A seaside hotel with literary and natural history links

I left Paignton, my home town, for university in 1965 and, more permanently, in 1968, after my father died and our house was sold. I made few return visits to Torbay until 2008, when I was gathering information for a book on the famous marine natural historian Philip Henry Gosse, and his son Edmund, who lived in St Marychurch, Torquay: I needed to make visits to his old home, to Torquay Museum, and to places along the coast where he had collected. 

Since then, nostalgia for my childhood haunts took hold and I try and make an annual visit, although COVID-19 put paid to that for a while. It means that I have sampled a number of hotels in Torquay: The Imperial (that was not particularly impressive); The Livermead Cliff (that has a wonderful location as its best feature); and the Premier Inn (that I knew from childhood as the Belgrave Hotel, and which I now prefer, as it offers a very good standard package, being part of a large group). Unfortunately, none compare with some of the hotels that I have stayed in elsewhere.

During the years I spent researching the book, I stayed at the Livermead House Hotel and enjoyed its retro style – what I have called 1950s seaside chic – complete with Mr Rew, and his deputy, appearing in full “white-tie and tails” evening dress. Breakfast was accompanied by a selection of Everly Brothers hits and dinner by a pianist who played various showtime hits, etc. During the times when I was there, most of my fellow residents were from coach parties and they were given a guard of honour by staff as they left the hotel to board their coach for the journey home. I also remember visiting the Livermead House Hotel at the time boisterous Young Farmers were holding their annual conference in Torquay, with some young farmers staying with us. All these memories were triggered as I was completing a jigsaw puzzle by Susan Holbeche, where the Livermead House Hotel is seen on the left [1].

It wasn’t the 1950s ambience that drew me to the hotel, it was its association with Charles Kingsley and Henry Gosse, and I have written about their friendship [2], and the connection of the former with the original Livermead House (a picture of which is given on the hotel website [3]). Although the hotel bears a blue plaque to celebrate Kingsley’s stay, few people probably know of how he came to be there and the significance of his friendship with Henry Gosse. It’s a story worth telling.

[1] https://www.jigsawplanet.com/?rc=play&pid=28acb15f861b

[2] http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/05/charles-kingsley-creation-and-evolution.html

[3] https://www.livermead.com/torbay-hotel/about-us

 

Six essays on angels

 

I have given a number of talks about angels (and putti, fairies and dragons) - all the result of an article I published in the journal Opticon26 [it can be accessed here: https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.5334%2Fopt.070906]. That piece was picked up by the international Press and this is one example of the stories that resulted: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6860351/Angels-cant-fly-scientist-says.html

Having written several subsequent essays on angels, I thought it might be of interest if I grouped their links into one place, so here they are, in chronological order:

Giotto, Angels, and Heaven http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2015/02/giotto-angels-and-heaven.html

Do souls have wings? http://www.rwotton.blogspot.com/2015/10/do-souls-have-wings.html

Angels, Nike, Superman and Darth Vader https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2016/05/angels-nike-superman-and-darth-vader.html

Angels, Billy Graham and me https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/04/angels-billy-graham-and-me.html

Why are there no bearded angels? https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2021/03/why-are-there-no-bearded-angels.html

Angels, dinosaurs and artists’ impressions https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/11/angels-dinosaurs-and-artists-impressions.html

 

 

Angels, dinosaurs and artists’ impressions

We have long used optical telescopes to view distant objects, both living and non-living, making them easier to identify. More recently, technology has provided us with telescopes that record information transmitted over vast distances, allowing us to see distant stars, and even to look back in time as we view the expanding universe.

Similarly, optical microscopes reveal much more than we can see with the naked eye, and electron microscopes, of both scanning and transmission types, make very minute structures visible, although preparation methods require that care must be taken in interpreting what we see. Advances have also been made in the analysis of living and non-living materials that enable us to look at traces of organic chemicals from small samples and, using these approaches, we can analyse the composition of fragments and relate these to their origins. The commonplace use of an individual’s DNA in a blood stain is just one example.

