Caspar David Friedrich – the master of Rückenfigur painting

Unlike portraits, that show a subject or subjects from the front, or in three-quarter view, Rückenfigur paintings show the principal subject from behind.

As an example, take Gustave Caillebotte’s Young Man at his Window of 1876 (see above). The young man is the dominant subject of the painting and we can suppose that he has just risen from his chair and is now looking out at the goings-on in the street. We are less interested in the view than in him and, as the view is from the rear, we have no idea what he is looking at – or what he is thinking. It fires our imagination.

Probably the best-known example of Rückenfigur painting is Caspar David Friedrich’s The Wanderer above a Sea of Mist of ca. 1817/18 (see above) and, again, it makes us think. One way of analysing this painting is to look at its composition and Grave [1] does this: 

The rear-view figure is tied into the pictorial structure in a number of different ways. It occupies the central axis of symmetry, it is at its highest point of the triangle of rock in the foreground and marks the meeting point of the two slopes that angle upwards to either side from chest-height on the wanderer.. ..The subtle balance that has been created between the various motifs on the picture plane can be sustained only as long as the existing perspective is respected. Thus the pictorial structure presents no reason why the figure of the wanderer should be regarded as a substitute, occupying a position that is actually intended for the viewer. 

Grave [1] also writes: 

..He [the wanderer] is clearly an unmistakeable individual. However, if the viewer nevertheless still tries to “enter” the landscape and to take on the role of the wanderer, he will become all the more aware that the rear-view is indispensable. Without it, this mountain landscape would have no centre, and even the few steps that the viewer would take up to the peak would immediately alter the appearance of the rocks partially immersed in the mist. 

Why did the Wanderer take the walk? On close examination, we see that he is wearing black walking shoes that are clean and may be polished (see below), his suit appears to be of green velvet, with full-length trousers and he has a walking cane. The impression is of someone out for a stroll and it seems unlikely that he started in the valley and clambered up to take the view from above the mist. 

The Wanderer is standing on a rocky crag but we have no idea whether this was adjacent to a path or whether there is a steep fall beyond it, although our imagination tells us that this is possible. A gentle breeze ruffles his hair (see below, upper) while the trees in the mid-distance stand upright, showing no evidence that they are subject to strong winds (see below, lower). Did Friedrich intend us to think about these questions about the Wanderer? Probably not, as our dominating thought is not how he arrived there but what he was thinking. He must be enjoying the sublime the sense of awe at being in the mountains and, if the crag was part of a familiar walk, the mysterious nature of looking down above the mist. That, in itself, carries the metaphor of looking at the world in a different light. 

We are left with our own thoughts and this is also true of two other Rückenfigur paintings by Friedrich: Woman in front of the Setting Sun of ca. 1818 (below, upper) and Woman at a Window of 1822 (below, lower).The former is thus contemporary with The Wanderer, but we view the landscape from ground level. 

As Grave writes of Woman in front of the Setting Sun [1]: 

The woman’s gestures bespeak an act of devotion to nature and the sun in which the painting’s viewer cannot share. Whereas the woman seems to have been granted a direct encounter with nature, the viewer contemplating the painting – in his role [as] a second-order observer – can reflect only on what he sees. The natural phenomenon portrayed in the painting cannot be experienced in the same way by those looking at the painting. The sight of the woman, whose arms seem outstretched in an act of prayer, may awaken religious feelings in the viewer, but he can never completely forget that the rear-view figure is casting him in the role of second-order observer. Once again, the intention in this painting is not to draw us so completely into the landscape that we lose sight of its pictorial mediation. 

Whereas The Wanderer leaves us thinking about his sense of wonder in nature, this painting is more of a joyous expression of the beauty that nature gives us – there is, indeed, something of a sense of worship in the glory of the landscape rather than the reflection shown by the Wanderer. 

The later Rückenfigur of Woman at a Window is set in a very different environment. We look, as she does, through an open window at the mast of a sailing ship and we are then tempted to ask questions of what she sees. As she is leaning forward, is she speaking with someone on board the ship, or on the quayside? Is she contemplating the journey to be made by the ship, or has it just returned to port? The bare room gives us no clues, although the two bottles on the window shelf may have meaning – but what? We are left with our thoughts and, maybe, she was too? 

