Lions sejant?

click photo to enlarge
I have no time for the social structure that produced heraldry or for heraldry as a social tool; it seems to me to be a self-serving way of differentiating the plebeians from the aristocracy, of binding the so-called "upper classes" together by lineage, and, in many cases, giving a spurious antiquity to the nouveau riche. That being said, you have to admire the gusto with which the whole heraldic apparatus was invented established, codified and embedded in society.

Go anywhere in England and you'll come across heraldry. It's in almost every Church of England building, virtually all civic buildings, on the coinage, on pub signs, affixed to buildings, printed on book covers, an most of all, everywhere in castles new and old.

Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire is a Victorian castle and the builders took great pains to make it look like it has been built up over the centuries, with rooms and details in various architectural styles. It is also dripping with heraldry. The detail above shows part of a panel behind a stream of water that issues from a wall into a pool. It has two lions facing each other, their front legs raised on steps, between them a tree, and above a shield. The position that heraldic animals adopt are circumscribed by rules and special names. I think this pair are sejant!

© Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 95mm (142mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec
ISO:360
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The tambourinist

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According to my edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) the word violinist (like the word violist for a viola player) is first recorded c.1670. Cellist however, first appears quite a bit later, in 1888, though the currently much less used violoncellist is recorded earlier, in 1835. I delved into the etymology of these words when I came to caption today's photograph. How does one describe someone who plays a tambourine? A trumpet player is a trumpeter not a trumpetist, though someone who plays a trombone is a trombonist. By association I made a stab at tambourinist, then checked to see if that was the word. The OED does list it with an earliest recorded use in Webster's Dictionary of 1961 and subsequent examples of tambourinist cited from 1970, 1971 and 1983. This struck me as a very late coining of the word given that the earliest recorded use of tambourine dates from 1579.

The tambourinist in the photograph can be seen in the gardens of Brodsworth Hall, South Yorkshire, one of the most complete Victorian stately homes. This figure is one of a number of statues bought in 1866 by Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson for his newly built hall, many supplied by the Italian sculptor, Chevalier Casentini, who may have been responsible for this example.

It's not difficult to photograph a statue or piece of sculpture in context, and just as easy to select an interesting detail. What is harder is to make a satisfactory photograph comprising more than a representation of the work. My attempt at that here involved using a dark background of conifers together with a tree in autumnal colours, and positioning the sculpture relative to those so that colour and contrast worked together to make a bold image.

For more photographs of this location see these general views, this garden statue and topiary, and this garden building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 105mm
F No: f11
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

He's Claes Oldenberg in reverse

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Many who came of age in the 1960s tend to look back on the popular music of that decade as something of a highpoint in the genre. I certainly do, though I'd cite the years between 1963 and 1971 as the best. The music of that time seemed to be constantly evolving, absorbing old ideas and giving them a new twist, as well as bringing original sounds, lyrics, melodies and instrumentation to the table. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Fairport Convention, the Velvet Underground, the Kinks, and the Grateful Dead typify the creativity that was laid before us year after year. However, what we sometimes forget is that for every Roy Harper there was an Englebert Humperdink, for every Leonard Cohen, a Jack Jones. There were definitely troughs as well as peaks.

Then there were those artists and bands who had something to offer, but never quite enough. I 'd include the Searchers in that category. They were capable of great harmonies and 12 string guitar figures that influenced bands like The Byrds, but in their drive to be successful went too far towards commercial, anodyne pop of the "Sweets for My Sweet" sort. This tendency also afflicted The Hollies. Their harmonies were terrific - no wonder Stephen Stills and David Crosby wanted Graham Nash - but they featured in songs that were often second-rate. Successful the Hollies undoubtedly were, but they didn't, in my judgement, produce songs that have stood the test of time.

A few weeks ago I was in Springfield Festival Gardens, Spalding, looking at the pieces of sculpture set amongst the shrubs, trees and flowers, when I came upon the piece by Stephen Newby called "Cascading Water Pyramid". This features a stack of stainless steel "pillows", the largest at the bottom, gradually reducing in size to the smallest at the top. Water falls down the shiny surfaces of these metal shapes that look, for all the world, like they have been inflated. Nearby is a water-wheel with similar "inflated" pillows. As I looked at the incongruity of a steel pillow a thought about their creator crystallized in my mind that borrows from that dire Hollies' attempt at psychedelia, "King Midas in Reverse": he's Claes Oldenberg in reverse, because he makes solid that which is soft, whereas Oldenberg made soft that which was solid! And with that I took my photograph of a corner of the stack of "pillows", water dripping from them, and tried to make something of the line of corners going down the frame.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 27mm (54mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Eye See

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One of the pleasures of gardening is that you get to grips with nature. Growing plants for food and beauty is a marvellous pastime - but it's not for everybody. Only if you can come to terms with gardening's mixture of permanence and impermanence will it become a deeper obsession.

What do I mean by that? Well, in theory everything about a garden can be changed - the topography, trees, walls, ground cover - everything. But in practice there are are some things that you can't and don't change, or you change incrementally over a long period. The lie of your land is one such permanence, as are large trees, extensive walls, and big water features. But shrubs, flowers, vegetables and grass come and go with the seasons and according to the gardener's wishes. So too, by and large, does garden sculpture. In the average garden it tends to be small enough to move. But in larger gardens larger pieces are called for, and they become fairly permanent objects. That being so, you have to choose your sculptures carefully because if you decide you don't like them their removal requires a lot of work! Consequently, much large sculpture is fairly "safe", following traditional designs - classical figures, large urns, equestrian statues and the like. Large, challenging, or "odd" modern sculptures are much less common.

However, public or semi-public gardens like the 25 acres at Springfields Festival Gardens, Spalding, in Lincolnshire, can be bolder because they are enjoyed by streams of visitors rather than just an owner. Today's photograph shows part of The Sculpture Matrix designed by Chris Beardshaw. This uncompromisingly modernistic collection of big concrete rectangles, triangles and enclosures, painted purple and light blue, and pierced by horizontal and vertical slits, could only work in such a large area: it would overpower a smaller space. For me it's a sculpture that works in parts, but doesn't offer enough for its size. The detail I like best has this framed eye, inside an enclosure with shrubs, that can be glimpsed through the surrounding slits.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/17
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On