football League – Blackburn Rovers and Notts County. Blackburn won 3-1 in an apparently entertaining encounter watched by 23,000 people. In these early days of the FA Cup, the venue of the final changed between one year and another.  The 1891 Final was held at the Kennington Oval, London, which in more modern times has been the home of Surrey County Cricket Club, and of international Test Match cricket.

Charles travelled to Goodison Park (now the home of Premier League Everton FC) to referee the 1894 FA Cup Final between Notts County and Bolton Wanderers. Here, he officiated in another high scoring match, watched by a crowd of 37,000, which Notts County won 4-1. In 1892, the Northwich man had been a linesman at Ibrox Park, Glasgow, during one of the early England v Scotland Home International fixtures. England won the game 4-1, in an encounter watched by 20,000 people. Rather unusually though, Hughes combined his linesman role with being a member of the 7 man FA International Selection Committee which picked the England team for the match. It would be impossible for such an event to occur in the modern game. – One simply can’t imagine, for example, any modern England football manager picking the team for a particular international match, and then running on to the pitch to participate in the game as the officially appointed linesman/Assistant Referee. Things were clearly very different in the Victorian amateur game!

In the early years of the 20th Century, the England football team wasn’t picked by an all-powerful manager, who was solely responsible for selection decisions. Instead, the selection procedure was quite similar to the practices followed in English rugby union and cricket, where a group (or committee) of selectors, headed by a Chief Selector, chose the team. By 1907, CJ Hughes was the Selector in Charge of the English football team, both at home and abroad (when the team was on tour). In 1907, the team largely – but not completely – selected by Hughes drew 1-1 against Wales, in a game played at Craven Cottage, Fulham, in front of 22,000 people. As the Selector in Charge of the side, Hughes had, in many respects, reached the pinnacle of the football game in England, at that time.

Hughes died nine years later, in 1916, though the significance of his death was largely overshadowed by the gloom and terrible casualties of the First World War. Few newspapers wrote substantial obituaries for the great footballing man. Nevertheless, the Northwich auctioneer and father of six had achieved much during his lifetime. As a player, linesman, referee, senior Football Association official and Chief Selector of the England football team, Charles Hughes did more than most to develop and enhance a game which dominates the modern sporting world.

Adrian L. Bridge, October 2018.

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Ann Todd from The Paradine Case 1947

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Ann Todd: A ‘peaches and cream stunner’ of a film star from Northwich.

Dorothy Annie Todd was born on January 21st, 1907, in Hartford, Cheshire, and under the shorter, presumably more glamorous stage name of Ann Todd, she went on to become a film star and actress famous across the world. She had an acting career which spanned the best part of 60 years, from the 1930’s to the early 1990’s, and which encompassed films, stage and TV. During this time, Ann met, and worked with, many of the most famous people in movie history, including Alexander Korda, Alfred Hitchcock, David O. Selznick, Gregory Peck, Sir Ralph Richardson, and many others. She also starred in a number of films directed by David Lean, one of the greatest film directors of all time, and became Lean’s wife in 1949.

Despite Ann Todd’s distinguished career, and her stellar connections with some of the leading film and acting legends of the 20th Century, little has been said or written about her in the town and county of her birth. It is therefore appropriate that Ann now features as one of the on-line ‘Hidden Women of Cheshire’ in a promotional campaign currently being run by the Mid Cheshire Community Rail Partnership (see www.amazingwomenbyrail.org.uk.) Ann Todd certainly led a remarkable and colourful life, which definitely deserves to be less ‘hidden’, particularly in the town of her birth.

There is some ambiguity about the year of her birth in Hartford. – Many biographies indicate that she was born in 1909. However, the 1911 Census, and other registry evidence, clearly shows that she was born two years earlier, in 1907, and was christened in March 1907. Like many in the acting profession (both past and present) it was perhaps best to be a little coy about one’s true age. Ann Todd’s slim frame, good looks and comparatively small stature (she was 5’4’’) meant she always looked quite young. Indeed, possibly to Ann’s delight at the time of her marriage to film director David Lean, in 1949, she was described in at least one American newspaper report as being 29 years old, rather than the more accurate age of 42!