Even armed with this information, we need expert analysis of what we see to make sense of it and this is aided by visual imagery, either generated by computer technologies, or by the hand of an artist. Artists’ impressions are invaluable in re-creating images of things that are no longer present and which we therefore have no chance of seeing. An example comes in the very numerous portrayals of religious scenes, where we are frequently shown images of Jesus, although we have no record of how He looked. The same goes for God, the disciples and all the other characters, as well as Heaven and Hell.

Other beings in religious paintings are given a physical presence that is unlikely or symbolic. The Holy Spirit is frequently depicted as a white dove, while angels have a characteristic appearance that we all recognise [1], with bird wings on a human body that also has arms (an example by Tiepolo is shown above). Taken as being real, these angels would not be able to fly, as the wings of birds have developed from the fore limbs of their reptile ancestors. With arms already present, the wings of angels, and the muscles to operate them, must be located quite differently on the body (I’m not suggesting here that angels do not exist, but that their physical form in paintings and sculpture means that they cannot fly using their wings). It’s an example of where artists’ impressions are very useful in creating images that subsequently have "reality".

Another world that fascinates us, and of which we have no direct knowledge, is that of dinosaurs. We’ve never seen a dinosaur (although there are some modern-day reptiles, like crocodiles, that give us some clues as to behaviour), so how do we know what they looked like and how they lived? We have evidence from which to work, unlike the images created of angels, where there is no fossil evidence. Bones, skin, muscle attachments, and feathers (where present) allow us to reconstruct dinosaurs and then put them into an imaginary landscape. We accept these images, and models based on them, because we believe what experts tell us (quite rightly?). The images are also informed by speculation. In Benton’s book on dinosaurs, with its catchy sub-title [2], we read that the discovery of pigment cells meant that “for the very first time, we knew the colour patterns of a dinosaur, and could use these insights to speculate about dinosaurian behaviour”. Can we really gain information about dinosaur behaviour from colour patterns? Perhaps we can. Later in the book, Benton describes the swimming of Stenopterygius, an ancient reptile from the Mesozoic: 

Stenopterygius swoops after a belemnite, an extinct relative of modern squid and octopus. The belemnite has a fleshy body and fins and swims backwards, just as modern cephalopods do. We know, too, that it has an ink sac, and so, like its modern relatives, likely squirts ink when alarmed, and zips off by blasting jets of water through its siphons. By the time the predator has recovered and snapped a few times at the ink cloud, the belemnite has long disappeared to safety. 

The Stenopterygius is not too fazed, as this is not an infrequent occurrence, and he lines up to chase another group of belemnites. 

Is the language a little flowery here? Admittedly, the book was written for a general audience, and books about dinosaurs sell well, but how critically do we, as members of the public, consider what is said by popularisers?

Further in Benton’s book [2], the dust cover of which shows Tupandactylus in flight (see above), we read this about head crests in bird-like dinosaurs: 

[It is] suggested that such prominent head crests and beaks sheathed in keratin as are seen in various dinosaurs and pterosaurs might have been photoluminescent.. ..[and] we can imagine the elaborate head crests of Tupandactylus flashing different colours at dusk, males and females perhaps showing different patterns, and putting on a spectacular in the crepuscular gloom. 

Please note the use of the words “suggested”, “imagine” and “perhaps” in this quote.

Moving images take artists’ impressions one step further and we are entertained not only by coloured images of landscapes, but also grunts and hisses from different dinosaurs. There is a good selection in the video linked in [3], (complete with an accompanying musical soundtrack to add tension to each scene). How much of this is supported by evidence? I accept that teeth marks on bones correspond to the dentition of certain dinosaurs, but the rest of it?

