Classical busts and wash drawings

click photo to enlarge
I was talking with a farmer a while ago and during the course of the conversation I observed that I knew more about medieval ploughing than I did about the modern methods. It was only when I reflected on that conversation some time later that I realised there are quite a few things from the past that I know about in some detail, but when it comes to the modern equivalent I am rather less well informed.

One such example that came to mind recently is the training of architects. It was this Georgian classical bust on the stairwell of the Maister House in Hull that prompted the thought. The work is one of two pieces on brackets that flank a large statue of "Ceres" by John Cheere. The smaller works may be his too. However, I didn't check their provenance because the lighting of this bust, when I reviewed my photograph on the camera screen, immediately made me think of the ink wash and watercolour drawings of the architectural students of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. More particularly I thought of "An Antique Relief" by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, painted c.1886 when he was a student at the Glasgow School of Art. The ability to draw well and render accurately used to be part of the training of architects. It was need not just to sketch basic ideas, to depict their vision before it was constructed, but also to communicate large and small details to the builders so they could turn ideas into reality. I imagine drawing must play a part still in architectural training but technology in the form of the computer probably figures just as large.

So, to make the bust look more like an eighteenth or nineteenth century architect's ink wash I converted my photograph to black and white and slightly increased the contrast.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm (52mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The Odeon's classical origins

click photo to enlarge

Cycling along the promenade at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, a few years ago, I passed a building called the Hippodrome. I assumed it was a theatre of the early 1900s, but I was wrong. It was built in 1903, but as the permanent home of a circus. Today it is used in a way much more akin to a traditional theatre featuring shows, etc as well as a circus. The theatre was reasonably well-named because the original hippodromes were ancient Greek stadia for horse and chariot racing, a building type adopted by the Romans who extended their use (as circuses) to animal spectaculars, historic re-enactments etc. The British and American hippodrome theatres of the early 1900s also featured animal spectaculars but eventually became theatres for variety artistes, and after their day passed, the buildings often served as cinemas.

Cinemas themselves sometimes adopted classical names too. In London and Dublin there are Adelphi cinemas: Adelphi is Greek for "brothers". However, the most commonly found classically-inspired cinema name is undoubtedly the Odeon. The original buildings of this name were found in Athens, Sparta and other ancient Greek city states. Their purpose was to accommodate musical competitions, poetry readings and the like. In the late eighteenth century the name was resurrected for a famous Parisian theatre where, in 1784, the play, "The Marriage of Figaro" was premiered. When cinema came along Odeon was frequently the name of choice in Europe and the United States. Today it is so closely associated with the movies that its origins in antiquity are all but forgotten.

Today's semi-abstract photograph shows a detail of the foyer ceiling of Lincoln's modern Odeon cinema, a building of the twenty first century. With its swooping curves and blue neon tube detailing the ceiling seeks to combine with shiny stainless steel detailing and glossy escalators to inject glamour into the cinema-going experience.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm (45mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec
ISO:500
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repetition and symmetry

click photo to enlarge
Repetition and symmetry are key characteristics of classical achitecture. The Greeks and Romans who were responsible for this style created an architecture that emphasised man's intellect, and his dominance and control of nature. It was these two devices that allowed their buildings to stand apart from the "messy" natural world. The idea of taking the same form and repeating it across a facade, as here on the ground floor and first floor of the north front of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, began with the repeated columns of Hellenic temple porticos and spread into the serried arches of Roman architecture, most notably in the Colosseum. Renaissance architects both copied the ideas of the ancients and elaborated upon them.

Gothic architecture, however, especially in its Victorian incarnations, had more time for asymmetry. In the position of entrances and towers, for example, and also in the arrangement of floor plans, they frequently proclaimed the virtue of a more practical and studied irregularity. When they sought "balance" in a building it would sometimes be achieved by the careful disposition of different forms, rather than by multiples of the same form on either side of a line of symmetry. However, Gothic and other "Romantic" styles of architecture continued to value the virtues of repetition and even symmetry, as the Perpendicular Style of the fifteenth century, and nineteenth century industrial architecture in England frequently testifies.