The future film star, Ann Todd, was born into a well-to-do, affluent middle class family, in Hartford, Northwich (population 850 in the census of 1901). Though Ann was born in Hartford, her sales manager father, Thomas, was a Scot from Aberdeen, and her mother, Constance, was a Londoner. By 1911, the Todd family had moved to London, probably to advance Thomas’s career in sales management, and Ann had acquired a younger brother, Harold, who went on to achieve fame as a writer of comedies such as ‘No, my Darling Daughter’ and ‘A Pair of Briefs’ which were commercially very successful during most of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The family still seem to have been very affluent in London, and could afford to accommodate two live-in female teenage servants, and Thomas’s adult sister, Ethel, within the household.

Harold was packed off to school at the exclusive Marlborough College, and then undertook a degree at Cambridge University. Ann Todd went to school in Sussex, but acting seems to have been in her blood from an early age, and she was soon enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, specialising in the interesting combination of elocution, drama and fencing.

It didn’t take long for Ann Todd’s star potential to be noticed, and by her late 20’s she had been signed up by the British film mogul Alexander Korda. She was a key actress in a number of the films he produced in the 1930’s, such as ‘Things to Come’ and ‘South Riding’. Ann’s big break, in terms of worldwide fame, came in 1945, when she starred opposite the British matinee idol, James Mason, in a film called ‘The Seventh Veil’. Her performance as a troubled concert pianist drew rave reviews in America. The film critic of the Los Angeles Times, for example, commented that she ‘carried the film’, and it was American film critics at this time who first dubbed the Northwich born actress as the ‘pocket Greta Garbo’ because of her distinctive style, looks and diminutive stature. Hollywood, in the form of the great David O. Selznick (the driving force behind the film production of Gone with the Wind) soon came calling, and Ann was offered the largest film contract ever offered to an English actress at that time – probably worth around a million dollars all told - which was an astronomical sum in the late 1940’s.

With Selznick’s backing, in 1947, Ann starred opposite the Hollywood screen legend Gregory Peck, in the Alfred Hitchcock directed film “The Paradine Case”. Much has been written about Hitchcock’s preference for directing blonde actresses such as Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren, and Ann Todd certainly fitted in with the look and style of these other actresses. Tippi’s relationship with Hitchcock, in the film “The Birds” certainly seems to have been fraught. However, no hostilities between Hitchcock and Todd seem to have surfaced. Indeed, Ann Todd starred once again for Hitchcock in the 1950’s, in an episode of his successful U.S. TV series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”.

The Paradine Case wasn’t as commercially successful as hoped, but America never lost its enthusiasm for Ann Todd. All aspects of her life, personal and professional, continued to be of interest to U.S. reporters, and features about her were carried throughout America, in newspapers from Lubbock in Texas to California, Utah, and Albany in New York. In 1957, William Glover of the New York press described 50 year old Ann as being “a damsel of allure” as she prepared to make her debut on Broadway. Not surprisingly, she was given a very laudatory obituary in the Los Angeles Times, on the day following her death in London in May 1993.

Ann Todd’s career in British films is often undersold. We are told, for example, that she specialised in playing rather stoic, put upon, post-war British housewives. – Anyone that watches her 1950 performance as the morally ambiguous probable Victorian murderess, Madeleine (in David Lean’s film “Madeleine”) must realise that she could play a wide range of roles with subtlety and distinction.

In fact, there were many different aspects to the Northwich born actress’s career. For a start, she seems to have recognised the significance of television, as a medium for acting and drama, from the very beginning. She played a leading character in the late 1930’s British television serial “Ann and Harold”, which was produced during the pre-WW2 days when Britain was pioneering the introduction of television (an experiment abruptly ended by the onset of war). In fact, many experts regard ‘Ann and Harold’ as being the first ever attempt at producing what today would be called ‘soap opera’. Ann Todd’s involvement in television also extended to America, where she appeared not only for Hitchcock, but also in John Frankenheimer’s 1960 TV movie adaptation of Hemingway’s ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro,’ alongside Hollywood movie star Robert Ryan. Following many an actor’s adage about never giving up or retiring, Ann continued to appear in TV productions, such as Michael Gambon’s 1992 Maigret series, until she was well into her 80’s.