As we know, dinosaurs are not only important in palaeontology, but also in entertainment and in retailing. Go into any home with young children and you will find many dinosaur-related toys, pyjamas, t-shirts etc. and there is a popular fascination with mythological dinosaurs like the Loch Ness Monster and Sea Serpents. While there are artists’ impressions based on the sightings of the latter two, that is all we have to go on and the transformations of known dinosaur types that appear on clothing, or as toys, may be very far from the creatures that existed hundreds of millions of years ago. Steve Brusatte, reviewing Bentons’ book (see above) remarks that the images of dinosaurs it contains are real and can be used by media professionals, but is this so? Is there a point where palaeontologists can get a bit carried away with their liaison with the world of entertainment?

One important view of science is that it is based on falsifiable hypotheses and this is an approach that I have tried to follow in my research. However, falsifiable hypotheses are not possible with extinct animals (and plants) and, however ingenious our attempts, we are bound to make suppositions about the effects of time: we can design experiments that last hundreds of millions of years, but it is impossible to get the results. It means that palaeontology, including the study of dinosaur fossils, is a highly-informed guessing game, with some practitioners and artists going further into the world of imagination than others. Thus, the need for caution.

 

[1] Roger S. Wotton (in press) Birds and Christian Imagery. In Winged Worlds (eds. Olga Petri and Michael Guida). London, Routledge.

[2] Michael J. Benton (2021) Dinosaurs: New Visions of a Lost World. London, Thames & Hudson.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXGSFVbVvU&t=847s&ab_channel=BBCEarth

Jigsaws - and art appreciation

It is (Inter)National Jigsaw Day on 3rd November [1] and a time to celebrate these wonderful puzzles.

The first jigsaw (more correctly, a dissected puzzle) was created in 1762 by the map engraver John Spilsbury, who attached one of his maps to a sheet of wood and then cut around various countries (see above). The resultant pieces could be put together to form the map by local schoolchildren and this aid to teaching geography was a big hit, and one that was much copied [2]. When the treadle-driven jig saw was invented in the 1880s (1850s according to [1]), there was a much easier method for producing puzzles for both children and adults, and they have remained popular ever since. In addition to the invention of the treadle saw, mass production has been aided by the development of lithographic printing and by the development of plywood [2], and, during the Depression of 1933 in the USA, millions of puzzles were produced [1], providing almost a never-ending supply that could be rented cheaply from local outlets. We still have wooden jigsaw puzzles, but most pictures are now backed by cardboard and come in a variety of cut-out shapes, from squares to intricate interlocking forms.

As a young child, I always enjoyed jigsaw puzzles although, regretfully, I can only recall one of the subjects – Anne Hathaway’s Cottage - and they usually involved houses, country scenes, and the occasional railway engine (much to my delight). I have no idea where our family obtained all the puzzles, but some of them were bought new and given to us as birthday, or Christmas, presents, and others must have been given to us by family members and friends (although that is guesswork). The puzzles were especially important on those few occasions when I was not able to attend Oldway Primary School because of illness and, in winter, I would then sit in the dining room next to the coal fire (our sole method of heating) and complete a jigsaw or two in the large tea tray that seemed to be reserved for this purpose. Occasionally, I was able to listen to the radio (that we called “the wireless”) at the same time, and this was before we had a television, so I was not distracted.

I retained my love of jigsaws as I grew up, and regularly received a “1000-Piece Puzzle” as a Christmas present. The procedure for completing them was the same as I had always used. Firstly, all the pieces were turned out into the box, keeping the upper lid, with the illustration of the completed puzzle, on one side (see above – one of these jigsaws is mine; one not…). Then came the laborious process of turning each piece right-side-up and placing it on a table (instead of the tea tray), moving all edge pieces to one side. Having completed the border, a decision was then made on which sections were to be filled in first and this proceeded until the jigsaw was complete, and the more pieces that had been put in situ, the easier it became. Each completed puzzle was then broken apart and returned to the box.