As with other Rückenfigur paintings of interiors, we are looking “over the shoulder” of the subject and are curious to know what they are thinking, or doing. We can draw a parallel between Woman at a Window and Jacobus Vrel’s Woman at a Window Waving at a Girl of ca. 1650 (see below). In the latter, we see a woman so excited by seeing a little girt outside that she nearly falls off her chair and waves to attract the child’s attention. There is no mystery of interpretation here, and we share in the woman’s enthusiasm and leave it at that. Vrel leaves little to the imagination, whereas Rückenfigur paintings are all about mystery. 

[1] Johannes Grave (2012) Caspar David Friedrich. Prestel, Munich.

 

 

Oak trees and thoughts on Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “The Lone Tree”

Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Der einsame Baum (“The Lone Tree”) (see below, upper) features an oak tree that demands the attention of the observer. Clouds seem to form a shallow dome over it and the foothills of the distant mountains behind the tree slope down on either side to further emphasise its presence. The tree retains most of its leaves, but the uppermost branches appear dead and this is a feature of old oak trees [1,2]. Without going into the complex causes of this dieback, it is common to see oak trees with apparently dead branches in the crown. I saw a pedunculate oak (Quercus robur) with dead branches while driving through Forncett in Norfolk (see below, lower – I should state that I parked my motor car before taking the image using my mobile telephone). Further examples can be seen in three oaks from an avenue in Berkhamsted (shown below, bottom), with a vigorous healthy tree on the left; a tree with some die-back in the centre; and a tree with more developed die-back on the right. It is highly unlikely that leaves will re-appear in these dead and dying branches in future seasons.

Many deciduous trees that produce new leaves in spring also show a powerful ability to regenerate after having been damaged, often intentionally by tree surgeons [3]. We have a local example: a London plane that recovered its loss of leaves after a few months (see below). When the tree had its branches lopped, I felt a little sad, but I knew that the tree would recover and produce new shoots and leaves. It was quite different to watching the leaves falling in autumn, itself a mildly sad event, although I know that this promotes the essential cycling of organic matter. Once dead, however, even deciduous trees are not going to recover and they leave a ghostly lattice of branches that have their own appeal, not just to Friedrich but to other artists, like David Hockney or Trevor Grimshaw [4,5].

Looking at Friedrich’s painting Der einsame Baum (“The Lone Tree”) in more detail, we see the symbolism involved. Of course, we don’t know what the artist was thinking when he painted the work, but we can attempt some explanations. I take as my excuse for making this analysis a quote attributed to Friedrich and given in Grave’s book [6] “…thus it is a great merit, maybe the greatest thing the artist is capable of, when he touches the spirit and arouses thoughts, feelings and emotions in the beholder, even if these are not his own”.

In the distance are massive mountains, showing the blue colouring of Rayleigh scattering that indicates that they are far away. Our vision thus meets a barrier, a device used by many painters, and we are deflected back to the main subjects of the work. As we come “out” of the painting and away from the sloping foothills, we see smoke from the chimneys of houses in a village that also has a church with a spire (see below, upper). The plain is then crossed by a row of trees with cottages and what appears to be a ruined church, and nearer to us are more trees growing next to a pond and some of the oaks have dieback in their upper branches (see below, lower). Dieback here appears advanced and there is the stump of one tree, indicating the eventual fate of all of them. Then we come to our main subject, the solitary oak, against the trunk of which rests a shepherd, with his flock scattered around him, while the foreground also has another pond. The painting was one of a pair commissioned by Joachim Wagener and completed in 1822, the other being Moonrise over the Sea. They were to represent evening and morning, so we know that Der einsame Baum shows the morning light and the shepherd has been with his flock from the early hours, if not through the night. We can also surmise that it is early autumn as the smoke coming from chimneys suggests a chill in the air, yet the tees are in full leaf.

So, what of the symbolism? I will describe my interpretation using headings.

The mountains

The mountains not only provide a backdrop for the scene, but they are also massive and continue into the distance. Their magnificence is awe-inspiring and reminds us of the sublime and, in turn, the peacefulness of the rural scene that we focus upon.