Ann was well versed in the challenges of appearing before live theatre audiences: In 1957, she made her Broadway debut (thus escaping the pressures of a traumatic divorce from David Lean) by starring as a wealthy American socialite in a production of the little known play “The Four Winds”. Back in England, during 1954-5, she took on some of the leading female Shakespearean roles, during a complete season of acting with the Old Vic Theatre Company. All this just goes to show how accomplished and versatile Ann Todd actually was as an actress. Not content with film, stage and TV performances, the multi-talented Cheshire born actress also developed a highly successful career as a travel writer and documentary producer, in the 1960’s, with programme credits to her name such as “Thunder of the Gods” (1966) and “Thunder of the Kings” (1967).

In many respects, Ann Todd grew up in Northwich, London and Sussex to become an archetypal Hollywood movie queen. – She had wealth, good looks, and a prodigious amount of talent. Her private life was also stormy, to say the least, and filled the gossip columns of papers on both sides of the Atlantic. She was married and divorced three times. Her first husband, Victor Malcolm, was the grandson of Lillie Langtry, the famous music hall artiste and mistress of Edward VII. In an era when there were no ‘blameless’ divorce cases, Ann’s 1949 divorce from Nigel Tangye, her second husband, was particularly bitter. Ann left Tangye to live with and then marry the film director David Lean, who was Tangye’s first cousin. Tangye sued Lean for $160,000, largely as a consequence of his ‘misconduct’ with Ann. This financial claim was thrown out by the divorce court judge, but Tangye was granted custody of Ann  Francesca (Ann Todd and Tangye’s daughter). Happiness eluded Ann Todd in her third marriage to David Lean, as well. They were living apart from each other within 5 years, and Ann was granted a divorce, on the grounds of Lean’s desertion, in 1957. None of this personal trauma seems to have adversely affected either Lean or Todd. David Lean went on to achieve further cinematic immortality with his direction of the film “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962. Ann Todd immediately threw herself into a starring role in a Broadway production. It was here, in her dressing room, in 1957, whilst preparing for her role in “The Four Winds” that the admiring American film and theatre critic, William Glover, interviewed Ann, and referred to the now 50 year old Northwich born actress as a “real peaches and cream stunner” of a film star. In terms of her energy, zeal and talent for acting, William Glover’s summary was just about right.

Adrian L. Bridge, April 2018.

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APPRECIATING SCULPTURE

Prehistoric Sculpture.

Such primitive sculptures begin to appear in the paleolithic era (ending in about 10,000 BC). For example, there is the basalt figurine known as the Venus of Berekhat Ram, and a quartz figurine called the Venus of Tan-Tan. Both sculptures are probably over 200,000 years old, judging from carbon dating evidence. Later in the pre-history period, early humans like the Cro-Magnons began to produce simple carvings of birds, animals and other phenomena.

Small sculptures of obese females called ‘venus figurines’ have been unearthed at various Stone Age settlements around Europe. These figures were probably fertility symbols, and were carved from a variety of materials including clay, limestone and mammoth bone. These females all look very similar, wherever they’ve been found. During the Neolithic era, bronze sculptures began to appear in greater numbers, as the result of the development of more secure human settlements, which allowed for the expansion of smelting and metallurgy.

Ancient Egyptian Sculpture.

Ancient Egyptian sculptures were mostly linked to architecture and the building of temples and tombs. Temples were viewed as being the eternal resting places of the Gods. A statue of the God(s) would be hidden in the temple, within a series of closed halls, and viewed for a limited time by a select group of people. Tombs were full of sculptures; of pharaohs, their queens, and of other prominent officials.

Ancient Greek Sculpture.

Early Greek sculpture was very similar to that produced in Egypt, with a focus on rather stiff figures carved out of stone. However, a significant change came about in the Early Classical period, when more realistic sculptures began to be produced such as the Kritios Boy (c.480BC)  which showed the male nude in the contrapposto position – weight resting on one leg, which is straight, with the other leg bent. This type of contrapposto male nude statue reached its apogee with Polykleitos’s Spear Bearer (c. 450-440 BC).

Rome & Christianity.