We now have electronic jigsaw puzzles [3] and these make everything easier, as all the pieces are right-side-up and they are even orientated correctly. When each is placed correctly, the computer gives a reassuring click and, of course, there are no missing pieces, so searching over and over for one that is missing (as can happen with physical jigsaws) is a thing of the past.The number of puzzles available on databases is huge and I have been selecting those showing paintings by various artists. It was a surprise to find that this aided my appreciation of the works, as I built up the image in the piecemeal fashion of jigsaw puzzling without looking at the whole, other than in the original thumbnail that I used for the initial selection. 

It is a quite different approach to the way we view paintings in a gallery, where we first see the whole and then look at details. Using the “jigsaw approach”, I have learned more about the power of perspective, as some foreground sections involve many pieces, while there is much detail on single pieces of the scene in the distance. I know about perspective, of course, but jigsaw construction certainly emphasises its importance. More of a surprise is the use of colour and, when working on an image of an Impressionist, or Post-Impressionist, painting, for example, one sees how colour is used in surprising ways. It fascinates me and adds to the enjoyment of puzzle solving – so much so that I can spend hours on the computer, just as younger people do with games and other forms of entertainment. It certainly shows the power of the “educational toy” that Spilsbury invented 260 years ago.

[1] https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/puzzling-history-puzzles

[2] https://www.wentworthpuzzles.com/2019/05/07/history-of-jigsaw-puzzles

[3] https://www.jigsawplanet.com/

 

 

School sport – or how I failed to become an athlete

While watching the Commonwealth Games cycling from the velodrome in London, I noticed a sign that read “Sport is just the beginning”. For some reason, that set me thinking about my sporting career.

As I child, I enjoyed the freedom of living a few hundred yards from Victoria Park (see above), in the Polsham area of Paignton, where I could sail my yacht in the circular pond and play on swings and the slide in the children’s playground (located beyond the trees in the distance). There was also a large field in the park where friends and I played cricket in the summer and kickaround football (soccer) in the winter. Cricket was my favourite sport and I joined Paignton Cricket Club so that I could watch games and also operate the scoreboard (being reminded frequently by the official scorer that I had it wrong and therefore the players out on the pitch were being misinformed). Stan Cray (below) was the professional (succeeded by Jack Kelly and Harold “Dickie” Bird, of later umpiring fame) and they were early sporting heroes.

There was no coaching and I had no idea of the technique of the fast bowling I enjoyed, other than to run in off about 30 paces and try and launch the ball somewhere near the batsman. As for batting, all I knew was to hammer the ball as hard as possible: I had no defence and no shots on the off side. Although enthusiastic, I realised that I was never going to be a good player and there was no hope of getting any coaching at Oldway Primary School, as all the teachers, bar one, were women and they concentrated on netball with the girls: Mr Mitchell, the sole male teacher, didn’t seem interested in sport. We had games that involved running around the playground (coloured sashes and equipment like beanbags, and balls of various sizes, being kept in the shelter at the “Oldway Mansion end”) and we played in inter-school games [1]. There was also Music and Movement in the Hall, with all of us following the instructions from a radio, with its speaker contained in an enormous wooden box. The programme was from a different age, as you can hear in a clip [2].

It was left to Torquay Boys’ Grammar School to introduce me to other sports and to get me fit through gymnastics. In winter, it was cross-country running, football, rugby and swimming: in summer it was athletics, cricket, and swimming. Gymnastics was all year round and consisted of learning how to vault (both gate vaults and vaulting horses), walk on a balance beam, hang off wall bars, and do somersaults and stretches while on a mat. It was never explained that these were components of gymnastics competitions, they were just things we were made to do by Mr Stokes and Mr Morrall, the former being serious about getting things right and the latter just being deeply unpleasant. Both had a slightly disconcerting habit of sticking their chests out, but that might have been a requirement for gym teachers. Just as I left the school, another master came along (I think his name was Mr Goulder) and he was quite different, being encouraging rather than taking enjoyment from putting down the less able. I shall always remember Mr Morrall, though.

