Lecture Reviews
LECTURE REVIEWS 2011-12
6th October 2011
David Eveleigh
'Smoke, Grime & Little Sooties': Boy chimney sweeps in 19th century Britain
David Eveleigh is Director of Collections, Learning and Research at the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley, West Midlands. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Museums Association and has published over twenty articles and books on aspects of social and domestic history.
 On Thursday 6th October the Wells Evening Society had the first talk of their new season. This was on the unusual and extraordinary story of child chimney sweeps. The speaker was David Eveleigh, until recently curator of Blaise Castle Museum but now Director of Collections and Learning at the Black Country Living Museum in the Midlands. Using dramatic images and animated stories David gave us a vivid description of the rigours of life for the unfortunate little sooties. Most of us could remember Tom the little sweep in Charles Kingsley's famous romantic book the Water Babies and can easily recognise the merry image of Mr Soot the Sweep in the card game Happy Families. But if you live in a seventeenth, eighteenth or early nineteenth century house, it is salutary to realise that your house – indeed any building built before 1840 - would have had its chimneys swept by a small boy climbing up the flues. Coal had come in as a universal fuel for domestic use and the resulting soot, if not cleared, caused many fires. Clearing away the accrued soot was essential but it was a hard and cruel world that forced small children from as young as seven years to climb and scrabble and ferret their way up and through the “secret tunnels” of the flues. The trade needed a constant supple of small “apprentices.” Encouraged by cuffs and worse the boys would swiftly learn to ignore the scabs and scars on their joints and to master the art of shimmying up the chimney to waive a brush from the very top. We saw cross sections of houses and their complex flue systems, and heard how many children died through getting stuck, smothered with soot, or falling from the top. There was a “great repugnance “for this dangerous work. Caring families were reluctant to let their son take part and a master sweep would often acquire his young sooties from orphanages; Dickens describes how Oliver Twist narrowly escaped this fate. Sadly, little boys were sometimes “sold” to the master sweep by impoverished parents. Chimneys were cleaned early in the morning and after their work was done the children were free to wander the streets, at once recognisable by their black faces and grimy clothes. This meant that, unlike the children who suffered equal exploitation and cruelty down mines and in mills, the sooties were there for all to see. In early nineteenth century, at about the same time as the anti-slavery movement gathered momentum, there were moves to stop the barbarous use of children for such dangerous work. A Society for Superseding the Necessity for Climbing Boys was formed. This was vigourously countered by the chimney sweeps, who distributed pamphlets justifying their trade. “Only an arm of flesh can reach the cavities.” Parliamentary committees sat and heard evidence and Acts of Parliament were passed which raised the age at which children could be sent up the chimneys. The Act of 1834 forbade the use of boys under ten years old, and the act of 1840 the use of boys under sixteen. It was, however, the invention in 1828 of the modem extending brushes which began the industry’s slow decline. The last recorded death of a small sooty was in 1879. - a little boy in Cambridgeshire called George. It was a very sad subject but a real world accepted by our ancestors. They were all real people with real lives of which David gave us such a vivid picture. The audience showed their appreciation for a revealing and fascinating evening. Philippa Collings
3rd November 2011
Dr Anne Anderson
A Victorian Idyll: 'Cottage gardens' from Allingham to Lutyens
Dr Anne Anderson is a member of the Society of Antiquaries. She researches into Fine Arts Valuation and lectures all over the world on various aspects of the history of art and design.
 On Thursday 3rd November the Wells Evening Society heard a lively talk on the development of English taste in gardens in the 19th century. Dr Anne Anderson is a renowned speaker and travels the world lecturing on design and the history behind it. The talk was full of illustrations, both of gardens and of the romantic watercolours of rural life which were in vogue with our Victorian ancestors. During the first half of the 19th century carefully structured gardens, reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance, were still in fashion. These were highly organised spaces full of the parterres and classical statues that had been admired on grand tours of Europe during the 18th century. In the middle of the 19th century and in reaction to this William Morris and his followers led a definite move away from such formality. A more vernacular approach to buildings became fashionable and “roughness and variety” were introduced into the surrounding gardens. Trellises, ivy, creepers and richly filled flower borders created a picturesque style which appealed to the aesthetic sensibilities of the emerging middle classes. This taste for romantic “naturalism” encouraged artists to paint poetic images of idealised country scenes at the very time that agriculture was in depression; people were moving into towns for work and traditional rural life was fast disappearing. In the popular watercolours of the time attractively dilapidated cottages stand in colourful gardens as charming children play, very often accompanied by a sweet furry animal (mostly kittens.) Some artists managed to produce watercolours of quality; Miles Birkett Foster and Helen Allingham were very successful painters in this genre, conscious that they were recording a fast changing world and commanding high prices for their work. In the hands of others, the paintings tended to become formulaic. When we remember the harsh conditions of rural life at that time they may now appear sugary, however prettily painted Architects were also inspired by these romantic so called vernacular ideas. Blaise Hamlet near Bristol with latticed windows and thatched roofs was designed by John Nash as homes for a few lucky retired agricultural workers and Philip Webb designed William Morris’s Red House in Surrey in the vernacular style as a revolt against formality. This house had the first deliberately “cottage garden.” It was a forerunner of many that were to be designed over the next century for the new middle classes, in the new suburbia as well as in the countryside. Surrey was “discovered” by the artistic coterie and it is from this county that the buildings are immortalised by the work of Allingham and her contemporaries. In these paintings billowing flowers in colourful gardens surround quaintly charming tile hung cottages, with lattice windows and lichen covered thatch. It was interesting to see photographs of these buildings today. Some of them still exist and are recognisable - no longer the homes of agricultural labourers but inhabited by rich industrialists and in at least one case by a Minister of Parliament. The talk moved on to discuss how the concept of the cottage garden changed as the Arts and Crafts movement developed towards the end of the century. Flower beds still figure, but there is once more a designed feel about these gardens. We saw images of wisteria-clad pergolas and contrived “walks” together with many examples of the elaborate and sometimes eccentric topiary which became fashionable at this time. The most influential garden designer was Gertrude Jekyll who, like the painter Helen Allingham and her colleagues, spent most of her life in Surrey. She often worked with Sir Edwin Lutyens the architect and typically their designs included brick paths dividing natural shrubs and herbaceous borders. Their work reached well into the twentieth century and together they created a new "natural" style which still influences garden design today. Dr Anderson finished the evening by reflecting that when we as a nation struggle to define ourselves we should remember that the English country garden is unique. Certainly our gardens - whether formal or informal, arts and crafts inspired or simple cottage plots - are admired all over the world. She was warmly applauded and thanked for a stimulating and animated evening. Phillipa Collings
1st December 2011
Jane Tapley
‘All the World's a Stage’ -- The history of theatre from Greek and Roman Times to the present day
Jane Tapley is Theatre Events Organiser at the Theatre Royal, Bath and lectures in theatre history.
Review to Follow Lecture
5th January 2012
Bertie Pierce
'Wonder Workers and the Art of Illusion' A history of magic and illusion
Bertie Pierce is a highly versatile performer and creator of illusions who has appeared all over the world and is at home in front of all types of audience.
Review to Follow Lecture
2nd February 2012
Sally Pollitzer
‘A Living Tradition’ – the art of stained glass-work
Sally Pollitzer is an artist working in the field of architectural glass - traditionally known as stained glass - from her studio in Somerset. Her work covers commercial and domestic pieces as well as glass for religious buildings. Commissioned pieces include glass for the House of Lords and screens for Lloyds TSB Headquarters.
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1st March 2012
Louise Schofield
‘An Ethiopian Journey through landscape and time’
Louise Schofield was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987 to 2000. She now writes books and runs archaeological projects in Turkey, Greece and Ethiopia. Her latest book, 'Myceneans', was published by the BM in 2007.
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29th March 2012
Dr Kristian Harder
The Large Hadron Collider: Big science, big bangs and black holes'
Kristian Harder is a particle physicist working for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, one of the institutions that built and is now operating the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland. He has spent the last 15 years participating in experiments at CERN, DESY in Hamburg and Fermilab near Chicago, trying to find answers to some of the most fundamental questions about the universe.
Review to Follow Lecture
19th April 2012
Dr Frank Dick
'Winning Matters' – Winning is being better today than yesterday – every day
Frank Dick is, among other roles, current Chair of Scottish Athletics, President of the European Athletics Coaches and Member of the IAAF Coaches Commission. He is renowned as an inspiring motivational speaker.
Review to Follow Lecture
LECTURE REVIEWS 2010-11
7th October 7.30 p.m. 2010
The Green Man in Art and Myth
Dr David Bostwick
David Bostwick is a lecturer and consultant in the cultural history of the Medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods. Former keeper of the social History Collections at Sheffield City Museum, consultant to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Scotland and visiting lecturer at the University of Glasgow.
Review
On 7th October, the Wells Evening Society held its inaugural meeting of the new season. The lecturer was Dr David Bostwick, author and lecturer on Mediaeval, Tudor and Stuart history. The subject was the Green man in Art and Myth.
In times past as now, carvings and sculptures cost money, and were not lightly commissioned. So why do so many green men appear carved into the fabric of our churches? A fascinated audience heard that far from being symbols of rejuvenation and growth, green men were full of rich and sinister implications. The trails of leaves which emerge from the mouths (and nostrils, and moustaches and beards and cheeks) can be seen to symbolise the evils which erring mankind spews out when uncleansed by the Church and its teaching. The term 'green man' - first coined only in the 20th century - also covers the leaf covered men who dance on May Day, appear with Morris dancers, figure in Arthurian legend and lie behind the tales of Robin Hood. The lecture was illustrated throughout with a series of exciting if sinister images. These were shown on the Society’s new twelve foot square screen, purchased during the summer and now in use for the first time.
Philippa Collings
4th November 7.30 p.m. 2010
Guernica – The greatest painting of the 20th Century
Prof Anthony Slinn
Anthony Slinn is a professional artist who has over the years developed a series of lectures to share his enthusiasm for painting. Years of meticulous research involving travel to Europe and North America have made possible his unique presentations on the lives and works of famous artists.
Review
On Thursday 4th November, the Wells Evening Society held its second meeting of the new season. The lecturer was Professor Anthony Slinn, an artist and lecturer justly renowned for his animated and informative lectures. He spoke about just one painting: Picasso’s iconic painting Guernica.
As Spain’s most renowned painter Picasso was commissioned to paint a giant mural for the Republican Building at the International Fair in Paris in 1937. Instead of taking some anodyne theme Picasso chose to react violently to the very recent bombing of the small northern Spanish town of Guernica. Invited by General Franco to do so, the Germans had ‘practiced’ Blitzkrieg on the innocent community, with waves of bombers passing again and again - for four and a half hours - over the small market town. Particularly women and children were murdered that autumn Monday in 1937, chosen especially because it was market day.