It's interesting to speculate whether the repetition of forms in building came about for aesthetic reasons or for convenience of manufacture and construction. We are, of course, unlikely to know the answer to that question, but the designers and workmen of ancient civilizations must have found it easier to replicate and erect several columns that were identical, or move supporting wooden formwork between arches that were all the same size and circumference. Those advantages were certainly not lost on the Victorians who often made and assembled windows and ornament off-site. This is an aspect of classical architecture that I've never seen discussed anywhere, but which occurred to me as I was photographing this facade. The drawings for the design shown here date from 1722, making it one of the last works by Sir John Vanbrugh who died in 1726. Nicholas Hawksmoor may have completed his structure. It's inconceivable that the main entrance of this elevation would be placed anywhere but the centre, and the fountain could only ever be placed in line with it. Even the gardeners, when positioning their planters of topiarised box obeyed its imposing symmetry and repetition, so I decided that I must do that too, in my photograph.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 86mm (172mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Poplars and composition

click photo to enlarge
Look at most landscape photographs, and for that matter, figurative paintings, and you see the influence of Romanticism. The lofty peaks, lakes with reflections, asymmetrical groups of trees, vistas through gateways, ramshackle barns and fields with grazing horses all owe their genesis to the rise of Romanticism in the eighteenth century. I've talked about this development before, and acknowledged the debt and gratitude that we owe the painters, musicians, philosophers, writers and poets who opened our eyes to this view of nature. Most of my landscape photographs can be described as being in the "Romantic tradition."

But, every now and then, I produce a landscape that falls outside this style. The antithesis of Romantic is Classical, and today's image is one that I would describe in those terms. Why is that, you might wonder? Well, where Romanticism has to do with deep emotion, melancholy, the sublime and asymmetry, Classicism is about order, repose, clarity, symmetry, and intellectual control. There is more to it than this, particularly in the area of literature, but if I were forced to use a one word summary of the two styles in terms of art, I'd say that Romantic is diagonal and Classicism is horizontal (and/or perpendicular)!

Passing this row of vertical young poplars near Great Steeping, Lincolnshire, I immediately thought to compose them against the horizontal line of the horizon. Moving the viewfinder up and down I found I preferred it when the horizon cut the fame in half (allegedly a photographic faux pas, but one that deserves to be ignored.) This allowed me to create a composition of, essentially, quarters - sky, tree tops, grass bank and tree trunks, road and shadows. A vanishing point is located near the middle of the photograph. The slight curve of the road, and the "quarters" that are not quite regular, disguises the underlying structure. However, any qualities the image has depends on these "hidden" controlling elements that give it those "Classical" overtones.

Here is another of my "controlled" images.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Classic historic Ionic

click photo to enlarge
The three original Greek orders of architecture have always seemed to me the perfect example of mankind's ability to conceive something of beauty, develop it and sustain it for the pleasure and edification of all. It's surmised that the Doric order arose from the woooden architecture that pre-dated the stone buildings that we can still see today. The sturdy, base-less columns and the entablature decorated with triglyphs and metopes, are thought to derive from the posts ( tree trunks?), and carpentry joints of the earlier structures. The Ionic and then Corinthian styles are seen as developments that increased the beauty and elegance of the orders. Subsequent ages and peoples developed the Tuscan and Composite orders from the Greek originals. This system of architecture, that originated before 600BC, has given people pleasure for over 2,000 years.

Today's photograph shows part of an Ionic column at the British Museum in London. It was once exposed to the elements, but is now protected by the glass roof that created the Great Court in 2000. This particular example is part of the museum built in the 1840s in the Greek Revival style by Sir Robert Smirke, and is very closely based on ancient Greek examples. Thus, the decorative features include the characteristic large volutes (scrolls), leaf and dart below the entablature, egg and dart (symbolising life and death) lower down, and bead and reel below that. The proportions of Greek columns are very carefully managed: the height of an Ionic example is usually about nine times the diameter. As with Doric and Corinthian, a slight swelling around the middle (entasis) counteracts an optical illusion that the column narrows at that point. The fluting (vertical grooves) of the Ionic column always number 24. In 1537 Sebastiano Serlio published Regole generali d'architettura ("General Rules of Architecture"). In this and other volumes he set out, in great detail, the proportions and style of the orders drawing on ancient and contemporary examples. Later architects leaned heavily on his research when they designed in the classical manner.

