More Tale-pieces

On the last post Eliza said: "Those images must be small! Are they only one or two inches wide? I want to see the one with the kid sending the infant into the river! It sounds hilarious!" Well Eliza, I've taken a few pix of my Tale-pieces catalogue to show you the scale and also the pic I mentioned (click on it to enlarge). I'm so fascinated with this man I've ordered Jenny Uglow's, Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick; it was said he could draw figures on his thumbnail with a pencil!



Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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The God of Small Things

Just back from the Thomas Bewick exhibition, Tale-pieces, at Ikon Gallery and I'm thoroughly charmed.

These vignettes of country life are marvellous in their detail and their dark, macabre wit. On the surface of it, his tail-pieces (or 'tale-pieces' as he punningly called them, because they illustrated 'some truth or point of some moral') show ordinary life in the last quarter of the 18th century, but look deeper and you see studies of human vanity and the fragility of life.

Bewick was obviously a great lover of animals, which tend to emerge with a greater dignity than his humans. A stag drinks from a tumbling cataract, a Latin motto on the rocks translating as: Everything Good Comes From Above; a pet monkey holds a razor thoughtfully to his face in front of his master's mirror; an ass rubs its rump against a gravestone. Elsewhere, a child has tethered a dog and cat to a toy cart containing a baby, and as he whips them cruelly, the animals pull the infant into a stream.

Given their tiny size, I did find a conventional gallery setting a frustrating place to view the vignettes, and in some ways, the catalogue was more satisfying than the show (it's worth taking a magnifying glass if you visit Ikon). But given that this is - incredibly - the very first exhibition devoted entirely to Bewick's vignettes, it's fantastic to see his art revived for a new audience.

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Paradise Regained

Freelance writer Sarah Jane Downing is the author of a fascinating new book on the English Pleasure Garden, which looks at its beginnings as a 17th-century escape from urban life, right through to its decline in the 19th century. The book - which provides an overview of provincial gardens as well as their London counterparts - is packed with fantastic illustrations, such as The Theatre and Fountain at Vauxhall Gardens (pictured above). In an exclusive Memoirs interview, I quizzed the author on bucolic entertainment through the ages.

In what ways were the early pleasure gardens of the 17th century places of escape from ordinary life?

Even for the well-to-do the city was dirty and dangerous, crowded with traffic, packed with cutpurses, and with the absence of police force or sewerage system quite squalid. New building was crammed on top of the medieval city, and there was very little green space aside from the private parks of the nobility. After the enforced prohibition of the interregnum people wanted entertainment and to socialize but the spectre of the plague lurked at any public gathering which was also marred by the aroma of so many unwashed bodies. The Pleasure Gardens provided the perfect antidote, a beautiful oasis perfumed with flowers, adorned with birdsong, and decorated with glittering lights where people could stroll peacefully along the manicured walks.

The 18th century was the age of landscape gardening. How did that impact on pleasure gardens?

For those far away from their country estates or without the opportunity to indulge the new passion for horticulture in the city, the Pleasure Gardens offered a way of enjoying the results without the effort of creation. The proprietors of the pleasure gardens were very keen to include new aesthetics and many added ornamental hedges, statuary, obelisks, and Grecian temples. It was Jonathan Tyers in particular who embraced the theatricality of landscape design, making Vauxhall Gardens the embodiment of Rococo Romanticism.

What part did Vauxhall and Ranelagh play in the development of the arts in the 18th century?

Vauxhall and Ranelagh played a significant role in both nurturing and the proliferation of the arts. They showcased the finest musicians and artists of the day, hosting Mozart’s English debut, and provided literary inspiration for Pepys, Thackeray, Austen and Dickens, they were also the subject of poetry, painting, and opera. Tyers' commission of Francis Hayman to paint a series of paintings for each of the supper boxes was amongst the first commissions for art that would be in a public space.

Do you think the gardens were liberating places of entertainment for women, or were they not terribly respectable?

For most women they were a pleasant place to spend an evening or attend a smart public breakfast, offering an irresistible opportunity to display their newest finery and indulge their Romantic sensibilities. There was also the frisson of excitement that they might get to have a little un-chaperoned conversation especially at a masquerade where undoubtedly some people would use their anonymity to drop their usual decorum. One of the few places where scandalous women and courtesans could attend, no doubt there were some illicit liaisons in the dark walks where ladies were warned not to go.

What caused the eventual decline of the gardens?

For each Pleasure Garden there is its own sad little story of decline, but the general causes were changes in fashion and the advent of the railways. For most people their holiday really was only a day and they were limited by how far they could travel without compromising their time for enjoyment. People were pleased to spend a happy day at a Pleasure Garden when they could get no further, but when the railways began to provide reasonably priced travel their horizons expanded to the seaside.

The English Pleasure Garden: 1660-1860 (Shire Library, £5.99) is out now in the UK and will be published in the US on July 21.

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Georgian Portraits

It’s shaping up to be a great Spring for Georgian exhibitions here in the Midlands; Warwickshire stately home/art gallery Compton Verney has emailed me with info on this forthcoming show, which looks well worth a trip if you’re in the area.

Georgian Portraits: Seeing is Believing
20 May – 13 December 2009

This display of portraits, on loan from the Holburne Museum in Bath, traces the development of Georgian Portraiture in Britain. It examines the shift in the purpose of portraits from symbols of success and status, to a new era of realism and glamour.

Coinciding with the launch of this display will be our Georgian weekend, with a whole host of historical events and activities for all ages.

Above: Allan Ramsay, Rosamund Sargent (1749).

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Adieu For Now

Good readers, events have overtaken me this week, so I shall be taking a break from blogging for the next few days, but I’ll be back next week, hopefully with an interview feature on an exciting new book, and a review of the Thomas Bewick exhibition. Those interested in the Northumbrian wood engraver should definitely check out The Bewick Society’s excellent website and its accompanying blog, Tale-pieces. Historical societies aren't exactly the quickest to pick up new technology so it's refreshing to see two informative and nicely designed sites!

Above: Thomas Bewick, Barn Owl Tyto alba from A History of British Birds
Source: Wiki Commons

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For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry

An excerpt from a very strange poem (written c.late 1750s/early 1760s but not published until 1939) called Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart. Smart was a satirist and friend to Johnson and Fielding; the poem below was at least partly written during his confinement in a mental asylum, where his father-in-law had sent him because of his supposed religious mania. Johnson defended him, saying: 'I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as anyone else...' During his confinement, Smart was left alone with his cat, whose activities he minutely captured in verse.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

Above: Boris on his favourite chair. Photographs © Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs Woffington.

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Sisterhood Award

I can hardly believe my luck at the moment - yet another plaudit for the blog, and this time from fellow Midlands foodie and journalist, Emily, at Meet and Two Veg. Thank you so much Emily! The rules of the award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 people whose blogs you enjoy.
3. Link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know they have received this award by commenting on their blogs.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person who has nominated you for the award.

I've nominated quite a few lately, so shall stick to five bloggers whose writing I love, but who haven't yet received an award from me. Not all of them are historical or specifically 18th century - they're just places I love to visit!

Musica & Arte
18th-century Cuisine
The CBSO Weblog
A View From Carmine Superiore
Tea at Trianon

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