The church(es)

The churches are symbols of Christianity and all that is involved in that religion. We assume that Christianity is important to those living in the village, who will thus believe in Heaven, and in life after death, accepting that Jesus Christ died, and was resurrected, to save us from sin. The painting also suggests strongly the importance of Nature as a source of spirituality, something that was of special importance to Friedrich [6]. As Caroline Levisse writes: “ …according to Friedrich, it is possible to find in the world around us scenery, objects, and phenomena that can elicit a religious experience” [7]. (If the building in the near distance is a ruined church, I cannot provide an explanation for its existence in the painting, other than that it is based on a real landscape. Why is it ruined, if it is a church?).

Impending death

Oak trees showing naked branches at the crown are likely dying and thus present a metaphor for our own impending death. This is a dominant feature of the lone oak we see and, while it continues to live after shedding its leaves in autumn and then producing more in spring, it has only a limited time span before it dies and becomes a stump. Stumps have strong appeal and a local example (see below, upper [and since fallen]) became a totem for me, just as the stump of a felled tree in east Yorkshire did for David Hockney until it was vandalised [4] (below, lower). Looking at the oak in Friedrich’s painting, we thus drift to thoughts of our own death, while continuing to be alive, even after parts of our body begin to fail (although we are nor deciduous, of course).

The living oak tree produces successors that grow from acorns, and many humans produce offspring that survive us. This leads us to the idea that life continues after death, reminding us of the selfish gene concept and the “immortality” of genes. Thoughts then turn to the idea of life after death and whether there is a hereafter for the soul, or not. Then we are drawn to ideas of reincarnation on Earth or the passage to some spiritual domain, both of which can bring comfort.

Isolation and loneliness

The isolation of the oak tree poses an important question from a biological perspective – how did it get here? It will have grown from an acorn, but how did the acorn get to this position, when there is no evidence of there being a parent oak tree or, indeed, other oak trees close by? Perhaps it was carried by an animal, or moved there by a child?

I asked members of my family what the painting meant to them and the dominant reply was a sense of loneliness, fitting given the title of the work and its focus on dying. In the time leading up to death it is possible to be very lonely; after all we are the ones going through the process. We die alone and we are likely to feel the loneliness of this in our last hours or days, even when surrounded by family.

The shepherd

As the painting is set in the early morning, and the shepherd is with his flock (see below), and may have been through the night, he is clearly both attentive and protective. This reminds us of Jesus as the Good Shepherd quoted in St John’s gospel in the Holy Bible (Authorised King James Version, chapter 10 verse 14): “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” The symbolism in Friedrich’s painting may thus carry the Christian message that, after death, one’s soul can only enter Heaven if we are in the flock of Christian believers.

Water

Trees require water to grow and it is transmitted to their leaves via a complex of xylem vessels. It is then, together with carbon dioxide and sunlight, converted into simple sugars during photosynthesis, a process that is mediated by the green pigment chlorophyll. Trees without leaves, like those that are lopped or have dying branches, will have a reduced ability to generate sugars and, unless more leaves are produced, the tree will not produce sufficient energy to maintain growth or, in some cases, survival. Water is thus essential for tree growth and the lone oak in Der einsame Baum is located next to a pond, so water is unlikely to be limiting.

We are again drawn to St John’s Gospel in the Holy Bible (Authorised King James Version, chapter 4 verse 14): “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I [Jesus] shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” This reference to water, so important for living organisms, means that the ponds shown in Friedrich’s painting provide us with a metaphor for the importance of Christian faith in allowing eternal life

It all points to Friedrich’s Christian religious beliefs. Crosses, large crucifixes and churches feature prominently in his work, alongside trees and landscapes. Whether one is sympathetic to his beliefs, or not, the subjects in Der einsame Baum show how paintings can offer us thought-provoking images that capitalise on our fear of ageing and death and how this fear can be alleviated. One can only wonder what was in Friedrich’s mind when he created the work and ponder whether it was anything like my interpretation That aside, it’s a marvellous painting by a true Romantic.

[1] https://ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk/how-to-record/species-guides/oak/

[2] https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/pest-and-disease-resources/chronic-oak-decline-dieback/

[3] https://penritharborist.com.au/the-future-protecting-that-trees-regenerate-after-being-cut-down-for-a-sustainable-environment

[4] Martin Gayford (2016) A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney. Thames & Hudson, London.