Rather than simply show the lovely detail and symmetry of the top of this column I went for an asymmetrical composition that included just over half of the capital - you can fill in the rest yourself! However, I did look for some "balance" in the layout. The filtered light falling on the subject has given it a certain flatness, and something of the character of a pen and ink-wash drawing of the type that an architect might have produced for a client, or perhaps a student's exercise completed as part of his or her studies. It's a quality that appealed to me.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/100 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Classicism and topiary

click photo to enlarge
The poet and atheist, Andrew Motion, has called for pupils in English schools to be taught more about the Bible. He is concerned that many students arrive at university ignorant of the text that underpins much of English literature. I have sympathy with his arguments, but I'm not sure how it can be done. In the past, and in my education, pupils learned about the Bible through the Christian worship and religious education that were features of almost all English schools. These are still, nominally, compulsory in schools, but the amount of time devoted to them has declined, and the almost exclusive focus on Christianity has been replaced by shallower study of more religions, for reasons that are certainly defensible.

Similar arguments could be advanced in support of teaching pupils about classical civilization, including Greek and Roman mythology. In fact, in a largely secular society, it is arguable that the legacy of the ancients remains almost as pervasive as that of Christianity, yet general knowledge of it is fast disappearing. But here too I struggle to think how one would achieve a wider understanding of the classical foundations of western society. Yet such knowledge was, for centuries, a cornerstone of education: the trivium and quadrivium grew out of it, and through the Great Books programme a number of American universities have more recently sought to use the seminal classical texts (along with the major works of later centuries) as the basis for their academic curriculum.

From the allusions to classical mythology that pepper poetry and prose, the Orders of Architecture and their associated ornament that grace our cities, and the etymology of a large portion of the words of the English language, the influence of Greece and Rome remains strong, and a knowledge of classical culture enriches one's day to day experience of the world. On a recent walk through the gardens of Brodsworth Hall, Yorkshire, I came across a number of classical statues set among the gardens and glades. They were largely of a general nature rather than specific, recognisable characters from the past. However, most displayed the contraposto stance derived from the ideal of beauty that descended from the ancient world, through the Renaissance and down to the nineteenth century from when these statues date. One held the mask of Janus, and another looked the model of sobriety in a toga, the badge of Roman citizenship. Such figures became traditional in English gardens from the 1700s onwards, and apart from providing focal points among the planting, served to display, on the part of of the Victorian owners, an image of learning. My photograph shows one such statue apparently passing purposefully through the topiary.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/120
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Symmetry

click photo to enlarge

Photographers don't like symmetry. Nor do painters, graphic artists or sculptors. But architects and designers do, and always have done!

Symmetry in building is a manifestation of the Classical mindset. Greek and Roman architecture is highly symmetrical, and so are the Renaissance styles that took their inspiration from the antique. However, the rise of the Romantic movement pushed all this to one side. The love of the wild, the untamed, the natural, all led to an admiration for architecture and design that eschewed symmetry. Thus, in landscape gardening, out went formal French parterres, and in came "informal" English parkland with its serpentine paths and lakes, and asymmetrically placed "eyecatcher" follies. Out went Palladianism, and in came asymmetrical houses and villas like Nash's Cronkhill House and Philip Webb's Red House. Interestingly Gothic architecture loved both symmetry and asymmetry. Romantic painters favoured asymmetrical compositions, and Modernists continued this love affair. Photography seems to have adopted its position by reference to painting: balanced asymmetry is in, straightforward symmetry is out.

But I like a bit of symmetry now and again! Today's photograph is of Boston Baptist Church, built in 1837, a time when English church architects had dumped Georgian Classicism, and were casting around for a new style. This rather spare Gothic characterises the period before 1840. After that date the writings of A.W.N. Pugin and the Oxford Movement pushed churches towards a Gothic based on archaeolgical principles and the careful study of real medieval buildings. The design above is interesting, but owes nothing to Pugin, and verges more on the hysterical than the historical!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off