Ancient Greek and pre-Christian Roman sculpture was produced for a variety of reasons: The figures were meant to honour the Gods, and to act as funerary items. They were also developed to celebrate the beauty of the nude body, and to emphasise the power and prestige of individual rulers. The emphasis changed to a degree with the advent of Christianity, when sculptures of warriors and Gods began to be replaced by statues of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

Medieval Sculpture, and Some Definitions.

Diptychs, with a religious theme, and carved in wood, ivory or other materials, were a very common feature of this time. These diptychs, and other carvings and sculptures, were reliefs with scenes carves into a flat block, which stood out from the background. LOW RELIEF sculpture (and not just within the Medieval period) is where a scene or figure is carved out from its background – whatever the material – but only to a shallow depth. HIGH RELIEF sculpture (again, across many periods from antiquity onwards) is where the scene is carved out from the background material to a much greater depth, and may even be in-the-round, completely detached from its background.

During the subsequent Gothic period, there was a considerable expansion in the use of high relief sculptures within churches and cathedrals, often of key Biblical figures, which could appear almost free standing from the walls and other background materials behind. This monumental sculpture was combined with the increasing popularity, throughout the 17th Century, of much smaller hand-held Memento Mori sculptures (particularly in strongly catholic areas of Europe – see Activities section) and of small figurines of the Virgin Mary given to women about to be married – probably as symbols of continued piety.

The Renaissance.

Sculpture during the 14th & 15th Centuries began to encompass a broader range of topics – not just religious/Biblical narratives. There was a developing focus on sculpture which depicted classical myths, and which drew inspiration from the art of Ancient Greece and Rome. The Renaissance master sculptors were Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo, and wealthy patronage was important to them all. Michelangelo had the pope, amongst others. Donatello, who worked in Florence in the early to mid-15th Century, had the fabulously wealthy and powerful Cosimo de Medici, who was a massively important patron of aspiring painters and sculptors. For example, he commissioned Donatello to create the first free standing male nude since antiquity – ‘David’, a bronze completed between 1430-2. Of course, the presence of Michelangelo, the master sculptor, also has to be considered. Michelangelo dominated the Italian Renaissance scene, slightly later on in the 15th and early 16th Centuries, being born in 1475.

The Baroque and Rococo Styles.

Baroque sculptures were almost always in the round, and full of fluidity, movement and drama. The undisputed master of baroque sculpture was Gian Lorenzo Bernini. A visit to the Vatican City in Rome is certainly advantageous here, in order to appreciate how pivotal a figure Bernini was in the art and sculpture of the Catholic Counter Reformation.

Rococo.

Rococo sculpture places less of an emphasis on the large scale than was the case in the Renaissance and baroque periods. Instead, the stress was on small and delicate sculptures, often in porcelain rather than marble. Porcelain was an expensive and fragile commodity, recently introduced into Europe from China. As a consequence, Rococo sculptures were often the preserve of the wealthy aristocracy, and monarchs like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Sculpture in the 19th and 20th Century.

As with painting, impressionism became a key feature of sculpture in this period. The Renaissance focus on perfect anatomy and narrative shifted to one highlighting personal expression, stylization and different surface textures. For example, the rough texture left on Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker (a bronze created in 1913) was very different to the smooth surface typical of a Bernini sculpture. Rodin was one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th Century, and in his selection of surface textures, he was attempting something new and quite radical.

Modernism.

The term ‘modernism’ really encapsulates a variety of movements such as surrealism, minimalism, cubism, pop art and Dadaism. Marcel Duchamp, for instance, was a key Dadaist – a member of the post First World War Dada movement, which rejected most mainstream ideas of the day about what constituted ‘art’, and which felt largely alienated from the artistic establishment of the time. Sculptures like Duchamp’s 1917 piece ‘Fountain’ were intentionally controversial. The sculpture was thought by many to be vulgar, and totally lacking in artistic merit – a reaction which it was intended to provoke!

Constantin Brancusi was a FUTURIST sculptor. One of his most famous pieces was called ‘Bird in Space’ and produced in 1923. For many, the sculpture bore little resemblance to a bird, because there were no wings at all, and, instead, the focus was entirely on a stretched body and beak. When the work was imported into the USA, customs officials refused to recognise it as a work of art at all, instead branding it as a piece of worked metal. Only after a legal battle lasting 5 years was this non-representational sculpture legally accepted as a work of art by the US court authorities.

