A Glance Above the Doorways of Historic Aix-en-Provence...

Wandering around the old streets of Aix-en-Provence this summer, I yet again admired the incredible historic doorways that are monuments in themselves, witnesses to so much over their centuries of existence. The fact that works of such incredible skill, beauty and imagination have withstood the passage of time proves how robust and resiliant they are.

Most of these vast, majestic doorways lead onto an interior courtyard or into an imposing hallway, giving you the impression that you could enter another period if you merely stepped in across the threshold... If only!

Sometimes it is the carved wood that catches your attention, as you marvel at its intricate crafstmanship, unique aesthetic quality and remarkably well-preserved state. Is there anything even vaguely comparable today?

At other moments, it is the massive stonework that is astounding, with its height bearing down on you, but often with delicate sculpted features giving it a sophistication and odd lightness...

As you look at the worn flagstone steps, you wonder about all the lives that were spent at that address, each gradually leaving its mark.

The weight of the building is sometimes borne by the figures of caryatids (for the female forms) or atlantes (for the male equivalent), in place of a pillar. Some seem to bear this with greater ease than others, who toil under the burden...

Their massive hands gripping onto the architecture as they gaze on intently...

Some entrances are guarded over by strange creatures, of mythological character...

Not necessarily menacing...

But a presence to be reckoned with and respected...

Others are just plain strange!

Or joyous, despite their rather delapidated state...

Comic faces watching down in amusement at our antics...

And then, of course, there are the door knockers of impressive shape and size...

Creating an impression of grandeur and elegance that does not exist anymore...

How could anything compete with these?

Even when in a rather sorry condition due to ignorant 21st century neglect, their majesty shines through...

May these stunning doorways live on for years ahead...

Retracing the Past and Present... Harold Harvey.

Sometimes what is the most glaringly self-evident in life nevertheless strikes me as strange and fascinating and so it is with the blindingly obvious idea that places that have meant so much in one lifetime (mine, as it happens!) have likewise had as much significance in those of others, throughout time. The experiences and emotions associated with a particular setting are joined by many more, over the years, decades and centuries. Places become shared repositories for the lives lived there, yet each set of memories largely independant and unaware of those before and after them, like strata set in ancient rock. Looking at the work of Cornish artist Harold Harvey (1874–1941) - on display at Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance - in order to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth, I had the odd feeling of the familiar, seen through a prism - the eyes of an artist long-dead, and yet whose painted scenes are still recognisable today. The work above, The Marsh Landscape (1922), represents the lakes and marshland near Marazion, and remains uncannily similar today.

When travelling to what will always be home - even if it is no longer where I live - this precise part at the tail-end of the trip back marks the final stretch towards Penzance, as the train track runs parallel to the shoreline off Mount's Bay, offering glimpses of St Michael's Mount and then the town with Newlyn in the distance, as seen in this detail above of his Seaweed Gatherers (1905). Funny how I could not wait to board a train heading out of the county, all those years ago, eager to discover something new and therefore surely 'better', only to realise finally that the best was already there, all around me. Here is Harvey's 1907 painting, Return from the Orchard, with Newlyn harbour just distinguishable in the distance...

Harold Harvey, born in Penzance in 1874, would presumably have observed the trains departing too, however he knew that he did not wish to leave indefinitely. He chose to stay; depicting the Cornish coastal landscapes and the local fishermen, farmers and miners who inhabited these with their children, eking out a living for themselves, as their ancestors had done before them. Following his studies at Penzance School of Arts under Irish artist Norman Garstin (1847-1926), Harvey would spend almost his entire life, finally dying in Newlyn during the Second World War years. He did, however, leave Cornwall and indeed England for several years in his younger years in the 1890s, going to Paris to further his artistic training at the Académie Julian, in a manner similar to that of later painters from the Newlyn School of Art. On his return to Penzance, inspired by the artistic approach of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), he painted plein-air in a style of naturalistic realism, working with his mentor Garstin, whilst influenced by the work of Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) - known as the ‘father of the Newlyn School’. Below is Unloading the Catch, Newlyn Harbour from 1905.

By 1911, Harvey had met and married a fellow artist, Gertrude Bodinnar.(1879-1966) and settled in Newlyn, frequenting other members of the artistic community in Cornwall, including Alfred Munnings, Lamorna Birch and Laura Knight. Exempted from military service in the Great War due to health issues, Harvey remained in Cornwall. Although wholeheartedly devoted to painting the everyday Cornish genre scenes around him, Harvey's style gradually changed to become lighter, sometimes impressionistic, employing simpler forms. During the war years, national security measures meant that painting local outdoor scenes became problematic, so that interior scenes of his beloved home and life there with his wife predominate his work from that period. His figurative painting evolved into a distinctive style that reflected a shared approach with his friends Ernest and Dod Proctor, and indeed the two men set up the Harvey-Procter School together in Newlyn in 1920.

Leaving the human interest of the paintings to one side, I took details of the paintings on display in the exhibition in order to 'feel' the essence of the countryside and seascapes beyond, without the elements that would indicate a set time in history. Such is the case with the section of Harvey's 1924 piece, The Road to Market, with its timeless sweeping moors and vast skies above. His works were exhibited several times in the Royal Academy in London, but Harvey never left his beloved Cornwall for the great city for any prolonged period.