[5] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/09/trevor-grimshaw-and-caspar-david.html

[6] Johannes Grave (2012) Caspar David Friedrich. Prestel, Munich

[7] https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2024/31-may/features/features/caspar-david-friedrich-faith-on-canvas

 

 

 

 

Oakenshaw – and feeling close to coal miners and their families

I lived in Oakenshaw for over two years, arriving in Spring 1971. It was a mining village in County Durham and consisted largely of a long row of terraced cottages, but I knew little of its history when I arrived.

The move to Oakenshaw came at a difficult time for me. I had started my PhD at the University of Durham in 1970, working on the ecology of blackfly larvae in Upper Teesdale streams and my supervisor, Dr Lewis Davies, was someone I looked up to for his expertise. I’d spent the previous two years on blackfly research at the University of Salford and it had been a miserable experience, as my supervisor was not an aquatic biologist (he was a medical parasitologist) and I lived alone in bed-sitting rooms. Fortunately, I had very supportive friends among the research students and technicians, and I needed them. In December 1968, a policeman rang the bell to my room (that leaked rain around the bay window and had a mouse infestation) to tell me that my father had died; this rather cold way of contacting me, being the only method of conveying such news quickly. I was, of course, upset (my mother having died in 1960) and I headed out into the Cheshire countryside to stay with my brother’s in-laws, who were very kind to me during my Manchester days.

My supervisor showed kindness in understanding what I was going through and, after a short break of a week, I was back at my bench and carrying on with counting and identifying larvae from Artle Beck. Fortunately, my girlfriend from undergraduate days was still part of my life and, in the summer of 1969, we went together to Cyprus by rail and sea, stopping off at interesting places en route. She had just finished a teaching course at the University of Southampton and was taking up a post at a school in Cyprus and it was good for us to have some time together, although that was much more from my side than hers. Little did I know that my departure from Nicosia airport would be the last time I saw her, and I received a "goodbye letter" some days later. It’s all a bit of a sob story, isn’t it? 

Early in 1970, I saw an advert for the studentship at Durham and I went for interview, having previously visited Dr Davies to get confirmation of some of my identifications. I loved Durham and its magnificent buildings the first time I saw them and was thrilled to get the position, even though I had not passed my driving test and had to do so. That was motivation enough, and a successful test was completed in the weeks before I left Salford. Arriving in Durham, I was given laboratory space and was relieved to find that my fellow research students were as nice a group as the ones that I’d just left. Friendships were made quickly and I went with Dr Davies to select streams for the study. I had the use of a Land Rover (identical with the one below) and soon immersed myself in sampling, walking alone over the fells with a rucksack of jars, bottles and other bits and pieces, sometimes in foul weather.

I was told to rear some adult blackflies from pupae that I had collected and then pin them into an insect box (something that I had never done before) and I learned some new sampling techniques that I was somewhat dubious about. Anyway, I cracked on and then made a trip out to some new streams, accompanied by Dr Davies, who at one point said “Roger, you seem to be completely incompetent”, probably because of my fly-rearing and pinning, not the most interesting part of the study for me. We had an uncomfortable ride back to Durham and, as I was unloading the Land Rover, Dr Davies came out to tell me that my girlfriend of the time had died on the Isle of May, where she was studying seagulls. She was 24 years old and, although she had had some mental health issues, it was completely unexpected.

So, after that long pre-amble we come to Oakenshaw, where a very good friend, and fellow research student, had bought a miner’s cottage (see above for “The Row” [image by Peter Robinson]), modernising it with an inside bathroom and with storage heaters to keep the place warm. I was very happy living there, although it was a distance from Durham and the bus service was infrequent (three a day in each direction, if I remember correctly). When I was going out on field work to Cronkley Fell, or to Moor House [1], I could use the Land Rover and park it overnight outside the cottage, but there had to be a better solution. That’s how I came to own my first car, a 2-door Morris Minor - 913 HBM – that had 94,000 miles on the clock and had been a rep’s transport. I had a lot of faith in that car, despite its consuming oil as well as petrol, although I was not pleased when a front wheel went awry and nearly fell off (“the usual kingpin problem” according to the garage).