ACTIVITIES

Task 1: Have a look at copies of both the Kritios Boy and Polykleitos’s Spear Bearer (using any appropriate on-line and/or textbook sources) and compare and contrast them as sculptures. For example, you might assess their contropposto positions, and the general complexity of each sculpture.

Task 2: Use either google or a dictionary in order to define the term ‘diptych’.

Task 3: Find out a little more about Memento Mori sculptures. What were they, and why were they so popular?

Task 4: Much can be learned about the development of Michelangelo’s skills as a sculptor, by comparing and contrasting his Madonna & Child (produced in 1491) with his a Pieta, created in 1497: Have a look at copies of both, and then suggest how and why a Pieta can be judged to be the more complex and skilled work of art.

Task 5: Identify how 2 Bernini sculptures of your choice can be said to show fluidity, movement and drama (for example you could look at the ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’ completed between 1647-52, and ‘Apollo & Daphne’ completed between 1622-5, both of which can be easily examined via on-line and/or textbook sources).

 Adrian L. Bridge

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APPRECIATING PAINTINGS

Paintings can be complex things to appreciate in an informed fashion. Such informed appreciation can be undertaken via a number of different methods:

Firstly, the artistic methods and techniques undertaken can be examined. Thus, Jan Van Eyck was famous for his oil painting technique, which produced a characteristic luminous finish. Michelangelo was renowned for his fresco technique, and for his skill with anatomy and male nudes. Leonardo da Vinci was famous for his sfumato, and Rembrandt for his chiaroscuro. Titian and Matisse (amongst others) were distinguished by their colourism, Caravaggio for his Tenebrism, and Frank Auerbach for his impasto. These techniques, and many others, are an important feature of informed art appreciation.

Secondly, COLOUR has always been a very important aspect to consider, and often, throughout history, the use of colour has been subject to certain rules and conventions. For example, Ancient Egyptian paintings only made use of 6 colours – red, green, blue, yellow, white and black. Red was the colour of power and authority. Green was used as a colour to indicate new life and fertility. Blue was the colour of rebirth, while yellow was used to represent eternal things like the sun, and gold. White was indicative of purity, and black was the colour of death. As an extension of some of these principles, male bodies were painted in darker colours than female bodies.

Byzantine icon paintings followed similar conventions: Blue was the colour representing human life, while white became the colour used to represent the resurrection and transfiguration of Christ. In icons of Christ and the Virgin Mary, Christ was usually depicted wearing a red undergarment, together with a blue outer garment (symbolising the idea of God becoming a man). Conversely, Mary was usually depicted wearing a blue undergarment, and a red outer garment (indicative of someone starting off entirely human and mortal, but moving closer to God).

During the Renaissance, burgeoning European art academies restricted the use of bright colours, which were only to be used in the most appropriate contexts. It is only much later in European history, with the advent of the French Impressionists and the Fauvists, that colour really became utilised independently, and without restriction. Of course, the development of new colour pigments also had a significant impact on the tonal range available to painters. – After all, a Renaissance colour palette was a very different thing to the palette available to a 19th century artist.

The narrative content of a painting (How to appreciate it).

In order to make an informed judgement, we can subdivide the narrative content of a painting into 4 parts: a) The main message. b) Subsidiary messages. c) Symbolism. d) References and analogies. (At the end of this section, under Activities, you will be given the opportunity of carrying out some research, and completing an initial assessment of the narrative content of a famous Renaissance painting, using these 4 subheadings).

Interpreting Western art (c.500 – 1700).

Byzantine art, and its icons, together with other hieratic styles such as the Gothic, was packed with narrative meaning and symbolism – but all of a Christian kind. This exclusive focus on Christian symbolism makes the art somewhat easier to decode, though the fantastic imagery of Renaissance alterpiece art of the sort produced by Bosch and Pieter Brueghel the Elder can be more difficult to work out. Much baroque painting was more straightforward, as (during the era of the Counter Reformation) its focus was mostly just on the promotion of Catholicism. Its best works consisted of trompe l’oeil ceiling frescoes and other monumental religious works. Even here, there were some exceptions, such as the Realist School within Dutch Baroque art, which possessed much complex imagery and symbolism.