For swimming, we walked through the town to the Marine Spa baths (see above in an image from the Devon Live web site) and my first lesson involved jumping in to the shallow end. As a non-swimmer who was terrified of putting my head under water, this was a challenge that I avoided by hiding in the showers and, fortunately, Mr Betteridge didn’t notice when a wet RSW climbed down the steps into the pool. All further lessons were with Mr Roberts and even his more encouraging approach did not succeed and I spent my time holding on to the side rail and thrashing about with my legs to give the impression that I was trying. I certainly was trying, but remained a non-swimmer until much later in life.

In cross-country (actually road running) we ran through country lanes, setting out from the sports hut that was located near to the Girls’ Grammar School (it would have been to the right of the far-right corner in the image above – this is a recent view of “our” playing field site, now laid out rather differently [3]). We would walk from the Barton Road TBGS site up to Shiphay, get changed, and then run on a specified route that had staff members located at intervals to see that we completed the course. Some masters, who had no involvement with sport, must have used this as a means of getting away from the staff room early and I remember Mr Evans (“Mole”) scowling at me as I went past in the last few “runners”, as I had delayed him from jumping into his blue MG Midget to get home early.

We were given some coaching in soccer, but knew the basics from the times when we played together with friends. Rugby was different, as many of us knew little about the game. We were taught to tackle, how to pass backwards not forwards, and how to form a scrum – not helped when Mr Stokes hollered “go hard” to encourage us… I had no idea about the rules of the game and this was apparent when I volunteered to play rugby for Dobson House against Clifford House. Our captain, Malcolm Baker, was a very good player who also captained the school side, so knew the game well. I played in the scrum and was so good at jumping for the ball in line-outs that Mr Gillham (“Fritz”), who was refereeing, commented on my prowess after the game. Malcolm was less impressed, as he felt I wasn’t getting the ball to the backs fast enough and, when he called for a short line-out, I felt him forcibly grabbing my collar and yanking me back, as I had no idea what he meant. During the same game, I remembered all that I had been taught about tackling and stood my ground when a large opponent raced toward me and then handed me off, the smack in my face nearly knocking me out. I had no idea that sort of thing was allowed.

In the summer term, I enjoyed it when cricket was the sport of the week, but athletics was more challenging, although it had a lot of variety: discus, shot putt, javelin, sprinting, long jump, and high jump. We knew about the position needed to throw the discus from the image of the statue of the Discobolus of Myron (see below) that was the subject of the badge on Mr Stokes’ CCPR blazer. The other athletic events were easy enough, but high jump was not. We had to jump into a sand pit, invariably damp, and there was a choice between straddle or western roll (this was before the “Fosbury Flop”, and that would have been dangerous, anyway). I used a kind of bunny hop and crashed through the bar, but it was the best I could do. It didn’t garner much praise.

So, my training in sports wasn’t the beginning mentioned in the opening paragraph, but the end. Much later, I took swimming lessons and became a reasonably good swimmer. Surprisingly, I also took up jogging and enjoyed running around set routes; usually not needing to stop for rests, as in my school cross-country days. 

My main “sporting” activity remains walking alone through country lanes and footpaths [4] and it has been since I was a teenager. Now, the distance covered by each walk is a bit shorter, but I can still do 15 miles without a break and at a reasonable pace of over 3 mph, too. I should be grateful that all the attempts of gymnastics, and sports, masters failed to make me an athlete, so that I haven’t needed to look back on past achievements that I know I could never repeat. Ironically, given that the sign mentioned in the opening paragraph was in the velodrome, I never learned to ride a bike. Who knows, I may have found that as pleasurable as walking.

