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.

Football statue in Cambridge

Last year, Cambridge revived its plans to erect a statue to football in the town that  invented football (Australian readers:  this is soccer).  The council revealed the 4 sculptors under consideration.

Mark Titchner.  Above left is his version of the Channel Four logo.  And below is his proposal for Cambridge.

Neville Gabie.  Above: a work entitled 'South Africa'.

Below, Gabie's design for Cambridge.

Nayan Kulkarni.  Above: a commission in Medway.
Below: Kulkarni's design for Cambridge.

Finally:  Kenny Hunter

Above is his sculpture in front of the Travelodge in Orchard Park, Arbury, Cambridge.  Read my blog post about Arbury.

And below, Hunter's proposal for Cambridge (entitled Black Apollo).  I am not understanding this title.

Read more about the proposals at the Cambridge city council website.

My verdict?  We need more statues in Cambridge!  We need a statue to football!  (I am a football fan; I am a sculpture fan; so I am totally into this statue on principle.)  But we need FANTASTIC statues.  Not crap ones.

Other statues elsewhere:

Outside Emirates stadium, for Arsenal. Designed by 'MDM'.

Weird statue in Qatar of Zidane's headbutt.  (Why?)  By Algerian sculptor Adel Abdessemed

Sculpture of Alex Ferguson by Philip Jackson

Gigantic statue of Colombian player Valderrama outside his home football stadium in Santa Marta.

Footballer statue in Reykjavik (I don't know the sculptor).

Don't know where this sculpture is nor who made it (possibly the German sculptor Alf Lechner who makes very similar things).  Not even sure it's meant to be about football.  'Das Runde muss ins Eckige.' ('The round thing has to go into the angular thing.')

My favourite would be a sculpture that looks like Barry Flanagan's cricketer in Jesus College.  But about football.  Because it captures the dynamic motion of football.  Read my blog post about it.  Read my blog post about it.

Or a group sculpture like the one of a music band in front of the Perlan building in Reykjavik (I don't know the sculptor). Because it captures the team spirit of football.  And above all:  because it's interactive.  Which is the best thing about good public sculpture.  People can walk among these, imitate the poses, climb on them, get their pictures taken.

What would your preference be?

Royston Cave

Royston Cave.  St George or St Michael. 

.I visited the weird and somewhat grisly underground cave in Royston (40 minutes drive or so from Cambridge) with my friend Ellie.

It's a dank and mysterious place.

Tunnel down into Royston cave.

It's not a natural cave.  It was made by people sometime in the past.  Yes, it's that vague.  Locals rediscovered the cave by accident in the 18th century.  By that stage, nobody knew when it had been made or by whom or what it was for.

 Mysterious artists carved crude Christian figures into the stone.

Royston cave.  St George or St Michael, holding sword.

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Royston cave.  St Catharine.

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Royston cave.  Saint Christopher.

Royston cave.  Crucifixion.

Royston cave.  Sheela na gig and horse.

Here's another Sheela na gig I saw years ago in Wales (isn't she just faboulous?):

Sheela na gig, Kilpeck church, Herefordshire.
Source:  Wikimedia.

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Royston cave.  Sheela na gig.

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Read all about the Royston cave here.

I think this is one of the weirdest places to visit in the Cambridge area.  If you like a mystery, if you like subterranean caverns, if you'd like something adventurous to do with children, or if you've run out of sights to see in Royston:  this is the destination for you.

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Surprise! A mosaic in a hospital.

There's a mosaic in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.  

Yes, in a hospital.  You can find art in a hospital.  In fact, there is lots of art Addenbrooke's, and I think it's such a lovely idea to enhance the environment for patients, visitors and workers.

Also, it's a really nice mosaic.

It's all about people reading.  And disporting themselves in nature.

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I do like the way shadows look in a mosaic.

How the tiles follow the shape of the objects:  a 'knit' shape for the socks; a 'stripey' shape for the towel; a 'columnar' shape for neck and arms.  And higgledy-piggledy colour riot for the meadow.

 I love the way the black-and-white geometry of the newspaper contrasts with the floral blue-and-white tiles of the other reader's frock.

 

Hello, watering can, with the not-grey shadow effects.

A sweet touch, this black-and-white "poster" in a 1950s skinny-line curlicue style.

The artist is Jim Anderson.  He's made a number of museums and has helpfully included his website on his signature tile.  I warn you, though: the site's really out-of-date.

Let that be a warning to all artists who think it might be a good idea to include online info within their work...

Read more about art at Addenbrooke's (it's a charitable trust).

