Peterborough

The Writing on the Wall...

The Book of Daniel, Chapter 4

I was here before - I don't know when - but I remember the face of the cathedral as if it were yesterday [And it wasn't..... Ed?]

Young woman, the Town Hall

Now look, this is a picture essay.  I cannot tell you the whole truth, the nothing but....  The time is passing and, to be very Francis, it is sad.....

Peterborough Cathedral, West Front

Peterborough (named, possibly, after my dad, but little (?) to do with Petersburg, nor Petrograd, nor Walpole St Peter, nor even Chalfont St Peter....) is a town that hangs near the middle of a map that is centered on Peterborough [Is that surprising?  Ed.]  What else can you say?  It is on the way from here to there, from many other places to other places.

View of Peterborough from the Cathedral West Front

And I am here.  

I was there.....

Pace/Roper Crucifix, 1975

I came to scale the heights of one of the finest Norman Cathedrals in the Universe.....

As Simon Jenkins wrote in England's Cathedrals (Little Brown, 2016) Peterborough has long been the poor relation of the great East Anglian cathedrals. It is buried in a new town of the 1960s, since bleakly expanded, with none of the suavity of its neighbours, Ely and Norwich.....

I am not going to attempt to describe the extraordinary architecture of the cathedral nor the depression of the town around it.  I am very grateful to Rod and Paul who took me to the heights and to all those who worked their fingers to the bone to produce such a god-given masterpiece as the Cathedral of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew.  

I am not going to try and tell you how sad I felt to wander the streets of this Cambridgeshire city on the River Nene that now has a population of some 200,000 (it was little more than 1,000 when the cathedral was rebuilt in 1170) - that is a different story - but I will offer you a selection of pictures from my visit and you can draw your own conclusion:

Please feel free to observe.  My eyes are damp and failing - you will see more than me:

The museum (above) is fascinating: there's a collection of portraits of the grand and the good but on the top floor I find one of the earliest of any operating theatres:

And a celebration of gender diversity:

And on the second floor there is the skeleton of a marine crocodile [Steneosaurus durobrivensis, Ed.] being skipped around by tiny children delighted to be out of the classroom.....

Is this an unparalleled universe?  I am lost....

Wandering, hopelessly, around the town centre, I photograph random sights and people.  I don't mind saying that my spirits are a little low.   Try as I might, nothing seems to make me feel that life was quite what I wished it to be:

Not even the Westgate Arcade(!) uplifts.....  

Nor even the inverted cathedral, really....

Even though it is, undeniably, marvellous......

Whichever way you look.....,

{How did they do this?  No cranes; no computers......}

Other architectural masterpieces have fared less well:

Or been adapted:

Though the nearby church of St John the Baptist has a breathtaking altarpiece:

While the River Nene carries on regardless:

And multiculturalism paints the walls:

When the lonely night falls:

And I look toward the sheer brilliance of the cathedral facade:

There is little solace in the neighbourhood:

And then the following morning brings another tale of the cycle of life:

And the young woman under the Town Hall at the top of this piece morphs into the woman who walks in the rain......

We are so near to others.....

But everything is so far......

The da Vinci code

Develop your senses, 

especially learn how to see.....

Per sviluppare una mente completa studia la scienza dell'arte, studia l'arte della scienza. Sviluppa i tuoi sensi, impara soprattutto a vedere. Comprendi che tutto è connesso.

[Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.]

Leonardo da Vinci

Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind

This was not my first visit to Dedham Vale, the Stour Valley, and Flatford Mill. I have photographed these places, and written about them (please see below) before, and have endeavoured to follow the instruction of Leonardo.....  Basic questions arise:  what does it matter if a painting of a Haywain is an effective, accurate, realistic representation in two dimensions of something seen by the artist?  Or, what if it is a composite made from various seeings?  Or what if it is an imaginary recreation of something similar witnessed elsewhere?