They were happy days and, when Dr Davies returned from many weeks spent in the Crozet Islands on his own research, he recognised that I had done a lot of work while he was away and I had numerous sheets of results to prove it. Good times, then, but I couldn’t ignore thoughts of the previous occupants of the cottage who must have been miners, as it was likely owned by the mine that was located at the end of the road (see above, the road from which the image was taken is the one leading to the cottages). There were still ex-miners living in “The Row” and the social club further down the road could still be very lively on Sundays. Oakenshaw Colliery had a narrow seam (the 3 ft Brockwell seam [2]), so work as a miner was extra tough and there were inevitable fatalities in accidents (summarised below), in addition to deaths from other causes.

Fatalities at Oakenshaw Colliery (data extracted from [2])

Age range

 <15                 6

16-20              10

21-29              8

30-39              5

40-49              7

50-59              3

60+                 1

Cause of death

Fall of stone                                      28

Waggonway accidents                       4

Accidents with machinery                  6

Others                                                2

 Years in which deaths were recorded

1850s             3

1860s             6

1870s             11

1880s             8

1890s             3

1900s             3

1910s             3

1920s             2

Later               1

So many lives lost and of young miners, too. It put my earlier miseries into perspective, and the cottage that was a happy home may well have experienced tragedy in earlier years. Certainly, the figures - and chatting with ex-miners - brought my life as a research student into focus and I can’t imagine what it was like to work in those narrow seams and have no alternative employment; something that became acute when the mine was closed. That left Oakenshaw as a Category D village (to receive no development [3]) in 1951 and the houses then sold off cheaply, allowed to run down, or even be demolished.

There was still accessible coal, however, and a large open-pit operation was commenced behind the row of cottages at the time I left, now returned to be farmland (at least it was at my last visit). As I reminisce, I realise that life in Oakenshaw was as valuable for my education as working on a PhD.

 

[1] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2018/04/tempus-fugit.html

[2] http://www.dmm.org.uk/colliery/o002.htm

[3] https://redhillsdurham.org/the-story-of-category-d-villages-and-lyr/

 

Jesus as a child

 

There are a large number of paintings of Jesus’ nativity, of his crucifixion and resurrection, and of various other events in his adult life. Many fewer paintings have been made of his childhood as we have little information on his life up to the age of twelve. We know that he lived with Mary and Joseph who, like almost all parents, were dedicated to looking after him. This is shown in the account in Luke’s Gospel [1]:

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him. Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, how is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

The meeting in the temple is shown in paintings by Steen (from 1660) and by Hoffmann (from 1884) shown below. At this time, Jesus is effectively embarking on adult life, although there are a few more years to go before he actively pursued his Ministry. In Steen’s painting, Jesus is portrayed as an innocent child, with divine light shining upon him, whereas Hoffmann captures a more confident moment,

We are left with a number of questions about Jesus’ boyhood – did he grow up as other children do, or did he know everything because he was the Son of God (as implied in Luke’s gospel)? Clearly, the incident in the Temple shows that Jesus had a superior knowledge, but how did he acquire it? Alternatively, if he knew everything all along, what did he spend his childhood years doing? Before addressing this question, let’s look at two more paintings; one by Murillo (from ca. 1681), who made many images of children, and one by Millais (from 1850). The painting by Murillo (below) is clearly for veneration and worship, with Jesus standing on a block to show that he was not bound to Earth, and emphasising the link between his Earthly parents and also to God and the Holy Spirit (as represented by a dove; a conventional device used by artists to portray something that cannot be seen). I’ve written before about this painting [2] and it has always impressed me, showing, as it does, many tender emotions and, in Joseph, a sense of apprehension.

Millais, in contrast, takes an everyday approach (above), with Jesus and Mary in Joseph’s carpentry shop. There is little sign here that Jesus is the son of God, or that Mary was chosen to have the special, and unique, role of becoming his mother, even though she was a virgin at the time of divine conception. We know that much from the accounts in The Bible, but we would not guess that was part of the story from the domestic scene shown by Millais. As might be expected, the painting caused controversy when exhibited, and among the critics was Charles Dickens who wrote an article in Household Words [3] that attacked the Pre-Raphaelites in general and, especially, the painting by Millais. These extracts come from that piece:

“You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown; who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy with some small flavo[u]r of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed.”