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

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ve-93G9h10&ab_channel=BenMorris

[3] https://www.kayelliott.co.uk/portfolio/project/torquay-girls-grammar-school/

[4] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-walk-in-countryside-is-not-always.html

 

 

Eating insects produced on an industrial scale

Eating insects is commonplace in many countries of the world, yet most of us find the idea of consuming this readily available source of proteins, and other dietary needs, to be repulsive. So much so, that eating large beetle larvae has been used as a Bushtucker Trial in the UK reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (see below, image from Wales Online website). The trial was designed to shock us, as well as the “victim”, but why are people repulsed by it? Firstly, it’s because the insects are alive, and wriggling, at the time they are eaten, yet we don’t hesitate to eat oysters that are alive, although they don’t wriggle, of course. Also, we are not repulsed by eating winkles, cockles and mussels, and don’t worry too much when the latter are boiled to death in wine when we make the delicious Moules Marinière.

I have eaten many insects – bee larvae, mealworms, caddisfly larvae – but they were all cooked. When I proffered them to colleagues, some tried the various delicacies, but a majority turned down the chance to try something new. We are much more squeamish than the residents of countries where insects are a regular part of the diet and the splendid little book Why Not Eat Insects? [1] describes examples, emphasising the many places where locusts and grasshoppers are eaten, usually after cooking in various ways. In the Introduction to the 1988 re-printing of the book, Dr Laurence Mound writes: 

Why Not Eat Insects? is not just a fascinating Victorian book, full of humour and ideas, it is also an interesting – indeed profound – question about human behaviour. In Europe we associate insect-eating arrogantly with lesser cultures. Australian aborigines are welcome to their Bogong Moth Balls – compressed handfuls of moths swept from their resting places beneath rocks and gently baked. People around the great lakes of eastern Africa can eat their Kungu Cake – myriads of midges pressed into a patty and cooked.. 

If we are put off by the appearance of insects, we must process them to make them more palatable: the Kungu Cake mentioned by Dr Mound is an example, being a yellow-brown mass that belies its origins.

Recently, I was very impressed by an interview with Clément Ray (pictured above), the CEO of Innovafeed, that appeared in the magazine Sustainable Heroes [2], produced by Nomura Greentech, a company that is a worldwide leader in arranging finance for sustainable technologies (appropriate, as it is part of the Japanese-owned Nomura Bank and most of the insects that I have eaten have come from Japan, where the food culture is different to the one that I was brought up to enjoy). In a Q and A in the magazine, Clément had this to say when asked about human consumption of insect protein: 

The EU [has] extremely favorable regulations for insect protein. It authorized the use of insect protein in aquaculture in 2017, for monogastrics (poultry and swine) in 2019 and for humans last year [2021].. ..One of our big marketing challenges is to make people more aware of the amazing potential and nutritional value of insect-based proteins for humans. To that end, we are currently developing prototypes and working on the appropriate packaging. 

Present production by Innovafeed is used in animal feeds and this, of course, adds another step in the chain of human food supply. As Clément states, finding a way of marketing insect by-products to make them desirable directly to consumers is the key challenge. 

The scale of production by Innovafeed is impressive, as can be seen in the videoclip above. Until I viewed this, I had little appreciation of the industrial farming of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) - details in [3] - and reared throughout the World as an animal food. The important step, however, is the development of a product for direct human consumption, as that is more energy efficient and thus sustainable. I am grateful to Nomura Greentech for introducing me to Innovafeed, a company that is on its way to do just that. 

[1] Vincent M Holt (1885) Why Not Eat Insects. Reprinted, with a new Introduction in 1988. London, British Museum (Natural History). 

[2] https://www.nomuragreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Sustainable-Heroes-VIII-Nomura-Greentech.pdf

[3] https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Hermetia_illucens/

Trevor Grimshaw and Caspar David Friedrich

One of the last works of Trevor Grimshaw is a book of black-and-white photographs entitled Stilled Life [1], the subject being the redundant steam locomotives that were stored at Woodham’s Scrapyard in Barry, South Wales (an image in colour taken by Peter Brabham is shown below). For all of us that have happy memories of these splendid machines in action, the scrapyard is a place of melancholy, even though delays in cutting up meant that some locomotives were bought from Dai Woodham and several have subsequently been re-built and returned to working order.