Dutch Realism 1630-90.

Some exceptional schools arose in the newly independent (from Spain) protestant areas of the United Provinces, such as those in Amsterdam, Delft, Utrecht and Haarlem. Dutch realism really developed as a result of the historical context. – The 17th century was the period of the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ in which trade grew with the East Indies, and other areas of the world, and Dutch merchants grew rich on the profits. These merchants were a new type of art buyer, requiring a new type of painting, and they commissioned some of the most complex still life paintings ever produced, by the likes of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Willem Kalf, van Hoogstraten and others.

The Decline of Religious Paintings from 1700.

Religious art declined elsewhere (not just in the United Provinces) because of the decline in the number of ecclesiastical patrons available, and the rise of the secular, middle class/professional patron, who wanted – and paid for – small scale portable paintings which could be displayed in their homes. Moreover, these new buyers wanted portraits, landscapes or genre paintings (rather than massive religious allegorical works) which showed off their newly acquired power and status. As a consequence, this ‘new’ type of painting lacked obscure religious symbolism, and can be easier to interpret.

Interpreting paintings from 1700 onwards.

For analytical purposes, these can be divided into 5 main types: i) HISTORY paintings ii) PORTRAITS iii) GENRE paintings (of everyday scenes) iv) LANDSCAPES v) STILL LIFE.

History Paintings:

This category of paintings can include mythological, religious and historical works with a ‘narrative’ which can be difficult to interpret when designed to convey inspirational or philosophical sentiments.

Portraits:

This category of painting is generally easier to interpret, though it must be remembered that the buyer of a painting often prefers to purchase a ‘manipulated’ image showing him/her at their best (e.g. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portraits of the Prince Regent during the Regency period).

Genre:

These can be relatively straightforward to interpret, when the artist is focused, principally, upon portraying the social history of a particular scene. However, a genre painting can also be used to convey a philosophical message, making the interpretation more complex to determine.

Landscapes:

In the hundred years between 1700-1800, many landscape paintings were commissioned by landowners who wanted a pictorial record of their estates. Thus, such paintings can be relatively straightforward to understand and interpret. However, in the later 18th Century, as the Romantic movement began to take hold, many painters went into the countryside in order to ‘capture’ the essence and beauty of nature – adding considerably to the meaning and purpose behind such works. Impressionists like Pisarro and Monet can fall into this category. There are also landscapes with more of a philosophical message, which can be quite difficult to interpret fully.

Still Life:

Some of this type of painting can look very static when looked at in a superficial manner. Nevertheless, the best of Still Life painting can still be loaded with symbolism, and influenced by artistic traditions going back to at least the 17th Century.

How to appreciate abstract paintings.

The key principal behind a proper appreciation of abstract paintings is the realization that FORM is just as important as REPRESENTATION. Thus, a picture of a human face could be a very anatomically inaccurate, ‘bad’ one, but it could have a very effective and striking use of colours or shapes, and might therefore be adjudged to be a ‘beautiful’ picture/painting.

Thus, form is everything, and we need to look at colours, shapes and surface textures (and their relationship to each other) when assessing and interpreting a particular piece of work.

 ACTIVITIES

 Now that you have completed this introductory section, please have a go at the following activities. You can either talk to your tutor about the possible answers on the telephone, or via skype, or send written responses via email or post. Please enjoy thinking about your answers, and the initial research that this entails!

Task 1: Try and find out more about the artistic techniques of sfumato, chiaroscuro, colourism, Tenebrism and impasto. What did these techniques/skills actually involve?

Task 2: Try and have a look at the painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymous Bosch (1500-05) either on-line or in a suitable textbook, which is one of the great Renaissance paintings. Once you have looked at a copy of the painting, and maybe read a little about it, try and complete a brief assessment of the painting’s narrative content, using the 4 subheadings described earlier in this Section.

Task 3: Using the information supplied above about the 5 main types of paintings produced from 1700 onwards, say whether you think the following 11 paintings are either history, portrait, genre, landscapes or still life works of art: Some are more straightforward than others!