From which we conclude that Dickens did not like the picture one bit, or it’s representation of the Holy Family. Of all the paintings in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibition, it was this work by Millais that created much criticism and the press “reacted ferociously to what they viewed as a repulsive, near blasphemous representation of the Holy Family” [4]. But why? Surely, the view that Jesus had a normal childhood can be accepted, and the scene in Millais’ painting is just one of everyday life, although we note that the wound in Jesus’ hand reminds us of the stigma of a nail, anchoring the image into the story of what is to come (see detail below). We also see a splash of blood by the nail in the door that is on the work bench and a splash on Jesus’ foot just to emphasise the point, and Joseph is holding Jesus’ hand open so that we can get a better look. The atmosphere is completely different to that in the painting by Murillo.

So, we are left with the two main questions: What was the childhood of Jesus really like; and was he all-knowing from the moment of birth? Of course, we don’t know the answer to either, but we do have some further information on the former.

As Mary was a virgin, we know that Jesus was her first-born child, but we also know that, by the time he was twelve, he had four brothers and at least two sisters [5]. We know, therefore, that he had the advantage of being the first-born, but we can only imagine what family life was like and whether Jesus played games and enjoyed the other activities of growing children. In the view of an atheist, Jesus’ upbringing was that of any child, although he was certainly unusual in having the talents that he later displayed as a great religious leader. To a Trinitarian, like the majority of Christians, Jesus was not only the Son of God but also part of God, together with the Holy Spirit. As such, we cannot know whether he learned much during childhood, or whether it was a matter of learning how to connect human development with being divine.

A third approach to the rôle of Jesus, Arianism, was advocated by Isaac Newton who, in addition to his extraordinary scientific achievements, studied early Christianity by consulting a large number of original sources. It is likely that he spent as much time on these researches as he did on scientific and mathematical investigations, but, because of likely hostility from many parts of the establishment, he kept his notes private. Richard Westfall [6] tells us that:

“The conviction began to possess him that a massive fraud, which began in the fourth and fifth centuries, had perverted the legacy of the early church. Central to the fraud were the Scriptures, which Newton began to believe had been corrupted to support trinitarianism. It is impossible to say exactly when the conviction fastened upon him. The original notes themselves testify to early doubts. Far from silencing the doubts, he let them possess him..

..The earlier corruption of doctrine, which called for the corruption of Scripture to support it, occurred in the fourth century, when the triumph of Athanasius over Arius imposed the false doctrine of the trinity on Christianity..

.. The mere thought of trinitarianism, ‘the fals infernal religion’, was enough to fan Newton into a rage.”

What would Newton have made of the paintings by Murillo and Millais if he saw them? To the eyes of an atheist or an Arianist, Jesus working in his father’s carpenter’s shop seems quite natural and the adoration shown in the painting by Murillo difficult to reconcile with any kind of normal childhood. Trinitarianism, and its sub-branch the worship of Mary, are embedded in the Catholic Church and have been since the early days of Christianity. Trinitarians worship Jesus through all his life, death and resurrection as he was/is part of God. They seem disinterested in questions regarding his childhood, while focussing on his life before, and after this time. This is also true of artists through the ages and reflects commissioned work from Christians.

Yet there is one point that is worth stressing and that is that Jesus, whether he had innate knowledge or not, was brought up in humble surroundings and his discourse in the Temple came as a surprise to the learned gathering. It’s a good way of showing that Jesus was at one with all strata of society. How Trinitarians tie that in with his divinity is not known (or important to them?). For atheists (and possibly Arianists), however, it presents Jesus as a great leader with a “grass roots” base of believers and thus of general appeal. The tragic events of his later life, essential to the idea of redemption, then led to the adoption of the Trinitarian view of Christian doctrine by the Catholic Church, an organisation that was certainly hierarchical and probably corrupt. It remains the basis for most Christian belief today.

[1] Luke 2: 40-52 in the Authorized King James version of The Holy Bible.

