English Genius Loci

Today I went for a quick tour of the second part of The Ancient Landscapes Pastoral Vision at the Victoria Gallery Bath. This second part covers more of David Inshaw, Graham Arnold, and Graham Ovenden paintings, The Brotherhood of the Ruralists.
There were about dozen David Inshaw's painting of Silbury, two with owls, and my favourite of a Night Silbury with stars and the glittering river winding its way towards its. His May Tree paintings were also fine, a flavour of spring and fresh greeness against the myriad white blossoms of the may flower.



Laurie Lee ("Their work shows an acute recognition of that mysterious world that still holds its kingdom a few yards from the motorways, a world of spirits, shapes and ancient voices that reverberate back to the caves").







There is nevertheless an unmistakeably modern edge of alienation to some of their work. This is most evident in the dreamscapes of Graham Ovenden, with their otherworldly trees and rocks, and indistinct horizons. Some of these evoke an ineffably English, timeless landscape, but some, with their use of bright reds and Mediterranean blues, do not suggest any recognisable place at all, leaving the viewer feeling adrift and disconnected. Overall, however, Ruralist paintings are usually identifiable with distinct places, and expressive of a particular kind of English genius loci.

Awbury

From western lands beyond the foam,

We sought our English fathers' home

By few or known or sung.

Which 'neath the quiet English skies,

far from all busy haunts it lies

The wide chalk downs among.

Huge druid stones surround the spot,

Which else had almost been forgot

By the great world without.

The mystic ring now scarcely traced

Is by a grassy dike embraced,

Circling the whole about.

Deep hangs the thatch on cottage eaves,

And buried deep in ivy leaves

The cottage window gleam.

There little birds fly to and fro,

And happy children come and go

With rosy cheek and rustic walk,

They curtsy for the gentle folk,

As they the strangers deem.

With pinks and stocks the beds are gay

,And box and yew their shapes display

Fantastically trimmed.

And each small garden overflows

With scent of woodbine and of rose

Above the borders trim.

The ancient little Norman church,

With quaintly medieval porch,

Stands 'neath the elm tree tall

Sunk in the graveyard plot around,

The moss-grown headstones scarce are found

Few stoop the lettering to trace

Which time's rude hand will soon efface.

Some there may be of highborn race,

But none the names recall.

The many gabled manor house,

With winking casement sheen,

Seem in the summer light to drowse

And dream of what has been

And we may dream of earlier days

,When the old convent marked the place,

When nuns in gown and coif complete,

Paced the green paths with quiet feet,

And gather herbs and simples small

Beneath the high brick garden wall,

Finding a safe retreat.

Like some small nest securely placed,

With ferns and grass interlaced,

But open to the light,

The hamlets seem to lie at rest

Upon the common's ample breast,

Secure in loneliness of space

From aught that could the charm efface

Of innocence and old-world grace

Worn by ancestral right.

Home of sweet days and thankful nights,

Fair fall on thee the morning light,

Soft fall the evening dews.

Wild winds perchance may sweep the wold

But age, untouched by storm or cold,

In memory's sight thou standest there,

Encircled by serenest air,

In changeless summer hue.

Mary S Cope. 1886

This poem written so long ago in America by Mary Cope is written in tribute to Avebury. At first I was wary of its 19th century romanticism, but reading it again and again made me realise that it had a very special charm in its description of Avebury. After all it was an outside eye that was looking back at the stones and the village, and its neat little manor house serene in its garden. Though I think she got it somewhat wrong as to nuns being at the Priory when monks are mentioned in the history.

so what inspired such eloquence? Our ancestry haunts us all, and Mary Cope came from a strong Quaker family whose forebearers had travelled to America in the 17th Century.

Henry (1793-1865) had established a family 'enclave' at Germanstown and called it Awbury, their house and grounds now are part of the Awbury Arboretum and the following quote explains the reason as to why we find Mary S. Cope writing a poem about Avebury.

"The house he built on that land was named "Awbury" after the family ancestral home in the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, England; as the nineteenth century progressed, the name came to indicate the entire enclave and not just Cope's dwelling. John Haines's and Henry Cope's tracts were augmented with purchases made by Henry's son Francis on the southwest and south later in the nineteenth century. The family enclave was expanded in 1885 with a purchase of land

made by Clementine Cope, Henry's niece, in 1885."