In not much more than a month, Picasso hurled onto the canvas a series of black and white images which still can excite and shock us today. He used symbols from bull fighting to represent the outrage: a roaring bull to represent the aggression, and a dying horse to show the helpless agony of the people. Women with babies are shown shrieking helplessly, running away and devoured by flames : a shattered war memorial lies fallen at the base of the picture. In protest at the horror inflicted to his homeland, Picasso neither signed nor dated the work.
Luckily for posterity, Picasso’s mistress Dora Marr took photographs of the painting as it emerged from his hand. He used only black and white household emulsion paints so the surface has deteriorated over the years and the work is now often seen in tapestry form. After the war Guernica toured Europe and Great Britain, finally ending up in New York. Here our lecturer visited it and photos of him in the 1970s show the huge scale of the painting. Anthony, then a bearded young artist in flared trousers, was pictured beside the monolithic figures. Picasso said that Guernica could only stay in America until Spain was once more a democracy, so the painting was returned to its homeland on the death of General Franco in 1981. The whole lecture was given with huge animation, with Professor Slinn constantly moving about in front of the screen on which were shown the many dramatic images. The talk ended with some fascinating questions and Anthony’s revealing answers. Amongst other raised points: yes, this painting would be as relevant today displayed in Iraq as in the Guernica of 1937.
Philippa Collings
2nd December 7.30 p.m. 2010
'I told you I was sick'
Nigel Rees
Nigel Rees is an author and presenter who was at 32 was the youngest ever regular presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme. He has been involved in broadcasting all his working life but is perhaps best known for devising and hosting the long running (since 1976) Radio 4 panel game Quote... Unquote. He is the author of more than fifty books of reference, humour and fiction. Review
Lecture cancelled due to bad weather and re-booked for 17th February.
6th January 7.30 p.m. 2011
The Making of the Antiques Road Show
Christopher Lewis
Christopher Lewis joined the BBC as a researcher in 1968 and during his 35 years career in broadcasting he directed and produced a wide variety of programmes: from news and current affairs to documentaries, arts programmes and quizzes - including Animal Magic with Johnny Morris. Until he retired in 2003, he was the long-serving executive producer of the BBC's flagship programme Antiques Roadshow and oversaw its expansion to be one of the UK’s favourite television shows.
Review
On Thursday 6th January - twelfth night - the Wells Evening Society began their meeting with a post-festive glass of mulled wine. The lecturer was Christopher Lewis who, until he retired in 2003, was the long-serving executive producer of the BBC's flagship programme Antiques Roadshow. Christopher oversaw the programme as it developed from mild beginning and grew into the much loved programme of today.
Listening to his fascinating talk we began to understand the many complications of making the programme. There is a pool of 70-80 experts in the field of antiques from which twenty or so are chosen for any one session. The chosen area is advised that Antiques Roadshow is coming to town and scouts visit houses to view items too large for easy transport. Advance publicity always generates huge local interest and one of the skills in running the programme is how to organise and control the crowds. Up to 2000 people wait patiently to hear an expert opinion and a special badge can be bought “I queued at the Antiques Roadshow!”
The programme must cope with and inform these many people about their sometimes strange, often beautiful and occasionally valuable objects. But it has two challenges: it must also delight and entertain the vast watching audiences. Nearly seven million regularly view the programme; at times over fifteen million people tune in and world – wide the audience can be counted in tens of millions. The producer and his team must reflect the character of the various settings. These have to be large buildings and often gardens are used as on two occasions at our own Bishop’s Palace. The programme needs to capture the atmosphere and to allow time to look at and learn about the different pieces. Importantly, it must film the dramatic moments.
All this requires meticulous planning. There is a need for ground plans of the hall or tent – local stewards to be briefed – reception desks to be arranged as well as lighting, security and cover from rain if out of doors. There are camera men and their crews with their high definition cameras at the ready, first aiders and police on the lookout for suspicious activity. All this has to be organised for any one programme.
We were shown some clips from finished programmes. We saw startled and delighted people who had just been told of their item’s potential worth. We saw a clip of a rare occasion when an expert made a “mistake” (and seamlessly recovered himself at his second attempt!) We saw the inimitable Arthur Neagus, the first presenter, talking in his affable, discursive fashion about pieces that reminded him of his early days in the trade. We saw in action Michael Aspel, a long term presenter, and Fiona Bruce who now fronts the programme. It was a perfect collage of the Antiques Roadshow, and the large audience obviously appreciated every detail. As someone said” It’s a much bigger operation than the programme leads you to believe.” In the next series – the 34th - we will watch in the programme with enlightened interest.
Philippa Collings
3rd February 7.30 p.m.
'Appointed to direct the Art of the Country': Henry Cole, Victorian cultural impresario.
Anthony Burton
Anthony Burton has been for most of his working life employed by the Victoria and Albert Museum. During this time, he has been Assistant Keeper of the library and Head of the V & A’s branch museum- the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood. He is a trustee of the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury and the author of several books including one about the V & A’s founding director: Henry Cole. Review
On Thursday 3rd February the Wells Evening Society had a lecture about a very effective and distinguished Victorian civil servant. Many of us in the audience knew little or nothing about Henry Cole but after the talk from our speaker Anthony Burton we were all intrigued and impressed – you could say stunned! - by just what one man could achieve in his life time.
Henry Cole left school at 15. Where “all my time had been wasted and I had learned worse than nothing.” He went straight into the Public Records Office. You could say it was the first and last thing he did “straight” because thereafter he wove his way between the disciplines of record keeping, design, marketing, campaigning, reforming, writing and publishing .Finally in 1857 he was involved in the founding of the South Kensington Museum, or as we know it today the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Anthony Burton has been a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum for thirty years and became fascinated by Henry Cole. He aptly described him as a ‘cultural impresario’ and managed to give the audience an excellent flavour of the man and his achievements.
When you hear that someone was the brain and promoting power behind the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was also involved with Rowland Hill and the first universal Penny Post, you are surprised to learn that the same man had time to design a tea service and get it into production and to conceive and send the first ever Christmas card. When you hear that the same man reformed the government’s approach to art education , started (the first ever) Journal of Design, was involved with a process of turning sewage into cement and under the pseudonym of Felix Summerly wrote a series of books for children, you begin to suspend belief.
The whole lecture was illustrated with a series of fascinating images: Cole at different stages of his life (looking a little grumpy by the end)..... the (dead) rat that had been eating the papers in the Public Record Office when he first worked there.... Cole’s own drawings and paintings - he was a self taught artist. There were paintings of and by his influential group of intellectual reforming friends and prints of great Victorian colleges built to house his Schools of Design. There were contemporary drawings of his many influential contacts and intriguing prints of the Great Exhibition. He had a large family and we saw a touching painting of his many children at home – Henry himself rather a-typically a shadowy image in the background. Anthony suggested that perhaps he hadn’t had the time to pose for the painting!
Nobody can achieve this much without his huge energy ruffling a few feathers and Henry Cole certainly did this. He was dismissed from various posts although later re-instated; he annoyed the powers that be on many occasions and often fell out with colleagues.
But Henry Cole’s greatest achievement was founding - together with curator John Robinson - the Victoria and Albert Museum. Developed in the aftermath of the Great Exhibition on land acquired with the profits thereof, the first buildings looked like a glorified Nissan hut. Cole’s interest had always been in the modern, but at first the V and A concentrated mostly on historical applied arts. It filled and still fills the gap between the British Museum and the National Gallery. The museum became the inspiration behind others all over Europe; it grew and grew and is today unique in its position and highly regarded worldwide. Henry Cole’s memorial - an elaborate ceramic cartouche – can be seen in its baroque glory at the bottom of the Museum’s ceramic staircase. This highly decorated staircase was intended to be an example of the good design and manufacture that the Museum wished to promote.
Not for nothing was Henry Cole known as”King Cole of South Kensington.”
Philippa Collings
17th February 7.30 p.m. 2011
'I told you I was sick'
Nigel Rees
Nigel Rees is an author and presenter who was at 32 was the youngest ever regular presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme. He has been involved in broadcasting all his working life but is perhaps best known for devising and hosting the long running (since 1976) Radio 4 panel game Quote... Unquote. He is the author of more than fifty books of reference, humour and fiction.
Review
On Thursday February 17th, the Wells Evening Society heard a talk form the well known broadcaster Nigel Rees. Probably best known for his many appearances chairing Radio 4’s long running programme “Quote Unquote,” he was on this occasion talking about quotations of a very permanent nature. The theme of the talk was epitaphs.
Nigel has obviously spent many an hour “Grubbing around in graveyards” (as the 17th century antiquarian John Aubrey put it) and the talk was illustrated throughout with a series of photographs taken by him over many years. He began the evening by ruminating out loud as to the lack of interesting information on many gravestones. The words “Dad” or “Gone but not forgotten” do not tell us much about the person who lies beneath the stone. The years can wear away the text so that it becomes illegible and many a person has obviously wished to be remembered only by a simple name and date. Sometimes – as on many first world war graves, the anonymity is poignant....”Known unto God”
Years after the person has died, we often crave to know more. Anthony Trollope is remembered by “Loving Father, Husband and Friend.” What about his terrific work as a novelist? Thomas Jefferson apparently wished to be remembered as the Author of the Declaration of Independence, not as a founding father and third president of the United States. There were many more examples of these modest memorials. Perhaps wisely, Captain Bligh’s headstone mentions his many meritorious qualities and achievements, but not that he was the direct cause of the Mutiny on the Bounty!
We were also shown stones with a more descriptive approach. For Francis Kilvert, the famous 19th century clergyman and diarist: “He being dead yet speaketh.” For a humble trumpeter “He sounded the charge of the Light Brigade.” For a young woman killed in a riding accident “She died doing what she loved best.”
Some epitaphs are almost as well known as the remembered person. Christopher Wren famously wished his memorial in St Pauls to say “If you want to see my monument, look around you!” A lady named Eleanor Rigby (apparently happily married) lies in a Liverpool churchyard where John and Paul once met at a church fete. And indeed her name lives on....
Throughout the evening we saw a fascinating collection of headstones and memorials from all over the UK – and several from overseas. The final image was of the stone which gave the talk its title. “I told you I was sick!” Apparently these words had been used at least twice before in America, but the more formal English Church was unhappy at the apparent flippancy. This is why the words on Spike Milligan’s headstone are written in Gaelic, the words disguised to suit the sensibilities of the Diocese of Chichester.
Sometimes long-winded and flowery headstones continue at such length about the wonderful qualities of the dead person that we are perhaps told more than we need to know – or even believe. This prompted one member of the audience to ask “Were women much more virtuous and pure in days gone by?” Very possibly.
Many of us were fired up to look more closely at the inscriptions on headstones next time we have the opportunity. Nigel was thanked for his very informative and entertaining talk.
Philippa Collings
3rd March 7.30 p.m. 2011
The Moderne Movement: Art Deco and Avant-Garde Homes of the 20s and 30s
Dr Adrian Tinniswood
Adrian Tinniswood lives locally. He has been a lecturer at several universities in both the UK and the USA, including the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley. He has acted for many years as a consultant to the National Trust, and with the Heritage Lottery Fund. He is the author of fourteen books on social and architectural history, including The Art Deco House.