Death of Marat (1793) by Jacques-Louis David.

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya

The Morning of the Execution of the Streltsy (1881) by Vasily Surikov.

Arrangement in Grey and Black: Whistler’s Mother (1871) by James Whistler.

Portrait of Madame X (1883-4) by John Singer Sargent.

Man with a Hoe (1862) by Millet.

Marilyn (1967) by A. Warhol.

At the Moulin Rouge (1890) by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Ennui (1914) by Walter Sickert.

Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750) by T. Gainsborough.

Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) by JMW Turner

  Adrian L. Bridge

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JOSEPH BARRA: A NAPOLEONIC CHESHIRE SUCCESS STORY

The actor Sean Bean made his name on TV playing the tough Napoleonic rifleman, Richard Sharpe, who rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant-colonel at the battle of Waterloo, in 1815. Sharpe was, of course, a fictional character, and the inspiration of the historical novelist Bernard Cornwell.

In many cases, however, truth can be stranger than fiction: Joseph Barra, born in Sussex, in 1780, was a real life ‘Sharpe’ who rose through the ranks of the military and achieved his greatest accolades whilst living and serving in Cheshire.

Joseph first enlisted in the cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars, as a member of the 11th Light Dragoons. Although he started as a private, Barra had been promoted to sergeant by 1807. In 1808, he became a lieutenant, and by the end of 1815, he had become a captain.

The hurdle between being a ‘ranker’ and a ‘gentleman’ officer was enormous – few men surmounted it. However, Barra did just that. The Napoleonic and early Victorian ages were ones where most men paid money for their military rank and positions. Unusually, though, Barra achieved his promotions entirely via merit and ‘likeability’. For example, his commanding officer commented that Joseph’s manners were “ ……very quiet and perfectly like a gentleman”.

Other officers clearly shared this affection for Barra. After Waterloo, the size of the British army was reduced, as a cost cutting exercise, and Joseph Barra was one amongst many who were placed on half-pay as a consequence. Brother officers were clearly concerned about his future. Such was the esteem in which Barra was held, however, that his fellow comrades were instrumental in securing for him the position of adjutant of the Earl of Chester’s Yeomanry. This new posting helped secure Joseph’s financial future, and he proved to be a great success as adjutant.

The period after the end of the Napoleonic Wars was one of great unrest and uncertainty in Cheshire, and in the rest of the country. In 1819, peaceful demonstrators in Manchester were cut down and killed by yeomanry cavalry, at the infamous Peterloo Massacre. In 1824, however, riots in Macclesfield were resolved in a much more peaceful fashion. As adjutant of the Earl of Chester’s Yeomanry, Barra was instrumental in ensuring this more peaceful resolution of differences. So much so, that he was offered the thanks of both the town corporation and mayor of Macclesfield, and of Sir Robert Peel, who was the Home Secretary at the time.

This distinguished, but little known, old soldier and cavalryman was finally buried in Knutsford, in 1839, aged 59. He was given a full military funeral, and his presentational sword (given to him by fellow officers when he left the cavalry on half-pay) was interred with him.

The Cheshire (Earl of Chester’s) Yeomanry were part of the force sent to ‘police’ The Peterloo meeting.

Adrian Bridge

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Hefferston Grange, Weaverham, Northwich

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Hosken Harper Memorial, Davenham, Northwich

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Davenham Hall, Northwich, Cheshire

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Sir Hardman Earle

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Baron Penrhyn’s Regency extensions of Winnington Hall

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Northwich & Around in 50 Buildings: The Profits of Slavery

The issue of slavery, and its legacy, has hit the headlines in Britain, America and across the world, during the past six months. The Black Lives Matter campaign has won adherents in many countries, and activists have toppled statues of historical figures linked to slavery in many different locations.

Within the U.K. many towns and cities have links to the dark days of the slave trade in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when British families, traders and companies profited from the sale and utilisation of black slaves, packed into slave ships on the west African coast, and transported to work on the sugar, cotton and other plantations of the Caribbean and the Americas. Even a small town like Northwich, together with its surrounding satellite villages, possesses significant architectural evidence of the vast profits made from Britain’s involvement in the slave trade.