Flatford Mill, 1930 - Frances Hodgkins (1869-1947)

I have just got back from a brief trip that encompassed something of Essex and Suffolk, and then parts of London and London galleries and exhibitions, and my mind is ablaze with glorious art and autumn colour, while also being  confused and disturbed by personal and emotional vortices that include differences between my daughters, memories of my late wife, and hopes for the future.....  Realise that everything connects to everything else (Leonardo da Vinci).

So, if I photograph Willy Lott's cottage, whether in sunshine or in overcast cloudy light, whether with a swan in the foreground or with a friend on the wall, what does that mean?  What does it tell us about the price of fish?  Does it help anyone?  Did it help anyone that John Constable painted it, and that it is still there?

We walk along the Stour, from Flatford to Dedham, and back, in sunshine one day and under grey skies the next..... The pollarded willows reach back into the past, and yearn for an untroubled future:

Some are broken by wind and weight, living alone and un cared for:

A kingfisher eludes my lens, splashing into the water then winging to a hiding place amongst the falling leaves:

Is this art?  Or is it life?  It changes by the moment, and it slips through our fingers, much as we might try to clutch it to our hearts:

We visit the house where Gainsborough lived, in Sudbury. It is an extraordinary mixture of ancient and new, without seeming rhyme or reason. There is no sense of the artist's presence, but I do learn that he was a landscape artist who, along with Jacob van Ruisdael, would have been a considerable influence on the young Constable:

Then we drive to Kenwood House, frustrated by traffic and a lack of parking, to see two paintings by Vermeer, or not.  Two versions of the same picture, The Guitar Player, are remarkably similar, thought the girl's hairstyle differs.  It is thought that the later version could be a copy by Vermeer himself, though others think it could have been painted by his daughter.  Whatever the truth, the nature of art again makes us think, though what we think may remain a mystery.....

Also in Kenwood House is a picture by Constable, of one of the ponds on Hampstead Heath, the sky rich in coloured airs and water vapour.  

Every day ends with the dying of the sun, and yet every day is different. Sometimes it is beautiful; other times we regret the coming of the dark:

The next morning the trees in Kensington Gardens are glorious:

And Peter Doig blows Yusef Lateef softly at us from 1950s wooden Klangfilm Euronor speakers in the Serpentine Gallery.....

His exhibition, House of Music, lets the Lion of Judah roam free in imaginary landscapes, dancing to the music of time.....

Outside, London confuses and baffles. Part rustic idyll, not so unlike Flatford:

Part individual loneliness amongst the crowds:

And part urban jungle, a labyrinth beneath the towering constructions that shelter so many closed windows:

In Tate Britain I find Peter Doig again, though this time without the soundtrack:

Echo Lake, 1998 - Peter Doig (1959 - )

And then we immerse ourselves in the starry world of Lee Miller, whose extraordinary career spanned fifty or so years and several continents, and whose work stretched from Vogue and glamour:

To the violence and horror of the Second World War, but which took in artistic experimentation on the way:

Model with Lightbulb, 1943 - Lee Miller

It has been a busy few days, and I am tired now, my mind filled with images and confusing thoughts. I recently read that Dr Tony Woods, researcher at Kings College London, said: The research clearly shows the stress-reducing properties of viewing original art and its ability to simultaneously excite, engage and arouse us.

Interesting....

But it can also be exhausting.....

I also read recently that: exposure to nature activates the parasympathetic nervous system – the branch of the nervous system related to a “resting” state. This instils feelings of calm and wellbeing that enable us to think more clearly and positively, (Sam Pyrah, The Guardian)....

The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

I see your lips, the summer kisses

The sun-burned hands I used to hold

Autumn Leaves

Johnny Mercer, Jacques Prevert

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake? 

Leonardo da Vinci

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Please also see:

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2014/11/mr-constable.html

https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2019/06/putting-suffolk-on-map.html

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[For November 2nd]

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