Review to Follow Lecture
On Thursday 3rd March the Wells Evening Society held their Annual General Meeting in Wells Town Hall. The chairman and treasurer gave formal reports on a successful year. The Society continues to offer members a series of lectures on a wide variety of topics, together with day outings and a weekend trip away. There are now 230 members and it was announced that the price of membership will remain at £30-00 a year, the same as six years ago when the Society first started.
The AGM was immediately followed by a fascinating lecture on the style now known as Art Deco. This theatrical, inventive and sometimes eccentric approach to design developed in the western world between the two world wars. Local author and lecturer Adrian Tinniswood gripped his large audience with an animated description of how and why the style came to be.
The elaborate and often nostalgic approach to design that was the Arts and Crafts movement led after the first world war to a sharp reaction: to the functional simplicities of Bauhaus movement and its followers. But this was the turbulent twenties and thirties, and designers from Europe’s great mixture of cultures - émigré French, German, Scandinavian, and East Europeans - began to introduce a deliberately anarchic approach to such stark simplicity. When this new approach arrived in the USA, with its Hollywood inspired sunshine architecture, with its luxurious materials, its curves and extravagances; then Art Deco erupted. The new style exploded into being in 1925, with the exhibition in Paris “Exposition des Artes Decoratifs.”
Adrian explained that the title Art Deco was coined only in the 1960s; it was derived by shortening the words Arts Décoratifs in the title of the Paris exhibition. Previously the style had been known as “moderne” “ zigzag” -“jazz” or “liner” style; these various titles all giving us a flavour of its flashy vigour and opulence.
Many of us have enjoyed looking at the bold and swooping concrete buildings which act as a back-drop to the Poirot series on television. The flat rooves, curved cement walls and metal windows of the style contrast dramatically with what can seem the fussiness of much early 20th century architecture. Adrian showed us marvellous examples of the best Art Deco design. It was a style unashamedly for the wealthy; the angles, colours and rich materials sucked up styles from all over the world. It could be inspired by Aztec, Egyptian or North African designs and the interior designers used sumptuous materials: polished steel, glass, chrome, cellulose, marble, agate, animal skins.... The curves and angles filled Hollywood film sets as well as ocean liners, hotels and the homes of the wealthy and famous. Cedric Gibbons, the renowned Hollywood set designer, designed stunning interiors for his own house which caused us to gasp with amazement. (Incidentally, Gibbons was responsible for designing an Art Deco icon: the original Oscar Statuette.)
The British came only slowly to accept this new aesthetic. “The shock of the new” affronted the stolid sensibilities of our traditionalists. Art Deco appeared outrageous with its flagrantly opulent and perceivably impractical approach to design and it was witheringly described as “photogenic rather than functional”. It says something that in these islands it was not accepted as serious architecture so some of the first commissioned buildings were seaside lidos and the penguin pool at London Zoo.
For many years the Art Deco style was regarded as an aberration and rejected. Many of the protagonists migrated to America, where the style was more readily accepted. Many British buildings were sadly neglected and fine examples have often been demolished. Possibly the style has become more acceptable to our taste - more “in fashion” - only since we came into the new millennium and it can be seen as a distinct design movement in its own right.
In his informative and humourous talk Adrian whisked us through the many stories and passions behind this most outrageous and eccentric period of design. As we saw the dramatic images and heard his enthusiasm, many of us began to understand that, far from being a passing aberration, Art Deco produced some of the most challenging and exciting architecture ever seen.
Philippa Collings
7th April 7.30 p.m.
Windsor Castle, its History and Royal Occupants
Oliver Everett
Oliver Everett worked for the Foreign Office in India and Spain before becoming in turn private secretary to the Prince of Wales and Diana Princess of Wales. Subsequently he was Librarian in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle and Assistant Keeper of the Royal Archives. Following his retirement in 2002 he is now Librarian Emeritus. He wrote the official guidebook and audio tour on Windsor Castle, and lectures widely in Britain and abroad.
Review to Follow Lecture
28th April 7.30 p.m. 2011
ADDITIONAL LECTURE
The Fifth Kingdom – Fungi Friend or Foe?
Dr Elizabeth Johnson
Dr Elizabeth Johnson is Director of the Health Protection Agency Mycology Reference Laboratory in Bristol and past President of the British Society for Medical Mycology. She is the author and co-author of several books and a frequent speaker both in the UK and overseas on issues involving the effects of fungal infections on human health.
Review
The Wells Evening Society held its last meeting of the current season on Thursday 28th April. The society wants to widen the breadth of its lectures’ topics and this was a talk with a more scientific slant. The title of the lecture was “The Fifth Kingdom: Fungi, Friend or Foe?”
Dr Elizabeth Johnson is director of the Health Protection Agency Mycology Reference Laboratory in Bristol and past president of the British Society for Medical Mycology. We were shown a family photograph of her aged five, happily destroying a large puff ball. She suggested that possibly it was this satisfying experience which led to her life-long interest in mycology – the study of fungi!
Elizabeth began by introducing us to this fifth kingdom. Fungi do not create chlorophyll as do plants. They have been described as the oldest species: one fungal colony growing in a wood in the USA may be 1500 – 10,000 years old. And also the largest: a living organism can have an underground spread covering up to 30 acres.
Answering the lecture’s question, we need fungi - so they are very much our friends. The spores are brilliantly engineered by different clever methods to travel through the air, spreading far and wide to cause the subsequent growth of further fungi. This causes the decomposition of the dead matter which would otherwise overcome us all. Fungi take many forms. The vegetarian’s favourite food Quorn is in fact a form of fungus; Penicillium is introduced into cheeses to add the blue streaky character; yeasts are an essential part of baking, brewing and making chocolate; ‘stone-washed’ jeans have been processed with a fungal process. We all buy mushrooms for cooking. These are grown, as most fungi flourish, in damp warm dark conditions. And of course there is penicillin, famously discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming in a decaying Petri dish left accidentally open.
This serendipitous discovery was developed by others and by the time of the Second World War we were able to use it on wounded soldiers, to their great benefit. The enemy wanted the secret recipe and this was among many animated stories that we were told. Napoleon thought he was being poisoned by the British as he languished on St Helena; it is now thought that he may well have been so, but accidentally. It is believed that the arsenic in his bedroom’s green wall paper could have been infected with a fungi that released arsine, a poisonous gas. as he slept. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle formed a theory that the death of early archaeologists exploring Tutankhamen’s tomb was not the result of a fatal curse but of toxic spores. Bats and starlings excrete guano, on which fungi grow; these then give off poisonous spores. Bob Dylan is thought to have inhaled these, causing his ill health in his later years - so it is ironic that he wrote a song with the refrain “Blowing in the Wind”.
So fungi can be a foe as well as a friend, and we had a series of examples of this. The tulip blight recently high-lighted in Radio 4’s Archers’ Gardeners' Question time is caused by a fungal blight. Toxins in peanuts have to be removed because they can be deadly (“Beware untreated Bird Nuts.”) Various fungi make different attacks on the human body, ranging from the very common Athlete’s Foot to a series of horrific skin conditions – photos of which made the audience wince. These conditions are caused by the inhalation of spores, and Elizabeth’s work in Bristol consists of isolating these and preserving them so that a bank is built up for research into future cures. After these alarming images it was reassuring to learn that we mostly build up immunity to the attacks of these floating enemies.
The lecture was illustrated throughout with clear graphics and by a fascinating series of images. The audience had to be stopped asking their many questions so that Elizabeth could be warmly thanked for her unusual but very informative talk.
LECTURE REVIEWS 2009-10
1st October 7.30 pm 2009
Inn Signia: The artwork and stories behind peculiar pub names.
Mr John Ericson
Mr. Ericson has had a wide ranging career in education and training that has given him the opportunity to lecture as well as make presentations at conferences all over the world.
Review
 John Ericson gave the first lecture of the autumn session on the stories behind inn signs.
These can be a local history lesson in themselves and hang in front of the premises, made' of wrought iron and wood with fine painting and art work. In 2003 pubs and inns in the UK numbered 60,000 or so but, since then and especially as this recession bites deeper - large numbers of them are closing down at a rate of more than 27 a week. Usually they are sold and converted into housing and we often do not realise a part of our heritage is lost until it is too late.
In Roman days the inn signs were often of vine leaves, bushes and simple symbols, like the sun, the stars or a bell. Bird names such as The Pheasant or The Cock, or animal names such as The Bull, were popular. Then, in an age of heraldry, we get the royal coat of arms in names such as The Crown and The King's Arms. John of Gaunt's symbol was a red lion and this too became a popular name, as did other local family crests such as The Devon-shire Arms, or those of the Waldegraves as we have in Chewton Mendip. An early Christian symbol was the Lamb and Flag representing the Lord and St John. Then, with the rise of the common man, the trades and guilds took over and we get the arms of the crafts, with names such as The Wheelwrights, The Miners, The Limeburners, The Brewers, The Brickmakers, The Cordwainers and even, in Cornwall, The Smugglers.
Historical events added to the variety and at the Restoration of Charles II - we get The- Rose Revived. Later historical events and figures are commemorated, such as The Trafalgar and The Lord Nelson, The Duke of Wellington and The Admiral Benbow.
The Trip To Jerusalem in Notting-ham dates from the 12th century but we have lost The Adam And Eve In Paradise, which once stood in the parish of Paradise, in Gloucestershire. The exotically named Elephant and Castle, as we all know, derives from the inability of the Londoner to pronounce its derivation which was La Infanta da Castille, and The Bag of Nails probably began life as The Baccanale.
Among the 10 most popular names are The Crown, The Swan and The White Hart, all of which are prominent in Wells.
Later it became the fashion to have fanciful names with odd pairings such as The Goat And Compasses or The Hole In The Wall, or satirical ones such as The Silent Woman.
Mr Ericson had a splendid selection of photographs of inns all over the country, some of which are well up together but others are deteriorating and are badly in need of repainting. Not long ago all the major breweries had their own sign painters, but not now, and it would be a great pity if we lost these fascinating records of the past.
Mary Cryer
5th November 7.30 pm 2009
Gods, Heroes and Mortals: The Greek Myths in ancient art.
Dr Neil Faulkner FSA
Dr Faulkner is a writer, lecturer, excavator, occasional broadcaster and has appeared on Channel 4's Time Team and BBC2's Timewatch. He is Features Editor of Current Archaeology, Hon. Research Fellow, Bristol University, Hon. Lecturer at UCL and Director of numerous Archaeological sites in the Mediterranean
Review
 Dr Neil Faulkner FSA gave a most interesting talk on "Gods, Heroes and Mortals - The Greek Myths in ancient art". A writer, lecturer and excavator, he was well primed in his subject.