Shortly after the photographs were taken, Trevor Grimshaw died, aged 54, following a fire at his home, something which adds poignancy to his story. In addition to his work as a photographer, Grimshaw was an accomplished artist, creating monochrome images of northern landscapes, two of which (from the Tate Gallery [3]) are illustrated below. Most viewers of these monochrome works associate them with the paintings of L.S.Lowry (who owned three of them [2]), but I think they consciously, or subconsciously, show the influence of Caspar David Friedrich. To emphasise this point, I have converted two of Friedrich’s paintings to greyscale to allow direct comparison.

The first is Abbey in the Oak Wood (below, upper) that was exhibited in the Berlin Academy of Art in 1810 (as one of a pair – the other was Monk by the Sea [4]) in which we see the ruins of an abbey surrounded by trees that may be dead, or maybe had lost all their leaves, as this is a winter scene. In the foreground are monks who are walking towards the ruin. The whole effect is arresting and gloomy, but what does it mean to the viewer? As with all pictures, we can know something of the artist’s intentions, but we also use our own projections. We know that Friedrich was a Protestant [4] and that this picture shows a Catholic ruin and desolation. He was also fascinated by nature and landscape and this is one of Friedrich’s paintings that, to use his phrase, “is to be seen and recognised only in belief” [4]. As Michael Prodger [5] writes in The Spectator: “His Christianity is not insistent but comes wrapped in another - more widely practiced - religion: Nature. He offers the consolations and beauties of both.”

The second painting of Friedrich that I have chosen - Cross by the Baltic Sea (1815) (above, lower) - uses a feature that occurred many times in his work – the appearance of a solitary cross in a landscape. This symbol of Christ, and the redemption of His crucifixion, is placed in locations quite unlike Calvary and, in this painting, is on an outcrop by the sea, with an anchor near its base. Just as in Abbey in the Oak Wood, there is a feeling of slightly threatening mystery and, at the same time, a sense of spiritual hope.

Now let’s look at the two monochrome works by Trevor Grimshaw. In Open Space (1974) (the upper of the Tate images above), a solitary, bare tree is in the foreground, while the foggy background features a church tower and factories, with one chimney belching out smoke that is being carried away on the wind. We recognise that the tree, like those painted by Friedrich, shows desolation and, perhaps, death by pollution from the industry that replaced the natural world. The presence of the church is more difficult to interpret – did it represent something from Grimshaw’s spiritual beliefs, or was it used to indicate something that was longer-lasting, and more valuable, than the factories?

In Northern Townscape (1974) (the lower of the Tate images above), we see another church tower, with factories and several chimneys, one of which is producing dark smoke that suffuses the upper part of the image, while steam is rising from elsewhere in the factory complex. The impression gained is very similar to that in Open Space, but the foreground is dominated by two poles, one of which is clearly a telegraph pole. Both stand isolated, and are connected to nothing – there are no wires – so we gain a sense of isolation and of disconnection to the rest of the scene. Unlike Friedrich’s crosses, however, there seems little hope here and my impression is that Grimshaw did not enjoy the industrial landscapes that he reproduced, despite their attractiveness as structures [5], just as he did not like the rusting steam locomotives he photographed in the scrapyard at Barry.

Of course, I could be very wrong in drawing parallels between Friedrich and Grimshaw, and in interpreting their images in the way that I have done. That I react strongly to their work is an indication of the power of both artists to stimulate both the imagination and the emotions of the viewer.

[1] https://trevorgrimshawphotography.art/about/

[2] https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/tribute-to-artist-who-portrayed-bleak-1194546

[3] https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/trevor-grimshaw-1220

[4] Johannes Grave (2017) Caspar David Friedrich. Munich, Prestel Verlag.

[5] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/an-artist-for-our-times