Above is a small detail of the work Blackberrying 1917, with a dramatic view across the Bay with St Michael's Mount just visible, whilst the later painting, the Little Maiden (1934) offers an image down over Newlyn harbour from another high vantage point. Children often featured in Harvey's pieces, while he and Gertrude were apparently childless yet both came from very sizeable families, eight and ten respectively. I don't know if this weighed on them as a couple or gave them a feeling of weightlessness, with no direct bloodline stemming from them, to anchor their lives, secure in the perspective of future generations. Perhaps this partly led Harold Harvey to convert to Catholicism in the latter years of his life; a spiritual journey not shared by his wife, but that is just speculation on my part. Home was certainly important to him and domestic scenes of his house and garden, generally featuring his wife, represent a significant proportion of an impressive artistic output, but of all of his art on display at Penlee House, the landscape details were my favourite....

A Burst of Beauty...

Sometimes you just wonder how Nature can create such marvels... What else can you say?

This too shall pass...

As the years go by, I find something strangely comforting in looking at portraits of individuals long departed. As they stare out at us, across the centuries that separate their lives from ours, I try to read any emotion that may lie behind their quizzical air and imagine the personality beyond, and likewise seek to piece together a notion of their existence from the scraps of information offered. Most of these endeavours do not lead very far, for even if I learn of the broad framework of their life events from my twenty-first century vantage point, I can never grasp how their lives were led, or understand the full extent of the power exerted on these by forces and influences that have relatively little hold or impact for the majority of us nowadays. However, I can recognise that these individuals experienced much the same gamut of feelings that we do today, and why wouldn't it be so? Hope, fear, love, grudges, ambition, disappointment; all crisscrossed past lives and drove existences much in the same way as they do now, albeit then untempered by the knowledge, science and technology and indeed hindsight that shape society today. They indeed posed the same fundamental questions concerning our time on Earth that we might today, if only we were not so preoccupied by consuming life in every possible sense. Ultimately they had a clearer understanding than us that life is short, regardless of how many years it extends, and that each stage and event passes and leads inevitably to the next, waxing and waning until death itself. Nothing lasts...

This summer I discovered the portrait above of Sir Henry Unton (1558-1596) at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and was rather suprised to see it referred to as a 'well-known' piece, for I had certainly never heard of it. The artist himmself is unidentified and yet his work lives on, hundreds of years on! And what an intriguing painting this proved to be... Set amongst many other Tudor portraits, this work was indeed unique. Unlike the full-length or the bust portraits that focus primarily on the figure, here the relatively youthful face of this diplomat - decked out in his Elizabethan finery - is surrounded by insightful vignettes of his existence, from cradle to grave. Commissioned by his widow, following his death in 1596, the ‘story picture’ of Sir Henry Unton lays out the key events of his 39 years in an anti-clockwise sequence that starts in the bottom right-hand corner. In almost each of these scenes - excepting his birth and death - we see miniature images of Sir Unton as the protagonist, all virtually the same scaled-down version of the main central portrait. The memorial portrait was very much in keeping with the interest of Elizabethan and Jacobean society for life's ephemerality but here, instead of being a rather dismal memento mori to 'remember that we must die', this visual narrative appears to be more a celebration of a short but active existence that also offers us a glimpse of life in the late 16th century.

In the detail above, we see the baby Henry in the arms of his mother, Anne Dudley (née Seymour), the Countess of Warwick, in Unton House. Her status is apparent from her fine clothes, the lady's maids, the odd little dog lying by her feet, and the richly-dressed table in the background. We have no real notion, however, of just how remarkable this particular individual was in her own right. Indeed, thanks to her Humanist education, along with her sisters (Jane and Margaret), she composed Latin poetry to honour Marguerite de Navarre on her death - the first published work written by English women before the 1560s; quite a feat. Towards the end of her relatively short life (dying in 1588 at just 50 years), Anne suffered from episodes of madness and was finally in the custody of her son, Henry. In this portrait however, we simply see the infant Henry seemingly scowling at a nurse who prepares to relieve the mother!

Youthful Henry is later depicted at study in Oriel College, Oxford, in 1573 before he went on to study Law in London and to travel beyond the Alps to Venice and Padua. I love the wonky perspective of the architecture around Henry, and the image of him as the studious young man, disportionally large, with his nose buried in a book at the open window!

We also see Henry on horse-back, holding up a parasol, whilst riding a strangely lumpen white stead, before going on to serve with the English army in the Netherlands (1585-86), a duty for which he was knighted in 1586.

He became a resident ambassador to France in 1591, but returned to England the following year suffering from jaundice. Back in his home land, Henry was elected as an MP for Berkshire in 1593 and his worldy success is reflected in the banquet scene, where he sits in a central position, almost with a twinkle of glee in his eye!

In another scene, Henry plays the lute while a masque of Mercury and Diana is performed around him but these festivities are offset by calmer moments, given to music-making, study or discussion....