The earliest Greek and Minoan art we have is of women deities. Primitive civilisations depended hugely on their crops and we have figures of Ceres, the corn goddess and Hera, the marriage goddess, both of whom were earth mothers and represented fertility. However as food became more abundant and could be bought and sold and commerce came into play, the ever present battle between Matriarchy and Patriarchy reared itself and the main gods became male with Cronus and his son, Zeus, the King of the Gods and his brother Poseidon, the Sea God. Whereas in the earliest times women and men were more or less equal, now the role of women became limited to home and hearth and their role to become good wives and mothers.
There was also conflict between religious thought and reason. The Gods were believed to influence mankind for both good and ill, and some were on the side of human beings - such as Prometheus who stole Fire from Heaven for mankind.
Some mortals were to become Heroes and do mighty deeds which became the subject of the poems and plays of Greek literature. These were depicted on ceramic pots and glasswear as well as in figurines and sculptures. Dr Faulkner's slides showed us a variety of examples where the stood out as remarkably fine and lifelike whereas the ceramics were much more stylised. He explained that this was because the method of ornamenting the pots was to put slip on top and when it dried to scratch out the figures and detail, and this could only be done in a rather stiff way whereas the sculptor had mastered the technique of representing bodies with bones , muscles and movement. These artists were obviously highly respected in their day and we know the names of them, whereas later on the name of the donor of the work was more importnat.
Because woment had become housebound it became common to depict them in plae colours whereas the male God had a dark skin as he caught the sun. The figures too are nearly always stark nude which showed that sexual intercourse betwen the godss and goddess was imminent. It was interesting to learn that it was common to depict Gods and Heroes with a particular object - a helmet for Heracles, a trident for Poseidon, just as later on afterthe Rennaisance in Europe the Saints have their own particular symbol for being recognised - St Peter, the Keys; St Mark, the Lion.
Mary Cryer
3rd December 7.30 pm 2009
Bach: Christmas in Leipzig.
Mr Colin Booth
Colin Booth, who lives locally, specializes in both making and playing early keyboard instruments. His lecture about Bach's life and work will use musical examples, both recorded and played live.
Review
 On Thursday, December 3rd a full audience heard a lecture given by Colin Booth on "JS Bach: Christmas at Leipzig" . Mr Booth has combined a career of harpsichord playing and making for the last 25 years and brought along one of his instruments on which he played us examples of Bach's chamber music.
In 1704, after a year at the court of Weimar, young Bach was appointed organist at Arnstadtwhere he wrote many of his 300 or so church cantatas. in 1707 at the age of 22, he married his cousin Maria Bach, and a year later they moved to the ducal court at Weimar where he was tostay for 9 years. But it seems that he was not appreciated by the Duke, who gave the senior post of Kapelmeister whenit became free to an inferior muscian. So Bach moved his family to Anhalt Cothen where he became Kapelmeister to Price Leopold. This was to be a very happy appountment as the Price was keenly iterested in music. Unfortunately things were to change when he married and his bride was not a music lover and so Bach had to find new emplyment.
Bach was a great family man, which was fortunate because with Maria he had seven children, of whom four survived. When she died in 1720 he badly needed a mother for the family and so in 1722, the same year as he wrote "The well tempered clavier" he married his second wife, Anna Magdalena Wilken, who was a gifted soprano probably earning more money than he did. She was to give up her career to devote herself to bringing up his children and to give him 13 more as well!!
Bach applied for the job of Kapelmeister at St Thomas Church, Leipzig. Altough he got the job he was made aware that he was nowhere near their first choice, "Since the best man cannot be obtained a mediocre one must suffice", and it would appear that right from the start relationships were not easy.
He was expected to look after the music of the town, and of the four churches, to write cantatas (what we would call anthems) for each Sunday, and to teach the boys in the choir school Latin and French - and he was not qualified to teach languages so he had to hire someone to do it for him and pay out of his own pocket. Leipzig had its own university and as he had never been to university he did not fit in with university life. A new rector soon arrived at St Thomas who was very Puritan in outlook and they did not get on, There were frequent skirmishes and in church circles he was felt to be difficult.
However there was a thriving coffee house in the town where there was a great deal of conviviality and Bach was to skimp some of his church work as he enjoyed the singing and dancing at Zimmerman's.
Even in his own lifetime Bach's music was considered a liitle old fashioned with his liking for tocccatas and fugues. His three sons were much more famous than he was. The eldest, Wilhem Friedemann, became known as Dresden Bach, Johann Christian (his 9th son) Beckeburg Bach and Carl Philip Emmanuel (his 11th son) Berlin Bach.
In his later life his house next to the church of St Thomas became a place of pilgrimage for many budding musicians. He became known for his art of polyphony and the development of the fugue as well as his many pieces for violins and harpsichord. Amongst his finest works are the two Passions - St John's and St Matthews which date from this period and the B minor Mass. He was to lose his sight, probably due to the many hours he had spent writing out scores of his cantatas by candlelight so that they could be sung on the morrow by the church choir. It was only after his death that he obtained the fame that he has today as oneof the finest and most spiritual composers. Throughout his talk Colin gave illustrations of excerpts of music from CDs or from his own playing at the harpsichord. It was all highly enjoyable.
Mary Cryer
7th January 7.30 pm 2010
From the land of the Golden Fleece: Scythian Gold.
Ms Louise Schofield
LECTURE RE-SCHEDULED FOR 15TH APRIL DUE TO BAD WEATHER
4th February 7.30 pm 2010
The historic gardens of Somerset.
Professor Timothy Mowl.
Professor Mowl is a member of Bristol University's Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology. He has seen a need for a country-wide analysis of historic gardens and landscapes and has, over the last 6 years, visited more than 540 gardens all over the West country. Dr Mowl has already published books on eight counties. He is currently researching and writing the next volume in his series on Somerset, to be published in May 2010.
Review
 The lecture on February 4th in the Town Hall was given by Professor Timothy Mowl on "The Historic Gardens of Somerset". These lectures are always well supported, but on this occasion we were joined by a group from the Somerset Gardens Trust and also 10 students from his course on "Garden History and Heritage Horticulture" from Yeovil University.
Professor Mowl is essentially an architect, but his field is now based on Garden History and Layout from the past to the present day. He was much influenced by John Betjeman and Pevsner, whose books on architecture concentrated on buildings in each area of England. However Pevsner’s earlier books were very academic and dry, concentrating only on the buildings whereas Timothy plans a series of books treating his subject in a wider fashion, speaking of the people who owned the properties and employed the designers to carry out their wishes. Not all the meticulous plans were successful in being completed, and today some of these beautiful designs and drawings are all we have left of building which have been allowed to fall into ruin, Old photographs exist and can be compared with the slides he has taken on his travels.
We were carried along by Timothy's enthusiasm for his subject and his plans to produce books on all the counties. Most of the houses are privately owned and we shall have to wait for his book to be published before we know whether and when we can visit them. He himself was not averse to doing a bit of trespassing in the course of duty which perhaps we might feel chary of doing ourselves!
Somerset is blest with a wealth of houses and gardens some, like Clevedon Court, Fyne Court, Montacute and Tyntesfield are owned by the National Trust and are easy to visit. Clevedon Court, a medieval house, has terrace gardens and also a wilderness garden laid out adjacent to the house which not everybody sees. Landscape pictures of Montacute showed the house with its banqueting houses standing proud in front of it without the wall that now encloses the lawn and flower beds, and Timothy pointed out that although there are two floors, the upper one having such a fine view of the deer park, there seems no evidence of a staircase leading up to it which seems very odd.
Round the Mells area are fine houses at Mells Park and Mells Manor, Ammerdale , Barley Wood, home of the Wills family, and especially Barrow Court which Timothy believes to be the finest garden in Somerset, is owned by the Gibbs Family. The Bishop of Bath and Wells used to have a holiday retreat at Banwell which had fashionable caves. Caves, follys and grottos studded with seashells were to became all the rage.
Timothy names the famous designers that contributed so much to garden design, Richard Phelps, Thomas Wright and Lutyens who have left their original plans, drawings and finished works for us still to see.
It was fascinating to learn how such an enthusiast worked; visiting the properties and exploring in the undergrowth to find behind nettles and brambles the remains of ancient buildings and statues. He found the Edwardian gardens the most satisfying and yet the saddest - because of their confidence in themselves and their lives, which was to be so rudely shattered by the First World War.
People in Wells are fortunate that there are two private local garden that are a delight to visit: Milton Lodge which is a mature garden built on terraces with mature trees and shrubs, and Stoberry which is a recently designed garden with imaginative planting round modern statuary.
Naturally, with his interest so much geared to architecture this was not a plantsman's lecture but it was well received and Timothy was warmly applauded at the end. Mary Cryer
4th March 7.30 pm 2010 [AGM at 8.50 pm]
Did Marco Polo go to China? Tea, spaghetti and manuscripts.
Dr Frances Wood
Frances Wood is curator of the Chinese collections in the British Library, author of a number of books on China. Notable amongst these is 'Hand Grenade Practice in Peking', recounting her experiences when a student in Peking during the mid-seventies.
Review
We were then entertained by a fascinating talk entitled “Did Marco Polo go to China? Tea, spaghetti and manuscripts” by Dr. Frances Wood, who is curator of the Chinese collection at the British Museum. She was a student in Peking during the mid-seventies and has a written a book about her experiences and is an authority on Marco Polo.
However there is very little concrete knowledge about Marco Polo. A Venetian merchant, traveller and writer, he is credited with going to China with his father and uncle in 1271 when he was seventeen. They arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 having travelled through Central Asia and the Ghobi Desert. Kublai Khan was impressed with the boy so that he sent him out as an envoy through Burma to Cochin China and southern India.
For three years Marco served as Governor of Yang Chow and subdued an uprising. But eventually he was able to leave and return home to Venice bringing back the great wealth that he had accumulated. He began to write down his experiences of foreign travel when for a year he was a prisoner in Genoa. He probably intended them as a merchants` guide book, but bit by bit other stories came into it and illustrations too, done by artists who had never seen the places they were depicting. It was printed in 1517 and more likely than not was not taken too seriously but people were fascinated by the fabulous East and eventually other stories were copied in and translated into other languages. Frampton`s first English edition appeared in 1597 as by the 16th century Polo`s name had become famous for foreign travel. By 1938 there were over 250 versions of Marco Polo`s story.
Much of Marco Polo`s early account is rather dry and repetitative. Everywhere he went he described the people as Idolaters and the same descriptions crop up: every town had a big market for instance. But strangely enough he never mentioned things you would have expected him to have noticed, like tea drinking, the use of chop sticks, or indeed the Great Wall of China. Every now and then he shatters you with the words “I Marco Polo was there!” and it must have made a huge impact on his contemporaries.
On his return to Venice it appeared he settled down and did not travel again. But Venice seems not to have honoured him in any way and there is little mention of him in the city archives apart from his Will, the silk and a Tartare slave which he brought back showing his contact with Mongol realms. Another thing he brought home with him was rhubarb, an unknown fruit before then in Europe, which was to be prized for its medicinal uses in constipation and other stomach troubles.
Mary Cryer
8th April 7.30 pm 2010
How composers compose – musical innovation, inspiration and industry: a composers perspective.