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But lets go back to the original Oliver Cope - a tailor who lived in Avebury and took that momentous step to emigrate to America. Gilbert Cope in his genealogy of the Cope family (186l) seems to think that Oliver was not a Quaker when he left England with his wife Rebecca, they seemed to have had three children at Avebury - William, Ruth, and John, Elizabeth being born in America, Oliver must have left England in about 1682, and could have travelled on the same boat as William Penn who also made a voyage in that year. In a Deed of Land he seems to have bought 250 acres from William Penn in the province of Pennsylvania, this he must have done in England as the Deed is dated 1681.

"This indenture made the 5th day of September in the year of our Lord 1681, and in the thirty-third year of the reign of King Charles the second over England, between William Penn of Worminghurst in the County of Sussex and Oliver Cope of Awbury, in the County of Wiltshire, tailor, on the other part witnesseth that the said William Penn, for and in the consideration of the sum of five shillings of lawful money of England to him in hand paid by the said Oliver Cope, the receipt whereof he doeth hereby acknowledge, have bargained and sold, and by these presents doth bargain and sell into the said Oliver Cope, the full and just proportion and quantity of 250 acres within the province of Pennsylvannia"

There is a lovely note by Gilbert Cope at the end of the page in which he states "Abury (sometimes spelt Awbury, Aveburg or Auburn) is an unimportant village in Wiltshire,

about 8l miles west of London. There are none of the Cope name living in or near it at present, neither does the name appear on the family register"

Oliver's arrival in America has a somewhat mixed account in Gilbert Cope's book, Mary is given at one stage as his wife that accompanied him on the voyage and that he came on the boat with William Penn (on his second voyage) in 1701.* This account can probably be considered a bit whimsical, though it does say that they landed at Nameen's Creek (the place where Oliver died) as Oliver's will definitely states Rebecca as his wife.

There is also a note that in May 1682 William Penn sent to Thomas Holme - Surveyor General - a list of the people who had purchased land and Oliver Cope is listed as having five hundred acres. So it would seem that Oliver bought this land whilst he was  in England, probably making two purchases of 250 acres at separate times, the dream of an American future winning over a drab existence in a small Wiltshire village.

John Cope one of Oliver's children is seen as the founding member of the Cope dynasty in America and a prominent Quaker member.

Genealogy notes; The original Oliver Cope was born at Avebury in approximately 1647 he died in April in 1697 at Naaman's Creek DE..

Mary Stokes Cope; Her mother was Elizabeth Waln Stokes (1823-1902) and her father Thomas P. Cope (1823-1900). They had 9 children, including Mary Stokes Cope.

What is life

It is the flash of a firefly
In the night;

It is the breath of a buffalo
In the wintertime;

It is the little shadow
That runs across the grass


And loses itself in the sunset.

Chief Isapwo Muksika Crowfoot

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The Western World

Enlightenment or perhaps a definition of capitalism at the present time;

"Hyper-consumption, large scale market intergration and resource extraction on an unprecedented scale" Professor Peter Brosius - University of Georgia.

"European civilisation has failed. Peoples should have the option to leave." Tero Mustonen of Eastern Finland.

Global warming, population explosion, resource depletion and world poverty are the sure signs of that failure. What has been named as European civilisation in in reality European exploitation of people and nature.

A story that can never be told

The following poem has haunted my mind for a few days, it is a story that can never be told, a mystery, yet there is something poignant in the way that Snyder captured the archaeological story in a few simple words. Who was she, this person from 26,000 years ago, a shaman of the tribe buried with due honour and ceremony, attendants on either side. Perhaps this small trio of people were related, brothers and sister, caught by some fatal passing disease, and buried with many tears by their family. Maybe she was killed in some sacrifical honour, her attendants accompanying her to the spirit world. Tantalising in death, the history of old bones haunt our imagination, fleshing them once more, gracing their bodies with movement and speech I wonder what we would really be confronted by?

Under The Hills Near the Moravia River

She lay there midst

Mammoth, reindeer, and wolf bones;

Diadem of fox teeth round her brow

Ocher under her hips

26,640 plus or minus 110 years before 'now'.

Burnt reindeer-pelvis bone bits

in her mouth,

Bones of two men lying by her,

one each side.

Gary Snyder

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And perhaps a few more words by Snyder on this cold August morning, reminding one of travelling and far off places, the following taken from Raven's Beak River At the End, in this poem he captures for a moment the old celtic enmeshing of nature, animals and the cosmic reality we sometimes forget.


...

Raven-sitting high spot

eyes on the snowpeaks,
nose of morning
raindrops in the sunshine

Skin of sunlight

skin of chilly gravel

Mind in the mountain, mind of tumbling water,

mind running rivers

Mind of sifting

flowers in the gravels

At the end of the ice age

we are the bears, we are the ravens,

We are the salmon

in the gravel

At the end of the ice age.