[2] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2018/04/murillos-heavenly-and-earthly-trinities.html

[3] Charles Dickens (1850) Old Lamps for New Ones. Household Words 1(12): 265-267.

[4] Christine Riding (2006) John Everett Millais. London, Tate Publishing.

[5] Matthew 13:55-56 and Mark 6:3 in the Authorized King James version of The Holy Bible.

[6] Richard Westfall (1993) The Life of Isaac Newton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singing in a concert

The book Walking with Gosse [1] opens with the following description: “After the summer holiday season, Paignton in the 1950s was typical of many seaside towns in the UK, being quiet and left to its residents. A small theatre put on rather good amateur pantomimes at Christmas and, at other times, hosted school music festivals, elocution contests, and the occasional Billy Graham-style Christian Crusade”. This theatre is shown below.

I was a participant in school music festivals in Paignton, always as part of a choir, and we had an interest in how we performed, as pride was at stake. We also wanted to sing as well as we could. There were set pieces and the choir practised these, so that we not only knew the words and music, but all the little nuances of expression that the music teacher wanted. On the day of the performance, we were all kitted up in school uniform and then called to the stage to do our bit. When all schools had finished, an Adjudicator described how we had all performed and then gave each choir a mark. I was fortunate in being part of a choir that always did well.

All this was in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but I was reminded of it all last evening when I attended the “Young Voices 2025” concert at Wembley Arena. My granddaughter, India, was one of the 4609 children taking part and they put on a great concert, with live music from a band, guest singers and rappers, and dancers. It all lasted nearly two hours and the children were as enthusiastic at the end (a medley of Bob Marley songs) as they had been at the beginning. It must have made a big impression on them and was all so different to the rather turgid music festivals that I enjoyed. Then, Paignton is a long way from London, but so is Norwich, where India is at school. She must have been so thrilled to be taking part in such a lively, high-quality event.

[1] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse. e-book

A Complete Unknown

“A Complete Unknown” is the film of the moment and tells the story of Bob Dylan’s transition from folk singer with acoustic guitar to become a different kind of icon, accompanied by electric instruments. It happened in the early 1960s, at a time when Dylan and his songs made a big impression on me.

Having spent 1962 to 1965 in the Sixth Form of the local Grammar School (above), I wasn’t sure what my future was going to be and there was no certainty that I would go on to university. It was a time of confusion and anxiety, fuelled by awareness of just what the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 might have been. My unhappy adolescence wasn’t helped by an unfortunate home life, as my father was, by then, seriously ill and my mother had died in 1960. Added to that, I had left religious belief behind, while all my immediate family were church-going Christians, so I didn’t have that crutch. 

I spent a lot of time looking in rock pools and in streams and going for long walks along the South Devon coast and through the countryside, reading novels and not being focussed on studying. The folk music of the day also had a strong appeal, with injustices being prominent themes. The popularity of the songs sung by “protest singers” inspired Dylan and he wrote many of his own to capitalise on the trend. Whatever his motive, the songs, and the idea of protest, appealed strongly to my adolescent self. 

After taking A-levels three years’ running, I escaped to university when I was a very young 18 and, this being 1965-6, Dylan, my hero, had now firmly changed direction and the earlier 1963 “Freewheelin” ([1] and above, left), 1964 “The Times They Are a-Changin’”[2] and “Another Side” [3] albums were followed by the transition through the 1965 “Bringing it all Back Home” [4] and “Highway 61 Revisited” [5] to the great 1966 double album “Blonde on Blonde” ([6] and above, right). It was the latter three albums that had me hooked and I don’t care what Dylan’s reasons were for producing them. The words and music left me wanting to play them over and over and those songs were a big influence on me then - and still are. 

Like all fans of the Dylan of this period, I was a bit confused by his later work but have no wish to analyse why. As Dylan said in one interview in the 1960s when pressed about the meaning, and importance, of his work, “I’m just a song and dance man”. That’s good enough for me and I’m grateful to Bob for unknowingly supporting me through some tough times. 