Ms Liz Lane
Liz Lane is a professional composer and arranger who started writing music at the age of six. With the help of musical excerpts, she describes the process of creating music – from developing an embryonic musical idea to editing for a performance. She is currently completing a PhD in Composition
Review
On Thursday, April 1st Dr. Liz Lane gave us a talk on 'How Composers Compose - Musical Innovation, Inspiration and Industry: A Composer`s Perspective'. This she illustrated with excerpts from her work.
Liz was a local girl who went to Wells Cathedral School where she studied piano, horn and percussion. But she early on showed an aptitude for composition and started writing music at the of six receiving widespread media coverage as a child composer. She took her undergraduate degree at Cardiff University and received a postgraduate diploma in composition from the Royal College of Music before pursuing a varied musical career which combines teaching, lecturing , arranging and composing as well as performing on the horn and percussion. In 2009 Cardiff University awarded her PhD in Composition, where she is currently Associate Lecturer, as she is with the Open University as well as lecturing at the West of England University. She is a very busy lady.
It was fascinating to learn how she seeks inspiration for her work which has been described as 'spellbinding - touching the very core of the heart'. She is a practical person and is motivated by the commissions she receives - writing for a reason - which fire her imagination. She has written for Childrens` Dance - 'Why cats sit on doorsteps in the sun' Another for her friend`s, Steve and Jane`s wedding anniversary, another entitled Jaleo which was inspired by flamenco which was recently performed in Cardiff. Inspiration also came from music written by women, especially by the famous Hildegarde of Bingham, and a children`s ballet entitled 'Mrs Harris goes to Paris'. Recently Liz tried her hand at composing for the harpsichord which was a novel experience.
When ideas come to her she has to get them down on paper as soon as possible and although she often writes the music by hand she also makes use of the computer to help her. She comes back again and again to her work and edits it, stressing than industry is even more important to a composer than inspiration.
Liz has many good friends in the music industry and works often with David Fanshawe, a composer and explorer, with him producing a brass band arrangement of the Lord`s Prayer from his African Sanctus. The singer Jennifer Henderson and the horn player. Marlene Ford. Her music has been played in many places from the Colston Hall, Bristol, the Royal Albert Hall, Wells Cathedral, the Fairfield Hall, Croydon to Barcelona and Seattle. It was interesting too to learn how much care she takes on the titles of her work. She is meticulous in all she does and can produce works of fine lyrical quality.
Mary Cryer
15th April 7.30 pm 2010
From the land of the Golden Fleece: Scythian Gold.
Ms Louise Schofield
Ms Schofield was curator of Greek Bronze Age and geometric Antiquities in the British Museum from 1987 – 2000. She now writes books and runs archaeological projects in Turkey, Greece and Ethiopia. Her latest book, 'Mycenaeans', was published by the BM in 2007.
Review
The last lecture of the winter season was given by Louise Schofield on Thursday, April 15th at the Town Hall when she spoke on “From the Land of the Golden Fleece, Scythian Gold” which we should have heard in January but was postponed because of the snow.
Louise was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and geometric Antiquities in the British Museum from 1987 - 2000 and has been on excavations in Albania, Turkey, Greece and Ethiopia. She now writes and runs archaeological projects in these countries. So she was well able to show slides and speak about the wonderful finds that have been made of artefacts from the 11th - 7th centuries BC.
We learn of the Scythians from Jason `s exploits in search of the Golden Fleece. In the Argo he sailed through the Hellespont into the Black Sea to discover these nomadic people. This land now is part of the Ukraine. Greek pottery from the period shows Jason capturing the fleece with the help of Medea, and dragons disgorging Jason who had an alarming time of it. We also see exotic animals such as griffins, all portrayed in red and black on a variety of pot shapes. We also know something of the Scythians and their way of life from the writings of Herodotus. They were prone to drink to excess and they were great warriors, even their women fought and were likely to be the original Amazon women who cut off a breast so that they could shoot their arrows straighter. Being nomadic they did not build as the Greeks did. All their wealth they put into portable things including jewellery and swords which were buried with them deep in the ground or under burial mounds.
In the 17th century AD excavations began in earnest and underground tombs were found far to the north with their contents frozen solid. This has preserved not only bodies but textiles: such as a wonderful 5th Century carpet which was beautifully knotted and decorated with animals in bright colours which appear as bright now as the day it was laid in the tomb. There is still much to be found and excavations are continuing.
Gold items were in abundance as, unlike in Greece, there was plenty of gold to be found in the area, and the workmanship was particularly fine. From this art we are able to appreciate the truth of what Herodotus had written so long ago about their wealth and talents, and which had not been taken seriously. It is now being regarded in a new light.
Mary Cryer
LECTURE REVIEWS 2008-09
2nd October 7.30 pm 2008
Various Aspects of the St Ives Society of Artists
Mr David Tovey.
Gave up a career as a lawyer to study the History of Art at Warwick University. Subsequently becoming an author and much sought after exhibition curator in all aspects of Cornish art.
Review
The opening of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Royal Albert or Saltash bridge in 1859, carrying railway passengers to Cornwall for the first time, proved a landmark event for artists. The link forged to St Ives brought a crowd of international painters to enjoy what they found there.
Namely the light. In the opening lecture for the new term of Wells Evening Society’s held at Wells Town Hall on Thursday, art historian David Tovey spoke of this 19th-century ‘dirty, stinking, industrial town, based on the pilchard industry’, as having a unique quality.
It faced north, so the water and its four sand beaches were lit from the land and the Atlantic Ocean blended with vast skyscapes for artists to exercise their talents.
They ranged from Turner, who visited the little Cornish town in 1811, all the way through Henry Harewood Robinson and his wife to those who arrived before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Some came from America, some from Scandinavia. All were seduced by the challenge of painting the vast landscapes and Cornish fisherfolk, as well as the local countryside.
Artists such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arthur Meade and the lecturer’s great-grandfather, William Titcomb flourished. By exhibiting in London and – more importantly – in Paris and as far away as Chicago and Pittsburg, they all contributed to the Cornish village’s international reputation as a centre for fine art.
The lecture was attended by some 130 members. In her introduction to the evening’s proceedings, chairman Sara Whitehouse said that membership of Wells Evening Society is holding up well, but new recruits are always welcome.
6th November 7.30 pm 2008
The Story of Posters
Mr Paul Atterbury
Trained as a graphic designer before studying art history and working for Sotherby Publications, as a historical adviser to Royal Doulton and then editor of Connoisseur magazine. He has written or edited over 30 books, mostly on ceramics but also on canals and railways. For the past 16 years a member of the BBC Antiques Road Show team.
Review
‘The poster is our history’: the concluding words of a lecture given by Paul Atterbury of BBC Television’s Antiques Roadshow to Wells Evening Society on November 6.
Entitled ‘The Power of the Poster’, his lecture was illustrated with a remarkable series of images collected from the mid-19th century to the present day.
By the end of it, his claim was entirely creditable because he had shown the links between milestones in social and political history and how they were made known to the public or advertised through the medium of posters. His lecture also recorded patterns in art history over the past 200-odd years, since the invention of lithography in the 1790s.
As a form of commercial art, posters have reflected the leading trends of the days. So the earliest of them were formed from simple wood blocks and fly-posted to walls, In Atterbury’s words, ‘word upon word, text upon text, image upon image’.
Colours were introduced in the 1840s and a further breakthrough came in the 1860s when Japanese printed blocks became collectable items in the west. In the 1870s artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec began to use the medium.
So modernism gave way to art-nouveau, to art déco and eventually to abstraction as posters, ‘the decorative language of the street’ found a place in our emotional landscape. For products such as soap, cigarettes, tea and tobacco each found a distinctive ‘label’; meat spread became Bovril and mustard became Colman’s; and always with the teasing promise that ‘Players please’.
Travel and tourism featured heavily in this visual world, with posters featuring the delights of railway and ocean liner, or the advantages of a run in the motor - provided it had a full tank of Shell. Interestingly government propaganda posters followed the same trends as fierce pride was induced in fortress Britain, with its long and varied coastline, a place where ‘careless talk costs lives’.
And all this despite the fact that, as Paul Atterbury said, ‘The appeal of the poster is that you are dealing with something ephemeral, designed to be thrown away.’
Those that remain are now highly sought after and valuable collectors’ items, to be treasured by afficianados of programmes such as the Antiques Roadshow.
4th December 7.30 pm 2008
The Current Renaissance in Contemporary Silver
Mrs Phillipa Glanville
A Liveryman of the Goldsmiths Company, her work has ranged across the decorative arts and social history having been Tudor and Stuart Curator at the Museum of London and Keeper of Metalwork at the V & A. Subsequently Academic Director of Waddesdon Manor.
Review
Almost everyone has silver jewellery in their lives, but larger silver pieces have been traditionally seen as for the rich – or as presentation pieces. Roy Strong has used the phrase college plate to sum up these perceptions.
Last Thursday, in a vivid and animated lecture, Philippa Glanville told the Wells Evening Society how all this has changed over the last twenty five years. In her lecture “The Current Renaissance in Contemporary Silver”, she explained how in the early 1990s, during her time as Keeper of Metalwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, she introduced contemporary silver pieces to complement the famous collection of antique silver. Since then, a whole new generation of silversmiths has emerged, producing exciting pieces, both functional and sculptural.
Contemporary work can be both formal and intimate, and often be commissioned for surprisingly small sums. The Internet has facilitated direct contact between makers and the public, but to absorb the excitement of these gleaming sculptural shapes, direct physical exposure is still essential. Goldsmiths’ Silver Fair, runs in London’s Goldsmiths Hall each autumn, and has ninety artists showing their skills. There are few exhibition spaces in the south west, but Sheffield, home to tableware (‘flatware’) is the sponsor of their Millennium Gallery. The Harley Gallery in Worksop and the Shipley Gallery in Gateshead all show specialist collections of recently-designed silver. Saatchi, that great patron of British innovation, is about to open a new Gallery to promote crafts, which will of course include pieces made in silver.
So contemporary silver is now established but it needs a constant flow of new young designers and makers. Philippa Glanville is actively involved with the Bishopsland Trust in Oxfordshire which is a bridge between college and the realities of the gallery world. It offers young makers the opportunity to work alongside established silversmiths, learning techniques as well as how to meet deadlines, to price their work and to meet and satisfy clients as well as taking part in regular exhibitions.
On the Evening Society’s 12-foot square screen members saw magnificent examples of contemporary silverware. Downing Street has a striking and innovative collection of tableware representing the work of many different silversmiths. Silver tankards inventively used the handles of a motorbike for Ewan McGregor, and a simple oval teapot – insulated - for Lulu which she can cup in her hands showed the inventive approach of today’s makers. A particularly magnificent sculptural candle centre piece drew an audible gasp from the audience, and it is good to hear that these examples of British design have drawn crowds in Beijing and Tokyo as well as London.
Questions at the end of the lecture reflected the audience’s lively interest. They covered the making process (the terms raising and chasing were defined and the techniques described) and how to keep silver clean. (Keep it in use, but don’t store it near the Aga!) A description of Roman silver hordes found all over Britain reminded us that working in silver is an ancient as well as one of the most excitingly contemporary art forms.