Mystery sculptor of Cambridge bulls revealed: Isidore Jules Bonheur

The extraordinary story of the two Cambridge bulls

Remember the two astonishing bull sculptures at Deloitte on Hills Road that I blogged about earlier this month?

Deloitte got back to my twitter query and told me that these sculptures are by Isidore Jules  Bonheur (1827-1901).

Isidore Bonheur, Bull, c.1878, bronze. Deloitte, Cambridge

What a remarkable revelation!

19th-century might and masculinity

Isidore Bonheur was a 19th-century French sculptor.  This means that these sculptures were imported from what was then the leading centre of the European art world  -- Paris.  Made during an era when this kind of sculpture was a central part of art-making.  Isidore Bonheur exhibited at universal and other exhibitions, and won a number of gold medals and awards.

These bulls express all the confidence of the 19th century.  They are big and brash and secular; they stride belligerently into a future of industrial and commercial promise.

They are part of a Europe that is at the height of its political and imperial power, full of arrogance and ambition and belief in its place in the world.

Isidore Bonheur, Detail of Bull, c.1878, Deloitte, Cambridge

But they speak to me also of other things:  of the price to be paid for being top of your game.  Of masculine braggadoccio and its flipsides:  anxiety about rivals, the need to be always one step ahead, patriarchal posturing with no real substance.

Isidore Bonheur, Bull Pawing the Ground, c.1878, bronze. Deloitte, Cambridge

Here's another remarkable fact:  Isidore Bonheur was the brother of Rosa Bonheur.

Rosa Bonheur

Rosa Bonheur was a hugely successful animal painter. She was also one of the few women artists to succeed within the artistic mainstream of the 19th-century.



Rosa Bonheur. Source: Les amis de Rosa Bonheur.

You can see her painting Horse Fair (1855) in the National Gallery in London:




Rosa Bonheur, Horse Fair (1855). Source: National Gallery, London.

Here is the Bonheur family:


Source: Le piéton de Paris.

Rosa Bonheur is seated and holds a print.  Isidore Bonheur stands behind her, with the snazzy ringlets above ears and forehead.  It was Rosa who apparently taught her little brother his first artistic skills.

Isidore Bonheur

What else did Isidore Bonheur sculpt?

Mainly animals.  And of those animals, mainly powerful prowling or prancing mammals.


Isidore Bonheur, Legionary on Horseback, Sainte-Anne Hospital, Paris.  Source: Wikipedia,© Siren-Com.


Isidore Bonheur, Prowling Lioness. Source: Prices 4 antiques.



Isidore Bonheur, Lion and Mouse. Source: Live auctioneers.

And, what a surprise:  quite a lot of bulls.



Isidore Bonheur, Bear and Bull. Source: frbronze.



Isidore Bonheur, Rearing Bull with Handler. Source: Arcadja.

From Paris to Cambridge

Here is a version of our very own Cambridge bull:



Rosa Bonheur. Source: Wikipedia.

This bull is a public statue.  It's one of a pair.  They face each other across the entrance gate to the Georges Brassens Park in Paris.



Parc Georges Brassens, Paris. Source: Le piéton de Paris.
The bulls are reminders that this Park was once an abattoir.  According to Le Piéton de Paris, Rosa Bonheur used to visit this abattoir regularly, in order to study the animals for her own paintings.

The two Park bulls are based on the two bulls that Isidore Bonheur exhibited at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878.  The one with the lifted head stood on what was to be the future west base for the Eiffel Tower, the other (the one with the lowered head) stood on the north base.  Brilliant pictures of these bulls at the Expo are at Piéton de Paris.

Universal bulls

Our Cambridge bulls are versions (copies? casts?) of those Universal Exposition bulls.  What an illustrious pedigree!

I wonder when Deloitte acquired them?  The Deloitte accountancy firm was founded in 1854, according to the Deloitte website; 1845, according to Wikipedia).  I don't know when they opened their Cambridge branch or when they bought these two bulls.  But I like to think that they purchased them in the wake of the Universal Exposition, in the late 1870s or early 1880s.  As a tangible symbol of their ambitions to be universally important.  (They opened their first New York office in 1880).

Two bulls in a Cambridge office lobby.  And such a fascinating history.  Who would have thought it?

Read more:

All about Isidore Bonheur: Wikipedia.

All about Rosa Bonheur: Les amis de Rosa Bonheur (in French).

All about the bulls in Georges Brassens Park, Paris: Le piéton de Paris (with fabulous pics; in French).

My first blog post about the Cambridge bulls: Cambridge bull sculptures.

Rosa Bonheur, drawing of a pony, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Source: Fitzwilliam Museum.

Thanks to: Deloitte on twitter.