Northwich, situated in the centre of Cheshire, is roughly twenty-five miles inland from Liverpool, one of the world’s great historic port cities, so it’s not really surprising that the links between the Northwich area and the slave trade are quite significant and long standing.

The authors Adrian and Dawn Bridge explain many of the known (and some unknown) architectural links between Northwich and the slave trade, in their forthcoming book “Northwich & Around in 50 Buildings” published by Amberley Publishing in February 2021. The links between ‘Northwich & Around’ and the slave trade fall into a number of categories: To begin with, there are those buildings and monuments constructed by, or on behalf of, slave owners and slave traders. Here, the small village of Davenham, just to the south of the original township of Northwich, looms large. Davenham Hall, as it stands today, was largely constructed on the profits derived from the slave trade in the British Caribbean colony of Montserrat. The Hall was bought by William Harper, an influential Liverpool slave trader, in 1795, and he bequeathed his money and estate to his daughter Anne, and his son-in-law John Hosken (who became John Hosken-Harper in order to inherit his father-in-law’s estate and slave trading wealth). John almost certainly became a slave owner in his own right, and it is his monument – the Hosken-Harper Memorial – which still stands today at the junction of London Road and Fountain Lane, in Davenham.

Just a few miles to the north of Davenham Hall, lies the Grade 1 magnificence of Winnington Hall, which was owned, at the end of the eighteenth century, by Richard Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn. Pennant was also a slave and plantation owner, with extensive sugar and rum producing interests in Jamaica. At least some of the money generated by his Jamaican plantations (along with profits from his north Wales slate quarries) was ploughed into the major Regency period extensions to Winnington Hall which can still be seen and admired today.

In 1833, the British government made slavery illegal throughout the burgeoning British empire, and it subsequently decided to compensate all those who had financial investments in slaves and plantations, for their business ‘losses’. Thus, many British people who had investments in slave owning enterprises received often very generous financial compensation when their slaves were set free (often to become very poorly paid indentured servants on the same estates). This officially sanctioned compensation package provided a welcome boost to the Victorian economy. It also provided a considerable financial boost to the micro-economy of Northwich and around. John Hosken-Harper of Davenham Hall received £714 for the ‘loss’ of his slaves in Montserrat. The nearby Davenham gentry France-Hayhurst family received a far more substantial compensation package for the loss of its slave and plantation interests – one which it passed on through the generations so that by the late nineteenth century, Thomas France-Hayhurst, rector of St. Wilfrid’s, Davenham, was able to leave over £100,000 in his will.

The France-Hayhursts also linked themselves with the Hosken-Harpers, via marriage, to become Davenham’s dominant gentry family. These families involved themselves in many acts of charity and good works, such as the building of Davenham’s first new school, in 1856, on the junction of Hartford Road and London Road. At least some of the money for these endeavours came from the government compensation paid to the France-Hayhursts for the loss of their slave owning interests.

Hardman Earle, from Liverpool, lived briefly at Mersey Vale, on Chester Road, Hartford, during the 1870’s. He was a peripheral figure in terms of residence, but had a major economic impact on the Northwich area. Earle came from a major slave owning family, and he received the astronomical sum of over £17,000 as compensation for the ‘loss’ of his slaves in Antigua (equivalent to about £2,000,000 in today’s money). He used this money to invest in railway stocks and other business ventures, and he was one of the driving forces behind the companies which built the Vale Royal Aqueduct and the railway lines connecting Birmingham and Liverpool.

Robert Heath, the owner-occupier of Hefferston Grange, near Weaverham, from the 1850’s until 1907, had slave owning interests which were entirely in a category of their own. Whilst the other individuals and families mentioned above were either slave traders or owned plantations within the British empire, Heath was a significant cotton planter and slave owner in the Confederate states of America, prior to their defeat by Abraham Lincoln’s Union forces in the 1861-65 civil war. The Georgian interiors of Hefferston Grange were improved substantially by Heath in 1876, and at least some of the money for these renovations must have come from Heath’s involvement in the cotton plantations of the short-lived slave-owning Confederate states of America.

 Adrian Bridge/Dawn Bridge, July 2020.