Downing College griffin sculpture

I discovered this griffin in Downing College.  The plaque reads: 'This griffin was discovered in Sussex and presented to Downing College by [various people] to mark the golden jubilee of the Downing College Association, founded in [illegible].'  (It was 1922.)

A griffin rampant appears on the crest of Cambridge's Downing College.  Hence the connection to the alumni association.

It is covered in lichen.  It looks like something out of an Elizabeth Goudge novel.  There it crouches, clasping the scroll without script, poking out its tongue at passers-by.  It has wings; lion-like claws, paws and haunches; dog-like ears; a curved eagle's beak; and sternly-staring eyes that are holes bored into the stone.

Griffin, griffin, wilt thou speak? 



 

Howard Theatre, Downing College: murals

Here is a nice thing to look at when sitting in the Howard Theatre of Downing College in Cambridge:

This mural appears above the theatre's stage. (Those red seats, by the way, are fiendishly comfortable...)



A company called Hare & Humphreys carried out the design.  Their website refers to it as a painted canvas of the "Three Graces" but this is patently not true.

This is Apollo and the nine muses (count them: more than three; in fact, ten -- I'll get to that).  And the painting upon which this is based is the German Neoclassical painter Anton Raphael Mengs' mural of Apollo, Mnemosyne and the Nine Muses, painted in 1761 for the Villa Albani-Torlonia in Rome.  Here is the Mengs:

© Wikimedia

Mnemosyne (which means 'memory') is the mother of the nine muses (Zeus was the father).  I take her to be the seated woman in white and blue.

Interesting variations:
•  the globe -- it appears to be mostly blue in the Mengs and has green continents in the Howard Theatre
•  Apollo's eyes -- appear to have been gouged out at some point in the Roman mural?
•  sandals -- is the Howard Theatre Apollo barefoot?

The nine muses are also on the pediment over the main entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum (but that is food for another post).

The ceiling of the Howard Theatre is painted to look like a Renaissance or Baroque sky (also done by Hare & Humphreys).  It is quite lovely and reminds me of Mantegna and Tiepolo.

At any rate, sit in the theatre and be transported to another realm.

British painting at the new Heong gallery: Is it abstract?

There is a new gallery in town.  It is the Heong Gallery.  Where is it?  Go to Regent Street in Cambridge; opposite Parker's Piece and across the road from the Pizza Hut, is Downing College.  Walk through the main entrance across the gravel path and past the Porter's Lodge; turn left.  And there it is.

Heong gallery, the entrance façade

It's in the old stables and was wonderfully re-purposed by Caruso St John Architects.  It opened on 6 Feb 2016 with an exhibition of British painting in the 50s and 60s.

I visited as part of the  symposium Generation Painting: Abstraction and British Art 1955-65, held at Downing on Sat, 5 March.

Now, the concept of 'abstraction' is interesting in the context of the current exhibition.

Detail from Patrick Heron's Soft Vermilion with Orange and Red: April 1965, 1965 (oil on canvas)

Above is a detail from a painting whose very title shouts "Hey, I'm abstract! Look at me! No figurative content in me!  No illusion to be seen here! Just plain old real paint.'  Except not quite, perhaps?  Because why is the vermilion 'soft'?  And why is the word 'April' part of the title?

As was pointed out by one speaker during the very interesting symposium, these 1950s/60s painters from Cornwall (Patrick Heron lived in Cornwall when he painted this) remained attached to the light and sea and atmosphere of their landscape.

And David Hockney's absolutely wonderful Hollywood Garden (1965) is definitely not abstract.

Detail from David Hockney's Hollywood Garden, 1965, pencil and watercolour on card

There are some witty references to abstraction, and there is a play with the tension between surface and depth, the horizontal line and the vertical shapes, like starlings on a wire, the drooping umbrella, the bush like a boulder.  At the symposium, Martin Hammer (University of Kent) was brilliant on Hockney:  "our involuntary urge to recognise."

Allen Jones, Parachutist, 1963 (Fitzwilliam Museum)

Detail of the preceding

Allen Jones's Parachutist (1963) is a wonderfully witty and juicily 'painterly' juxtaposition of the overtly figurative and the ambiguously abstract.  Are those vertical shapes stripes of yellow, green and blue, like the stripes in a painting by Morris Louis?

Great sky lights at the Heong Gallery

A picture window onto Downing lawns that looks like a literal picture, next to an actual picture by Roger Hilton, January 1962 (tall white), 1962.  Below is the same picture window viewed from the outside in.

Heong gallery, viewed from the Downing lawn

Visit the show! It's fantastic!  And so is the gallery.  Totally free, too.
The catalogue costs £12.

Open:
Wed 10 am - 8 pm
Sat, Sun, Bank Hols 10 am - 6 pm

Exhibition: Generation Painting 1955-65
British Art from the Collection of Sir Alan Bowness

Ends 22 May 2016.