On a cold and rainy night, the lecture was attended by 110 members and seven visitors. The next lecture in the Evening Society’s winter programme will be held in the Town Hall on Thursday January 8. This will be on ‘The Silk Road’ and given by Jonathan Tucker. The Society encourages visitors to come along and get a ‘taster’ of the lectures. There is a fee of £6.00 at the door, with reduced membership if joining for the rest of the season.
8th January 7.30 pm 2009
The Silk Road
Mr Jonathan Tucker
Educated at the University of Wales and the School of Oriental and African Studies, he served as an RAF pilot and Police Detective in Hong Kong, He worked for Spink and Son as an Associate Director in the Indian and S.E. Asia Department and now operates a gallery with his wife in St James's. Consultant and author of a number of books on, and a map of, the Silk Road
Review
Although entitled The Silk Road, the lecture enjoyed by the Wells Evening Society pm on Thursday , January 8 could more properly have been entitled the ‘Silk Roads’. Jonathan Tucker showed three slides on two screens simultaneously. One of these featured a map with all the routes from the Mediterranean across Syria, Iran, Arabia, the Stans and India all the way to China; the other his slides. Many routes, many roads and a two-way traffic of ideas, culture, religious beliefs and ultimately disease – with the spread of the Bubonic plague - as well, of course, as silk.
From east to west came ceramics, tea, dyes, jade and cosmetics too. From west to east went gold, silver, amber, gems and, when they were the height of fashion and almost a currency in their own right, tulip bulbs as well. The earliest trade routes had opened up to deal in horses, Arab blood stock being at a premium and highly considered by the Chinese. These early ‘roads’ had regular fortresses and beacons which burnt tamarisk branches and wolf dung – the latter giving off a pungent black smoke to alert would-be trouble-makers.
Jonathan Tucker, author of Treasures From The Silk Road: Devotion, Conquest and Trade Along Ancient Highways, explained that the original name for these trade routes was given by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877. His own engagement came from trips regularly undertaken over a ten-year period in the 1990s. So his lecture was littered with personal anecdotes as when, for example, suffering extreme cold in the evening, his native guides would put the embers from their fire into a shallow pit covered with sand and then place their beds on top of it to ensure a comfortable night under the stars.
The eventual demise of the Silk Roads came when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453. Subsequent maritime exploration meant that sea traffic took over from the routes across deserts and mountains and the safety of overland travellers could no longer be secured.
5th February 7.30 pm 2009
The Great East India Company Adventure
Mr Gerald Davison
Author, art dealer and lecturer (in Asia and UK), whose books on Chinese ceramics are among the standard works on the subject.
Review
More than 100 stalwarts braved the elements on Thursday evening to attend the Wells Evening Society’s lecture on the history of the Great East India Company. Given by Gerald Davison, it ably demonstrated how a project that began with trade and – as he put it – ‘bravery, public service and compassion’ gradually changed over the 250 years of its active life and became embroiled in territorial conquest.
The Royal Charter that set up the Company was signed by Queen Elizabeth 1 on December 31, 1600. The project was a simple one: to secure trade for the English in a theatre largely dominated by the Spanish and Portuguese. The Brits went in on the tails of the Dutch, who were also concerned to get a slice of the giant cake represented by trade with India and, increasingly, with China. The east had spices, ebony and ivory, jade and rose quartz; the west had silver and cloth. China in particular had tea as well as rare woods and porcelain, in which to store and then to serve it. To make his point, Mr Davison held out a humble nutmeg to his audience, reminding them that once this spice was literally worth its weight in gold.
For the first hundred years the British lagged behind the Dutch but during this period theirs was a benign presence where they traded, as they often intermarried with the native population. But gradually the desire for luxury goods back home generated greed and corruption. Bases or factories at the trading stations had to be defended, so a military element and eventually an army became inevitable. The Church of England too became an ingredient of the recipe as garrisons developed churches and a social infrastructure. No wonder that when the Company’s influence declined, it had already transmogrified into the British Empire and the Raj.
In its heyday, however, the luminaries, such as Sir Thomas Smith, buccaneer John Dee of the Sussex, Clive of India, Warren Hastings, General Cornwallis and Sir Stanford Raffles all carved out reputations for themselves. The most ingenious traders bought and sold in bulk on behalf of the government backers or syndicates who sponsored their travels but also knew how to acquire that unique bedspread or dagger or a watering ewer made of jade. Exquisite artefacts from the Far East made their way over to Europe and, as Mr Davison reminded his audience, are still to be seen in English stately homes or National Trust properties.
5th March 7.30 pm 2009 [AGM at 8.55 pm]
Scottish Arts and Crafts
Dr Elizabeth Cumming
For many years involved in art history. She ran the Edinburgh City Art Gallery and taught at the City College of Art. Now involved in running exhibitions, particularly on the Scottish Arts and Crafts Movement. She is the author of a book on Phoebe Traquair.
Review
 At the meeting of the Wells Evening Society held on March 5, a gathering of 126 members heard Dr Elizabeth Cumming lecture on the Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland. She ran the Edinburgh City Art Gallery, taught at the City College of Arts and has written extensively on her subject matter. This familiarity with the topic and superior quality of her photos made this an exceptionally informative evening. When she was indexing the book she wrote on the Movement she found she needed 1,300 cards to carry the detailed lists of names and places and crafts she had written about. During her lecture these tripped so fluently off her tongue that her audience were drawn in to appreciate the marvels of work by the great artists such as Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Robert Lorimer and Phoebe Traquair and to understand how a variety of less well-known craftsmen came to create a distinctive Scottish idiom. Their ‘delight in materials and working hands’ ensured a future for Pictish art. At first though, the Scottish Movement lent on William Morris and his colleagues for its English inspiration. Indeed its 1893 journal, The Studio carried the letters NB, standing for Northern Britain on the cover. Then the work diversified as the Scottish tradition was modernised and found expression in the interior design of homes, castles, churches and cathedrals. To bring on a new generation of artists, training colleges and workshops were set up in Edinburgh and Glasgow to forge links with industry and so improve all commercial design. Furniture, wrought iron metal, leaded glass, embroidery, stencilling, radiators, pottery, electric fittings, panels and friezes, as well as external design were all simplified and modernized and Scottish myth and allegory fed in a variety of designs. The thistle and Scottie dog featured along with other heraldic motifs, cropping up in sites as exalted as the Thistle Chapel at St Giles’ Cathedral and in simple boot scrapers to adorn an ordinary doorway. In both its formal and vernacular contexts the Movement reached its apogee in Edinburgh’s Scottish National War Memorial of 1927, commemorating the 150,000 Scots men and women who died in World War I.
2nd April 7.30 pm 2009
Art, Architecture and Music at the Court of James I
Mr Peter Leech
A distinguished musician and Scholar. Since arriving from Australia in 1996 he has held a number of prestigious positions and is perhaps best known locally as Musical Director of the highly successful Bristol Bach Choir.
Review
The Society met on April 2nd for a lecture by Dr. Peter Leech on "Art, Architecture and Music at the Court of James I1". given to a full audience. Dr. Leech, originally from Australia has held a number of prestigious positions,in this country and for ten years was known locally as the Musical Director of the Bristol Bach Choir.
James'reign only lasted for a little over three years but it was a period when the Arts flourished and we were welcomed back into Catholic Europe. The King brought in musicians, artists and engravers from Italy and the Dutch Netherlands. Like his brother Charles II he had been brought up a Roman Catholic by his mother, Henrietta Maria. She was allowed to do this as long as the boys adopted the Anglican tradition when they reached twelve years old. Charles II did this, but James was a devout Catholic all his life.
This meant there were many difficulties at his Coronation when he refused to take the Sacrament and he was always uncertain in his own mind that he had been properly consecrated by the Oil which had been blessed at an Anglican altar. In all events the Coronation itself was a magnificent affair and we are indebted to some wonderfully detailed engravings as to what the principal characters looked like and what they wore. We were shown an original music score that was written for the service, and views of the musicians with their instruments. Dr. Leech also played excerpts from some of Purcell's music which evoked the spirit of the age.
James was to build his own .chapel in Whitehall and commissioned an Italian artist to paint the altar piece as had been done for the Queen' s Chapel that his mother had used. He also had Prayers Books printed, bringing over Jesuit scholars. Unfortunately this chapel burnt down some years after his departure and the court library with music scores and manuscripts were lost.
Perhaps the most intrigueing pictures were those of sugar sculptures which were made to grace a fine banqueting table and which were incredibly intricate. We have lost the art of this form of sculpture and have no idea what preparations were used on the sugar and could only marvel at so much art and industry being expended on such an ethereal subject.
Dr.Leech thought that, had James I1 kept out of the politics of the day he might have kept his throne, but as History has revealed he could not do this and the brief but brilliant reign came to an abrupt end.
23rd April 7.30 pm 2009
Computers and the future of Mankind
Gordon Mills
Review
Thursday 23rd April was the last Presentation for the Season of Wells Evening Society. Gordon Mills gave a Lecture Presentation in Wells Town Hall on the subject “Computers, the nature of man and the future of mankind”.
Gordon is a committee member and has been involved with the Society from its early days. He began by dedicating this presentation to retiring Chairman Sara Whitehouse and colleague Chris Hann, who five years ago decided to form Wells Evening Society. Since the early days, these pioneers have overseen the Society grow and extend its activities. With a very stimulating audio-visual digital demonstration on mans’ progress in the field of ‘Cybernetics, ’ this presentation demonstrated brilliantly the Society’s leading hardware and software technology .
For those who are technically minded, the Society provided ‘high definition’ imagery via the Societies Blue Ray enabled computer and a 5000 watt cinema digital projector. The software was a very enhanced PowerPoint presentation, superimposed by inserting digitally edited moving film.
The presentation began with outstanding beautiful pictures and music entitled ‘The Beauty of Nature’. Gordon explained that this presentation of Cybernetics was a combination of progress in the fields of computers, the brain and psychology. He showed us studies developed from the philosophy of Plato through to the present work in Physics on quantum sub atomic circuitry. At the same time we were being warned of ‘the thought provoking and disturbing nature of leading scientists work on Cybernetics.’
Gordon personalised his presentation with incidents relating to the nature of man. He presented the different fields of psychology and questioned to what extent man was a conditioned machine. He suggested that the human brain could be seen as a ‘basic’ computer, and then looked at the development of thinking, creative, intelligent human-like robots. Then we were shown contemporary work on computers that were much more advanced than robots.
Although mankind now owes so much to computers, the world’s leading cybernetic scientists show deep concern and predict that in the next 20 years computer intelligence and power will be billions more powerful than the human brain.
The ‘nature of being human’ was analysed and found to be a precarious balance of body, mind and emotion. Any unbalance causes stress, aggression and even paranoid destructive behaviour and mankind seems constantly to seek selfish self fulfilment. Although computers don’t suffer from such problems, Gordon suggested that we may well be in danger of global wars from the ‘human’ programming of our military computers.