Paul Nash - November Moon

One of the paintings at the Ancient Landscapes exhibition was Paul Nash's November Moon, according to the catalogue Nash had been interested in how the moon appears in daylight in November. Autumn is a time of decay and death, and of course the painting has the cypress trees, evergreens associated with immortality, this tree also is part of death as well, connected with the Greek underworld.

Here Nash is playing the cycle between dying and living, the large mushroom at the forefront and the convolvous or Morning Glory one representing autumn and death, the summer flower twisting its way following the sun. This painting is very similar in expression to the Sun Eclipsing the Sunflower shown earlier on, and its soft pastel tones hide a more dramatic expression.

This picture by Nash is not in the exhibition, but again the moon figures strongly, the rounded hill is probably the Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire, which he painted several times, a more formalised version can be seen in Under the Hill.

Partial Eclipse of the Sun. .http://thelmawilcox.blogspot.com/2008/08/blog-post.html

The Brotherhood of the Ruralists

This is a group of several painters who came together in 1975 and founded the Brotherhood of Ruralists in Wellow, which is not too far from a favourite place of mine, Stoney Littleton longbarrow. They painted the Wiltshire countryside, amongst other things, in a stylised and romantic vision, following in the footsteps of the Pre-raphaelites.



The Station House at Wellow which they bought in 1975 in a derelict state, now it is a family home, though the station verandah can still be seen.



Now both styles of art are an acquired taste, the voluptuous red-hair females of Rossetti and Morris enmeshed in historical fantasy, are a 19th century adaption of the highly idealised style of that century. The Ruralists on the other hand create a misty visionary art style, but also there is that clear cut lines of almost surreal images.

This for instance is David Inshaw's Standing Stones,


They are the stones in the Avenue at Avebury, and he has captured the sexual connotations of the male and female stones, the 'male' stone falling neatly between two 'female' stones. His other works (to be included in the later exhibition at Victoria Gallery - Bath are;

Silbury Hill on a Starry Night
Owl and Silbury;
Portrait of Silbury Hill;

As will the work of Graham Ovendon; a painting and a drawing entitled 'Sentinels of Silbury Hill'

Graham Arnold on the other hand (no illustration here,) paints a vivid scene of Found Objects , such things as we like to display on a shelf. Here a vase of bright red poppies, a conch shell, quill pens in an old victorian bottle displayed against a black background, but to the left of the composition a window on a megalithic structure - a quoit - for they also lived in Cornwall, home to these megalithic mushroom stones that are so much part of the countryside. Arnold's work has caught the serenity of the Wiltshire countryside, with the following painting;-

Earthwork at Maiden Castle;
Dragon Hill, Uffington;
The White Horse (Uffington);
The White Horse, Alton barnes;
His wife, paints in a different style,


but do not think that you are looking at a unicorn placed so serenely in its enclosure backed by a rock. For this is a donkey and the painting is based on a real hill in Shropshire, where the Arnolds lived, and they allowed it to become a sanctuary for wild animals. Two donkeys also lived on this hill, so dreamy notions of chaste white unicorns must be subverted into a rather awkwardly placed donkey in a very small space - though safe in its sanctuary, the space is very small in the wilderness.

August 1st Partial eclipse of the Sun

Eclipse of the Sunflower

This rather dramatic painting is to be found at The Victoria Gallery part of an exhibition called Ancient Landscapes, Pastoral Visions, and it seemed appropiate to marke the partial eclipse of the sun today with Paul Nash's Eclipse of the Sunflower.
Why did he choose this particular expression of the sun eclipsing the sunflower, he was coming to the end of his life, both through ill health and the war. For him the sunflower had many meanings, for instance the sunflower always follows the path of the sun, and in the classical myth Clytie was punished by her sister who turned her into a flower so that she 'turns with the sun and reflects its colour', and it was in the 19th century that it became the symbol for yearning or unrequited love. And of course an eclipsed sun-disc could also reflect the 'infernal calamity of a global conflict', So this painting represents Nash seeing himself as 'escaping into vast lonely places in complete freedom of bodily action, escaping the land but in death returning to it'.
There are several other Nash paintings at the exhibition...

Druid Landscape

Landscape of the Megaliths

This last painting is not the same 'landscape of the Megaliths' that is normally shown.

Ref; Catalogue - Ancient Landscapes, Pastoral Visions by Anne Anderson, Robert Meyrick, Peter Nahum