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Apr. 14th, 2014 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adaezeRegular readers will remember our failure to catch the current exhibition on at Christ Church, Other Worlds and Imaginary Beings, tracing the development of the depiction of monsters from the Medieval period through to Nineteenth Century children's games and books.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library/exhibitions/2013/other-worlds-and-imaginary-beings
I went back to college this afternoon, and have finally managed to see it.
It was small but perfectly formed. There were only four cases; let us take them in order.
The first focused on medieval play with fantastic beasts, with several illuminated mss with strange and bizarre creatures dancing in the foliage in the margins, or forming initials. There were also a few early printed books, including a Nuremberg Chronicle, wit pictures of a sciapod, a cyclops and people with ears so long they dangled down to their knees. I think what I was meant to take from the early atlas was the rather fine merman, with legs as well as a fishy tail, and playing a viol. But I was also delighted to see that it depicted all the Atlantic islands, with Shetland (including Fair Isle and Foula), the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland all in their proper places; and showing all the major ports and cities of Frisland, Brasil (a tiny island some way SW of Ireland), and beyond even Brasil, an island named for St. Brendan.
The next one was devoted to Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, showing the evolution of the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle through Carroll's own first sketches (in which the gryphon looks extremely frail and bony, though still manages to leap and gyrate in a most energetic fashion when demonstrating the Lobster Quadrille), through the sketches added by Carroll's younger brother Wilfrid, to Tenniel's finished woodcuts. The display also included a number of doodles produced by Alice's father, Dean Liddell, during meetings. I can't help but wonder what the minutes of the occasion that led to his drawing a bomb would show.
The final two showcased the work of a gentleman I hadn't heard of before, Admiral Lord Mark Kerr, who led a blameless life until a) getting a very good look at a richly illuminated medieval psalter, and b) action in the Napoleonic Wars. He turned to drawing people with animals' heads and feet, sometimes in bizarre situations, often in what seems like an innocuous domestic setting - but with sinister details on closer study. They seem on the surface amusing pictures, a sort of proto-Lear, (Edward, not King!), but with dark undercurrents. One showed a very stage-y spook, with the caption "I do not boast - I am my sister's ghost!".
It's not on for much longer (another two weeks, officially, though it might get extended slightly), so I've caught it barely in time. Worth the trip.
http://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/library/exhibitions/2013/other-worlds-and-imaginary-beings
I went back to college this afternoon, and have finally managed to see it.
It was small but perfectly formed. There were only four cases; let us take them in order.
The first focused on medieval play with fantastic beasts, with several illuminated mss with strange and bizarre creatures dancing in the foliage in the margins, or forming initials. There were also a few early printed books, including a Nuremberg Chronicle, wit pictures of a sciapod, a cyclops and people with ears so long they dangled down to their knees. I think what I was meant to take from the early atlas was the rather fine merman, with legs as well as a fishy tail, and playing a viol. But I was also delighted to see that it depicted all the Atlantic islands, with Shetland (including Fair Isle and Foula), the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland all in their proper places; and showing all the major ports and cities of Frisland, Brasil (a tiny island some way SW of Ireland), and beyond even Brasil, an island named for St. Brendan.
The next one was devoted to Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, showing the evolution of the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle through Carroll's own first sketches (in which the gryphon looks extremely frail and bony, though still manages to leap and gyrate in a most energetic fashion when demonstrating the Lobster Quadrille), through the sketches added by Carroll's younger brother Wilfrid, to Tenniel's finished woodcuts. The display also included a number of doodles produced by Alice's father, Dean Liddell, during meetings. I can't help but wonder what the minutes of the occasion that led to his drawing a bomb would show.
The final two showcased the work of a gentleman I hadn't heard of before, Admiral Lord Mark Kerr, who led a blameless life until a) getting a very good look at a richly illuminated medieval psalter, and b) action in the Napoleonic Wars. He turned to drawing people with animals' heads and feet, sometimes in bizarre situations, often in what seems like an innocuous domestic setting - but with sinister details on closer study. They seem on the surface amusing pictures, a sort of proto-Lear, (Edward, not King!), but with dark undercurrents. One showed a very stage-y spook, with the caption "I do not boast - I am my sister's ghost!".
It's not on for much longer (another two weeks, officially, though it might get extended slightly), so I've caught it barely in time. Worth the trip.
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Date: 2014-04-15 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-16 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-16 07:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-16 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-16 09:08 am (UTC)If you think you might be able to see it, email Dr Neagu (her contact details are on the website) to check they really are open - they have few enough staff in the Upper Library that it only takes one lurgy going round for them to have to close it.
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Date: 2014-04-16 01:27 pm (UTC)Thanks for the tip about emailing!