The lecture ended with Gordon reminding us that it was St George’s day. George’s Likening the machine to a Dragon, Gordon asked - “Is it possible that mankind could have a St George Saviour?”
LECTURE REVIEWS 2007-08
4th October 7.30 pm 2007
The Life and Works of Oscar Nemon – The Sculptor, My Father
Lady Aurelia Young.
Politician and daughter of the famous sculptor Oscar Nemon (1906-1985).
Review
Lady Aurelia Young's talk was the first to be made with the assistance of our new high powered digital projection system and also the first to use our new radio microphones and powerful surround sound system.
Lady Young gave us an informative talk on the life of her father, the extraordinary sculptor Oscar Nemon, who was born in Croatia in 1906. We were told how Nemon, a sculptor whose works were often experimental or radical, spent his early professional life in Vienna before leaving in the early twenties for Paris and eventually Belgium and that his first Royal Commission was that of King Albert I of Belgium. After an abortive first meeting, Nemon became good friends with Freud, one of the many famous people who were to become his subjects and who make up a veritable Who's Who of twentieth century history.
Nemon was driven to escape the Nazi encroachment on Europe and fled to England in 1938 but his direct family in Croatia were killed in the Holocaust.
Nemon's busts and statues are numerous and include those of: The Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth, Winston Churchill, Harold McMillan, Montgomery, President Eisenhower, and Margaret Thatcher, to mention a few
In 1985 he was commissioned to sculpt Diana the Princess of Wales, unfortunately, he died before he could carry it out.
Lady Young said that she was still receiving information and was constantly surprised with her ongoing research into her father's life and she finished by saying that it was reported that the Queen had said, on one occasion, that Nemon was "the only person to get Churchill to do what he was told". People wishing to find more information on Oscar Nemon should try this site: - Click Here Wikipedia - Oscar Nemon
1st November 7.30 p.m 2007
Something Old, Something New – Treasures Saved by The Art Fund for our Museums and Galleries
Mr Anthony Pugh-Thomas.
Solicitor, consultant legal mediator and committee member of the Somerset branch of the Arts Fund (formerly the National Art Collections Fund).
Review
Mr Anthony Pugh-Thomas outlined the aims of The Art Fund. These were, enriching and enhancing Museums and Galleries, campaigning for the widest possible access to art and, through its 80,000 strong membership, promoting the enjoyment of art.
In regard to the founding of The Fund in 1903, Mr Pugh-Thomas said that John Ruskin had said that "There is a need for a national charity to ensure great works of art are not dissipated".
We were told that The Fund does not specialise in what it supports, covering the broad spectrum of the Arts, including statues, paintings and other works of merit and that, amongst other things, The Fund had campaigned for no tax on art donated to the Government and free entry to museums. They often contributed, and would continue to contribute, if not wholly on their own, by means of a grant, whenever an important work of art appeared on the market. Thereby saving valuable art for the nation.
The lecture was illustrated by many examples of The Fund's acquisitions, including items of local interest: a Turner watercolour of Pembroke Castle presently located in a Bath museum, a watercolour by George Arnold of Glastonbury Abbey and the Shapwick Hoard of 9,238 Roman coins which alongside the Priddy Hoard of Bronze Age gold are both housed in the Somerset County Museum at Taunton. People wishing to find more information on The Art Fund should try this site: - Click Here The Art Fund
6th December 7.30 pm 2007
The Treasures and Palaces of St Petersburg
Mr Edward Saunders.
Freelance lecturer on the history of art and architecture for such organisations as the V & A, London University, the Wallace Collection & National Trust.
Review
Mr Edward Saunders gave an illustrated talk on a beautiful city of statues, churches, buildings and palaces, St Petersburg, one time capital of Russia. St Petersburg remains today, despite the ravages of 70 years of Communism, one of the grandest and most impressive cities of Europe. Famous for the magnificent collections of The Hermitage Museum, the city also boasts some of the finest works of architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the beauty of the Summer Palaces outside the city.
He said that the city, which was built by an army of slaves, was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, who built a fortress there in his ongoing war with Sweden. It was an ideal base for the Russian Fleet and commercial shipping, with access to the Baltic and beyond, making it a means of opening Russia up to the West.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral, the earliest building in the City, was built in 1704 inside the fortress and became Peter the Great's burial place and that of the other Tsars.
We were told that Peter had a great love of technology and was impressed by Versailles and French architecture and that, affected by these tastes, the city developed rapidly, including his own palace and gardens, the Peterhof.
We were shown slides of the Winter and Summer Palaces, the Stroganov Palace and of the Capital Palace, which at a third of a mile long is one of the longest buildings in the world.
Mr Saunders said that Catherine the Great had added a small dining room extension to her Palace and called it “my hermitage” and that the whole Palace had become known by this name.
Catherine bought thousands of paintings and other works of art, mainly as whole collections, from countries throughout western Europe. These included works by Raphael, a self portrait by Van Dyke and Rembrandt's The Prodigal Son. She also commissioned works and corresponded with Voltaire. The collection is the basis of the treasures of The Hermitage Museum [In fact her collection is so large that only a small portion is ever on show.]
Catherine, was succeeded by a number of Tsars, ending with the Revolution of October 1917 and the assassination of Nicolas II in 1918, after which the capital was moved to Moscow.
In 1944, after the 900-day siege and bombardment by the German invaders, much of Leningrad, as it was then called, was in ruins and virtually all the palaces in the surrounding countryside, were looted and largely destroyed. The famous Amber Room in the Charlottenburg Palace was almost obliterated. After the war ended Stalin ordered the restoration of the city and its treasured palaces, much of it being carried out voluntarily by ordinary Russian citizens.
Mr Saunders said that "the Winter Palace stands a silent witness to extraordinary historical events".
People wishing to find more information should try these sites: - Click Here The Hermitage Wikipedia - St Petersburg
3rd January 7.30 pm 2008
The Pinnacle of Chinese Ceramic Art (AD 1662 - 1795)
Mr Gerald Davison.
Author, art dealer and lecturer (in Asia and UK), whose books on Chinese ceramics are among the standard works on the subject.
Review
Mr Gerald Davison’s talk concentrated on Chinese ceramics of the early Qing (Ching or “Pure”) Dynasty 1662 -1795, which covered the reigns of the Manchu Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng (Yung-Cheng) and Qianlong (Ch’ien-Lung).
These Emperors, who were believed to be Living Gods, pursued a frugal life and continued the long held Chinese tradition of combining military prowess and scholarship with a passion for the arts. Their patronage resulted in the productive output and skills of the Chinese potter reaching an absolute pinnacle of technological innovation, creative flair and quality.
Several million pieces of ceramics were ordered each year to complement the furniture, carvings and silks of the ornate Imperial Palaces as well as the homes of officials, scholars, the prosperous merchant class and also for the growing export markets with increasingly westernised designs. However, only the best and flawless items made their way into the hands of the Imperial Family.
We were told that the kiln failure rate was very high and that production was a large scale "Cottage Industry" with skills which had developed over hundreds of years and, at that time, involved tens of thousands of kilns with an individual item passing, in an industrial production line technique, through up to seventy pairs of hands before being finished.
Mr Davison said that Cobalt Blue was the only colour which could survive the extreme temperatures of the initial glazing. Other colours were applied with enamels as an over-glaze and then re-fired. Amongst the colours produced was Imperial Yellow which was reserved exclusively for the Emperor and his sons. To obtain a different texture lead base enamels were applied to biscuit ceramics.
Together with their incredible technological achievements with enamels and firing, the Chinese liked to play on words and that they produced ceramics which were not just decorative but could be read as well.
Examples of this symbolism are;
Clouds represented tranquillity. Two butterflies: Marital bliss. Peaches: Immortality. Bats: Happiness. Children: Good luck or Happiness. A Quail : Tranquillity. A Cockerel: an Official.
We were shown, amongst others, slides of figurines, plates, tea pots, wine pots, dogs, vases, lanterns, flasks and "Egg Shell" ceramics, some of which with flambé, coral red, bronze and gold enamels, as well as some of the intricate and sophisticated ceramics of the later period.
Mr Davison concluded by saying that the end of this period was the pinnacle of Chinese Ceramic Art and that it has never been equalled.
7th February 7.30 pm 2008
Letter-carving in Britain Today
Mr Richard Kindersley.
One of the foremost practicing letter-carvers in Britain today who has run an active studio in London since 1966 with many significant national commissions (including at St Paul’s and Westminster Abbey).
Review
Mr Richard Kindersley, one of the UK's foremost exponents of the art of letter cutting, gave us a talk which covered the development of letter cutting from the Roman Republican period, 100 BC, through to the flowering of the greatest period of letter carving during the Imperial period in about AD100. He discussed the Renaissance revival of lettering and gave a brief history of letter-carving in the British Isles ending up with contemporary work which show why lettering in stone is now a thriving craft.
He described the transition from the Greek and Roman styles and explained that the Law Stones of the Roman Republican era were an important use of letter carving at the time.
We were shown slides of what he considered to be the finest remaining inscriptions in Rome as well as inscriptions from along the Apian Way which were impressive in both their perspective and symmetry. We were shown Pompeian inscriptions which were carved with thin letters but which still had power and elegance and we were told that pollution, acid rain and cleaning with acid has rapidly worsened their condition.
With the collapse of the Roman Empire, high quality letter cutting virtually disappeared and a resurgence did not occur until the Renaissance period. However, calligraphy continued within religious iconography and works such as the Book of Kells (c800 AD), with its beautiful illustrations and superb lettering, helped to maintain some of the earlier traditions.
We were shown slides of interesting inscriptions with different styles involved, including: the English Style, the Egyptian Style and the Grotesque Style to mention a few. The different mediums available to the letter carver were discussed, together with their varying degrees of difficulty, as well as the skills involved in manual cutting, compared with the modern methods of machine cut or sandblasted carving.
Mr Kindersley spoke of his own work and the reasons behind his inscriptions. He said that the Standing Stones which he had carved were his favourites and reminded us that, apart from being tungsten tipped, the tools used by hand letter carvers today are essentially the same as those used thousands of years ago.
People wishing to see examples of Mr Kindersley's work should try this site: - Click Here Richard Kindersley Studios
6th March 7.30 pm 2008 [AGM at 8.55 pm]
Banqueting Houses and the Banquet, 1550-1700
Dr David Bostwick.
Lecturer in cultural history, writer and consultant on historic buildings, interiors and furnishings of the 16th and 17th centuries. Keeper of the Social History Collections, Sheffield City Museum, 1977-91, and consultant to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Scotland.
Review
Dr David Bostwick gave us a lecture which covered banqueting throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods from 1550 to 1770. A feast was for savoury foods and a banquet was for sweetmeats. Thus one deserted the feast table and moved to the banquet, hence the term 'dessert'. Throughout this period sugar was very expensive and such foods could only be afforded by the very rich.