I love the image of Henry below, cutting a solitary figure, with his strangely-proportioned arms stuck in front of him, as if as a hasty addition on the part of the artist to give Sir Unton more gravitas!

Henry again took up an ambassadorial role in 1595-6, as he returned to France but this was ended by an almost fatal fall from a horse, followed by a fever that indeed resulted in his demise, despite care from the royal physician to Henri IV. Henry is represented on his death-bed in the painting, with individuals at his side, displaying varying degrees of emotional response...

Apparently Henry's body was transported across the Channel to England in a black ship, as a mark of respect, and this we see in the background of the painting, with the hearse being brought back to his home of Wadley House, near Oxford.

From there, the funeral procession leads on to All Saint’s Church, Faringdon, where his funeral was held in 1596. The somber line of mourners in their long black clothing accompany the pall-bearers who carry Henry's coffin, likewise swathed in black...

Sir Henry Unton's final resting place is an imposing tomb monument which bears his effigy in recumbent form, leaning on one elbow, a large sword by his side and his widowed wife kneeling above him.

Presiding over all of these different scenes is, of course, the central image of Henry Unton himself, in his prime. He is seated in an impressive chair with a cameo necklace honouring the French king, Henry IV, resting on the desk from which he writes. Just by his shoulders, are the allegorical figures of Fame and Death, the one as an angel blowing a trumpet and holding out a coronet to herald elevated status and success, whilst the other is a skeletal form that brandishes a hour-glass to mark the ephemeral nature of Life, along with its trials and tribulations.

Life and Death, light and darkness are also underlined by the symbolic sun and crescent moon images in the corners of the work, with beams directed at the figure of Sir Henry in the different scenes, guiding us where the inscriptions can no longer do, having become illegible with the passing of time - how fitting!

Glorious Glass - Sainte-Chapelle...

Having visited Sainte-Chapelle a few months ago, I keep gazing at the glorious stained-glass windows that seem to make up most of the structure and space of its upper chapel. There seems to be so much modern-day ugliness on every possible level today, be that socially, culturally, or politically speaking, that I want to retreat from it all and find solace, peace and pleasure in pure beauty.

How is it possible that such a beautiful jewel could have been created and consecrated centuries ago - around 1248 - and indeed survived to the present day?

Ascending the narrow, time-worn stone steps up from the lower chapel below, which once served as a parish church for those living in the Palais de la Cité, visitors have little idea of just how magnificent this vast glass vessel will prove to be. What must this sensorial experience have been in centuries past, well before eyes and spirits were jaded through an incessant glut of 21st century screen-induced stimulation?

Commissioned by Louis IX to provide a palatine chapel in the Medieval royal residence, to house the sacred Holy relics in the most venerable manner, the upper level of Sainte-Chapelle stands on the lower chapel, in a two-storey design also found in Noyon Cathedral. Constructed in the Rayonnant Gothic style, the architectural design is staggeringly lofty; a tower of light, twice as high as it is wide, sending out a myriad of colour, even under darkening skies.

No supporting pillar obscures the long expanse that leads to the apse at the far east end, where the Holy relics were held in the grand châsse - an imposing reliquary casket - beneath the ornate baldaquin and surrounded by seven bays of towering stained-glass windows.

The west end of the chapel, is dominated by the vast rose window that was created in the Flamboyant Gothic style in the 15th century, with a flame-like design in the stone-work details and enamel-painted glass. The ceiling that runs from east to west above is divided into vaulted sections adorned with dark blue paint-work with rich gold stars...

The apparent weighlessness of the curtains of glass, without the use of masonry walls inside or buttresses outside, is reliant on bar tracery and iron rods and chains that provide tension and support. Furthermore, the pillars employed are cleverly 'disguised' by a series of slender stem-like structures that soar above, thus emphasizing the height as opposed to the thickness of the whole.

At the base of these ribbed columns stand apostles, and you cannot help but wonder what and who they have seen over the centuries! Having witnessed damage and destruction by the fire and flooding visited on Sainte-Chapelle, its desecration during the French Revolution and then disolution in the aftermath, these silent witnesses have also observed the pre-emptive measures taken in WW2, with the windows removed and later returned to avoid damage. Incredibly, two-thirds of the stained glass that we see in Sainte-Chapelle today are the original pieces from the Medieval period, whilst the spire is, in fact, the fifth to have adorned the monument!

Although Sainte-Chapelle managed to survive the social and political turmoil of the Revolution years, by the early decades of the 19th century there were plans to destroy it completely in order to make way for a new palais de justice. Fortunately, Victor Hugo swayed public opinion and Sainte-Chapelle was the object of a vast restoration project that went on from 1840-1863.

Much of the paint-work had to be recreated or restored, along with the sculptures, but models were taken from other monuments of the period in order to respect the original design. Typically, the fleur-de-lys image figures significantly, in reference to the royal heritage of Louis IX to the Capetian dynasty and then the castle of the kingdom of Castile in reference to his mother, Blanche de Castile.

A visit to Sainte-Chapelle is an immersion into an exquisite golden chamber of light, colour and weightlessness that is the perfect antidote to the dark, bland, heavy void we seem to have thrust upon us nowadays, whether we like it or not...