As I lived through the reality of the Sixties, I won’t be bothering with the film… 

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMFj8uDubsE&list=PLfGibfZATlGpj4XK7uSPrgpRiTXcI_VP1

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDJhPGoYL4k&list=PLL-NbN8uTOigfILSkGXwA80GIpaorJOYe

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH60aiybqjY&list=PLKZWLu6q09LNjwvtWl7fh0NCNJg-0pxWD

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNI-RQKA-cg&list=PLs-kSlFHGBGXY9nzOJ0CgWVGdEI2XXSvH

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwOfCgkyEj0&list=PLXRKTcRs-Xs7rr36o5_Cs7fBn8B7KsmRG

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm-po_FUmvM&list=PLXRKTcRs-Xs75Lys27wNEeAFjTVKMfKQ7

 

 

I won’t be around in 2050

Professor Bill McGuire of UCL is the go-to expert for discussion of volcanoes and earthquakes and the likelihood of their adverse effects. However, he has wider interests and has published a book entitled Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide (that I have not read) that formed the basis of an article by Eleanor Peake that appeared in the i newspaper (see above). Several sections of the article are worth quoting: 

In 27 years, society as we know it will have collapsed. Food will be extremely limited. Lawlessness will have taken over the land. Gangs will roam the countryside scavenging for resources like food, water and fuel. This breakdown won’t be sudden. It will happen over a period of months. It might even have already begun.. 

..[McGuire} is expecting, and preparing for, widespread riots by 2050. The riots will begin, he says, as they have throughout history, when we run out of food.. 

..“If we are going to see the collapse of society and the economy, then it’s going to be unbelievably hard for everyone, it’s going to be a Wild West,” he says. “If society collapses, there will be nobody to keep on top of the water supply, nobody to stop gangs roaming the countryside.”.. 

..”If we are to have any chance of survival, we need to co-operate; I think that’s absolutely critical.” 

That is a very bleak view, but one that is believable - so, how do we achieve co-operation? No-one wants the catastrophe of 2050 predicted by McGuire, and the solution lies with us turning our backs on the comfort, complacency and economic growth that we favour in the developed countries and that is an increasing feature of some developing economies. How can this be achieved? 

In the Gettysburg address of 1863, Lincoln lauded “government of the people, by the people, for the people” and this strikes me as being a good basis for organising our societies. Top-down democracies now appear to be based on gaining votes among the electorate rather than focussing on governance, especially where that needs to be long-term. Unfortunately, the challenges facing us, the ones that McGuire is highlighting, are based on much longer periods of time than the duration of elected parliaments. Solutions also require changes in the way that most international economies function, with the power of “markets” dictating everything. Add to this our seeming desire for a steadily increasing standard of living and one can see why we have the current approaches of politicians, based on what Greta Thunberg so admirably describes as “blah, blah, blah”. Of course, in common with many other voters (almost all?), I am a hypocrite in realising that global climate change provides severe challenges down the line, yet my lifestyle is based on the comfort and complacency I mentioned earlier. However, I would like to change the system to be more like Lincoln’s ideal, as this would be helpful in the long term - but how is this to be achieved? Firstly, one has to overcome top-down approaches and how is that to be done when we have a well-established political class, political parties, and a complex media network to propagate their views. A first move towards democracy would be achieved by having the choice “none of the above” on ballot papers, as we do in many surveys. Imagine! 

Another fundamental in looking at the future, and this is one that McGuire alludes to, is our need to understand that humans are part of a much wider living system and that we are as dependent on all the parts of the living planet as we are on each other. We haven’t moved from the Biblical standpoint that the environment is ours to exploit and there are many who feel that the negative consequences of our exploitation will be reduced by the implementation scientific discoveries, both now and in the future. Good for the optimists that have that view, but it does point again to an attitude that we are able to control matters and we clearly cannot. 

If we were less anthropocentric, and had more respect for the wonders of the natural world, we could shape new ways of integrative thinking. Coupled with a bottom-up approach to democracy, we could transform the future for all citizens, but will it be allowed to happen by those currently holding political and economic power? No. That’s a sad fact, but those who do respect natural history (and, incidentally, those who believe that good manners and mutual respect are among the highest human achievements) are among our most valued citizens. If their approaches spread, we may get closer to a real democratic system like that admired by Lincoln who wished that “government of the people, by the people, for the people” should not “perish from the earth”. Well it has done, hasn’t it?