These banquets, with musicians and entertainers, were often held in structures located on the roofs of the houses and palaces. The diners could enjoy the food and the views looking out over gardens and parkland, sometimes watching such spectacles as deer hunting.
We were shown slides of many of the pavilions and summerhouses, which were built to accommodate these banquets including the Banqueting House in Whitehall designed by Indigo Jones, Chatsworth House, Montecute, Sheffield Manor Lodge and also the triangular lodge of Sir Thomas Tresham in Northhamptonshire with its enigmatic inscriptions, together with Wollaston Hall Nottingham, Lodge Park Cirencester and Longleat with their banqueting houses on roofs.
We were told of the progression of place settings from gold and silver to Venetian glass and of the post Grand Tour Italian influences which occurred with small banqueting houses being built in gardens, on islands in lakes and other aesthetic locations.
Particularly in the early part of the period, etiquette at feasts was fastidious and people sat at one side of the table only. Table carpets (woven tablecloths) with their intricate designs were draped over the tables and cutlery made of glass as well as glasses made of sugar were often used. There were ten courses or more but people didn’t gorge on a vast quantity but a ‘little of this’ and a ‘little of that’. The banqueting chambers were often classically decorated with the likes of Bacchus, Diana, Jupiter and Juno and they dined on: fine wines, iced cakes, sugar plate (a fondant icing), spices, creams, jellies, melon, peaches, grapes, plums, figs, apricots, greengages, candid angelica, pears covered in sugar crystal, biscuits, macaroons, quince marmalade, raspberry and strawberry jams, crème brûlée, candied fruits, gingerbread, sweet chestnuts, pomegranates, sticky plums in syrup, various syllabubs, and best of all, marzipan.
3rd April 7.30 pm 2008
Music on the Grand Tour
Mr Peter Medhurst.
Studied singing and early keyboard instruments at the RCM and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Appears in the UK and abroad as a musician and scholar giving recitals and illustrated lectures on music and the arts.
Review
Mr Peter Mehurst painted a fascinating and beautiful musical and visual picture of the Grand Tour in the 17th and 18th centuries. For the well-to-do who could afford to leave this country to travel to the great cities of Europe, this was indeed the 'age of enlightenment'. However Italy, with its unrivalled cultural background and climatic advantages, acted as a magnet and those who could travel to extend their education tended to gravitate there to see the works of the great painters and sculptors and also for the music. Many had their portraits painted with Roman remains in the background to show where they had been. Often these travellers returned with great collections of Italian furniture, musical instruments, paintings and other beautiful objects. In music Arcangelo Correlli (1653 – 1713) stood out as the greatest composer of the early baroque period, setting a style that was to pervade most of Europe for the ensuing 100 years. Many great musicians, including G. F. Handel from Halle, J. C. Bach from Leipzig and later W.A. Mozart from Salzburg spent much time in the country and absorbed a great deal of the flowing 'Italian style', both in orchestral and choral music. At this time the art of opera was evolving. When Handel subsequently travelled to London he recognised that a great opportunity existed to fill 'a gap in the market' for Italian opera, and thus became our greatest musical import! Another visitor was Thomas Linley II who studied violin playing under Nardini in Florence and, whilst there, became a close friend of Mozart who regarded him very highly. Sadly, this English musical prodigy (1756 – 1778) died in a boating accident on a lake in Lincolnshire. Some authorities believed that, had he lived, he could have become an 'English Mozart'.
Using a Power-Point presentation, Peter Medhurst showed us paintings of a number of those who took part in the Grand Tour, but added enormously to our enjoyment by playing and singing, in his fine tenor voice, some of the great music of the period, including compositions by Byrd, Correlli (a piece, the score for which was part illustrated in one of the pictures he showed) and Linley – altogether a splendid presentation.
Wells Evening Society wishes to express its appreciation to Bridgewater College for the loan of the Clavinova played during the evening.
24th April 7.30 pm 2008
Ancient Landscapes: Artists in Search of Britain’s Past
Dr Anne Anderson. Senior lecturer at the Southampton Institute teaching and researching in Fine Arts Valuation, and specialising in Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. This lecture recalls Anne’s previous career as an archaeologist and coincides with the 2008 Royal Academy exhibition celebrating 300 years of the Society of Antiquaries.
Review
To be Added
LECTURE REVIEWS 2006-07
12th October 2006 7.30 pm
My favourite things -Antiques
David Battie
Review
A famous face from BBC1's Antiques Roadshow paid a visit to Wells on Thursday to talk at the inaugural meeting of a new social group.
The Wells Evening Society launched its first season of monthly lectures by welcoming David Battie, an antiques expert well-known for his appearances on the popular TV show, as its first lecturer.
His talk at a packed Wells Town Hall was entitled My Favourite Things - Antiques.
Society Chairman Sara Whitehouse said that those who had been involved in the planning of the society had been greatly heartened by the enthusiastic response from the people of Wells and the surrounding area.
She was also delighted that so many people had attended the Wells Evening Society's first event.
The Society has invested in a 12ft Screen for use in the lectures, and has taken great care with the audio system to enable everyone in the hall to see and hear with ease.
14th November 2006 7.30 pm
Vermeer and the Dutch Interior
Brian Cairns
Review
A professional artist as well as art historian, Brian Cairns gave us a beautifully illustrated lecture making full use of the 12 foot square screen purchased by the society. He provided the audience with the historic background to the emergence of Vermeer as a superb exponent of human character, with his figures set in fine perspective and showing the Dutch interiors that are so much loved. Our speaker also drew attention to the many subtleties often embodied in pictures of this period. These set the social context by, for example in group portraits, providing clues as to whether relationships between the sexes were honourable or otherwise. Although recognised as probably the greatest artist of his time, the fact that Vermeer was so interested in character and did not strive after rich patrons, or when he painted them did not always flatter them in ways they might have wished, was among the reasons for his suffering financial hardship during much of his life.
People wishing to find more information on Vermeer should try this site: The Essential Vermeer
7th December 2006 7.30pm
'The Valley of the Kings
Martin Davies
Martin Davies. Has lectured extensively on Ancient Egypt. For many years, committee member the Egyptian Exploration Society and Sudan Archaeological Society.
Review
We were treated to an excellent lecture by Mr Martin Davies on the Tombs of the Pharaonic period of the New Kingdom . This was a period when the Pharaohs of Egypt had given up building large and ostentatious tombs, such as the Pyramids, and had turned to covert burial in the Valley of the Kings.
Together with the talk, we were shown an excellent presentation of slides, amongst which were photographs of some of the most remarkably preserved mummies of the period, slides of hieroglyphic inscriptions, sarcophagi and maps. This lecture gave us an insight into the period and included a look at the everyday life of the Tomb Builders.
At the end of his lecture Mr Davies suggested that anyone interested in finding out more about this period and the tombs in The Valley of the Kings should try the following Web Site: The Theban Mapping Project
With particular reference to KV5 the tomb of the Sons of Rameses II, and another site has pages on KV63 the latest discovery in The Valley.
A summary of a lecture on KV63 by Otto Schaden can be read by clicking here.
4th January 2007
Edward Elgar - A Man of Contradictions
Digby hague-Holmes
Digby Hague-Holmes is an active member of the Elgar and Puccini Societies and is employed by the Duke of Wellington at Stratfield Saye.
Review
Mr Digby Hague-Holmes explained why the Edward Elgar has become a part of the National Heritage but that his image has been distorted today by so many myths. He explained that Elgar's music was 'thinking with sounds', and that his persona was not quite the conventional image of a composer of his day. However, Elgar had a rapier like mind, quick ready wit, and 'punkish' sense of fun.
Mr Hague-Holmes briefly mentioned Elgar's wife Alice who was 9 years his senior and suffered his inferiority complex, bouts of depression and the rudeness that ruled his life. However, it was this dark side of his character with its everyday distortions which shaped his musical inspiration.
His versatility confirmed his position as a, if not the, composer for the common man of the day, when his music became whistled and hummed by the ordinary man in the street.
People wishing to find more information on Elgar should visit the Elgar Society page - Click Here
1st February 2007
Railway Architecture
Janet Cutler
Janet Cutler was formerly a lecturer in the history of science at Sheffield Hallam and the Open Universities and she has lectured to the National Trust and many Civic and Historical Societies.
Review
Janet Cutler explained how the railway network was built by muscle power and that this power was provided by migrant workers called ‘Navvies’ who worked for poor pay in appalling conditions and were often attacked by Landowners. There was a heavy cost of life, thousands died. The Navvies were always paid on Saturdays and spent their money the same night on alcohol, or so it is said.
Classical architecture in railway construction was used to re-assure people that the Railway Companies were not a ‘fly by night’ operation, but solid Companies. This resulted in ‘Castellated’ bridges and entrances to tunnels, in order to to re-assure the people who were worried about this new mode of transport.
The Forth Bridge was, if anything, we were told, over-engineered mainly because of the Tay Bridge disaster. Tavistock Viaduct opened in 1908 was built of concrete shaped like stone. Other bridges were metal girder viaducts. Of the bridges, only one wooden bridge survives. Many of these structures still carry today's traffic.
The stations were solidly built with iron work, columns and filigree panels. Many are Grade Listed. Kings Cross which was built in 1852 the oldest terminal in London and St Pancreas built as Terminal for the Midland line in 1868 together with Curzon Street in Birmingham are all Grade 1 Listed.
Janet finished by saying how disappointed she was at the disappearance of much of the infrastructure, particularly the old Signal Boxes.
1st March 2007
Masterpieces of Classical Art
Ann Birchall
Ann Birchall is an internationally recognized land and underwater archaeologist. She was formerly Assistant Keeper at the British Museum and has extensive world-wide lecturing experience. She was guest speaker at the Woman of the Year Luncheon.
Review
Ann Birchall’s lecture covered the period from the pre-classical Cycladic period of the Aegean Bronze Age 4000-5,000 yrs ago to the early years of the Imperial Roman Empire.
We were shown figurines from the Cycladic Islands which were very beautiful primitive art but can be seen as almost modernistic ‘À la Henry Moore’. One of the high points of this Civilisation occurred around 2000BC with the Minoans. We were shown a slide of a vase of this era from Knossos in Crete which featured the famous Bull Leapers and Ann voiced conjecture on whether perhaps the leaper could be a girl.
Moving on we were told of vases from c.730BC in the British Museum whose subjects are mythological figures. Slides were shown of the panels, known as the Elgin Marbles, from the Parthenon in Athens and slides of the Erectheion on the Acropolis with its Caryatids, one of which is part of Elgin's collection in the British Museum.
We were informed of Attic pottery in the black figurine technique, which was developed in Corinth and taken up by Athenian potters in the 6th - 5th Century BC and also of 4th Century BC red figurine vases which had transposed the colours of the black figurine technique.
We were shown a slide of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey with its solitary rebuilt column. This Temple was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The lecture wound up with a look at the most famous cameo-glass vessel from antiquity, the Portland Vase, which was made in Rome in the early part of the 1st Century AD and is applied with mythological scenes.
People wishing to find more information on Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean or Greek classical art should try this site: - Click Here
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