The anger in the ink.

This blog seems to have generated a little theme about art, artists and the mentally unbalanced, although it wasn't planned, similar subjects keep presenting themselves and so I duly take up the challenge.  Although I believe most artists are sane, they often are the least interesting in themselves, and as we as a species have an unquenchable taste for drama, those who behave strangely while being artistic geniuses are always going to catch our attention.  While the rest plod away at their work (even those we account as geniuses) and live very ordinary lives, the slightest strangeness makes them seem a bit more interesting and glamorous.  Those that are touched by the bizarre really stand out.

James Gillray was just such a one, a man who must have had some inner anger that had to have some outlet and which he sometimes unleashed onto the subjects of his political caricatures.  He was prolific, and did all sorts of subjects, often commenting on the outlandish garments and fashions adopted by his contemporaries which are funny and grotesque, but he kept his real venom for politicians, the French and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The history of the period is complex and detailed, just as the politics of our own age is difficult to follow in all of its winding threads, but to see a Gillray cartoon is often to be confronted by a confusing image that at the same time is so intriguing, perplexing and of such a violent and challenging nature that we feel driven to discover what its about, to read the often  intricate and hard to read captions and try to gain some sense from it.  Not that it wouldn't have made perfect sense to his contemporaries, but today a deep knowledge of British and European politics of the late eighteenth century is required to understand it fully.

James Gillray (1756 - 1815  Tales of Wonder 1802.  Captioned 'This attempt to describe the effects of the sublime & wonderful, is dedicated to M. G. Lewis Esq MP.'  M.G Lewis was Matthew Lewis the author of the early Gothic horror success 'The Monk'.

For example, the man burning in flames at the top of the page is Charles James Fox.  He was the MP for Midhurst, West Sussex and the great rival of William Pitt, the First Lord of the Treasury or Prime Minister in today's language.  Fox was a great radical and member of the Liberal party, a supporter of the American and later the French revolutions and a hater of George lll.  In turn, he seems to have been hated and distrusted by James Gillray.  But Gillray seems to have had an almost innate dislike of politicians in general, a sometimes supporter of Pitt, a Conservative, he could turn on them in a moment and depict them in the basest of terms.

The top of page image is from a larger print entitled Doublures of Characters; - Or striking Resemblances in Phisiognomy -"If you would know mens hearts, look in their faces"  It is an anti-Jacobin cartoon published in November 1798 illustrating seven individuals, members of the Liberal party and all supposed or actual radical supporters of the French revolution and the downfall of King George.  That quote, "If you would know mens hearts. . ."  is from the writings of Johann Kasper Lavater, the man who started the pseudo science of Phisiognomy - the reading of the bumps on a persons head.  He believed that everything about a person could be construed from the shape of their skull and the form of their faces.

James Gillray (1756 - 1815)  Doublures of Characters; - Or striking Resemblances in Phisiognomy

The cartoon is actually quite mild by Gillrays standards, but encapsulates what he must privately have thought about almost all politicians.  It purports to display each mans 'inner soul' in a double portrait that stands behind them.  The print reads from left to right along the top and doesn't name them but with a little research they are  1) Charles James Fox as 'A patron of liberty or The Arch Fiend' :  2) Richard Brinsley Sheriden as 'A friend of his country or Judas betraying his master' :  3) The Duke of Norfolk as a Character of high birth or Silenus debauching:  4) Charles Tierney as 'A finished patriot or The lowest Spirit of Hell' :  5) Sir Francis Burdett as Arbitur Elegantiarium or Sixteen string Jack  6) Lord Derby as 'Strong sense or a baboon' : 7) The Duke of Bedford as 'A pillar of the state or a Newmarket jockey'.

Many of Gillrays cartoons go much much further than this in their attacks on the character and reputations of the politicians of the day, and the Royal Family also took the brunt of much of the flack.  He also hated the French revolutionaries over the channel and when the details of their excesses are examined I can understand that.  To him it must have seemed that animals had taken over the government of the country, rather as we would feel if Daesh had taken over the whole of Paris instead of limiting their activity to merely killing a number of the cities innocent people.  Gillrays reaction to the French revolution is one of great fear and anger, and probably reflects how his contemporaries truly felt; it shows itself in horrible scenes of revolutionaries devouring people, chewing on severed arms and eating eyeballs from a spoon.  He hammers home time and again the results of not doing enough to suppress those that tacitly supported the revolution.
 

James Gillray.  A famous cartoon Of William Pitt entitled 'An Excresence; A fungus; Alias - A Toadstool upon a Dunghill'.  1791

 In his later career the Conservative William Pitt hired Gillray to make a number of cartoons that showed him and his party in a good light, but this didn't last for long.  Gillray continually depicted Pitt in excessive even scatological terms and obviously liked to give his shot the widest possible field.  To come back to the beginning - I mentioned that this thread had a touch of madness, and sadly Gillray succumbed to ill health, depression brought about because of his failing eyesight, and eventually tried suicide by attempting to throw himself from a window.  He fell into a bewildered insanity while working on his last print in 1811, and was nursed by Miss Hannah Humphrey who had owned and successfully run the print shop where Gillray had lived for decades.  His work had made her rich, and she saw him right in the end.

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In the bleak midwinter..

One of my favourite paintings is Pieter Bruegel's 'Hunters in the Snow', a wonderful evocation of winter and one of the coldest works of art that exist.  So cold, in fact, that you can almost feel the cold air folding out from it into the room.  Not much is known about the painter, his date of birth is unknown; he is mentioned in a list of members of the painters guild in 1551, his first son was born in 1564, his second in 1568 and he died the following year.

The types of painting he produced are mysterious, strange, metaphysical and have informed the modern view of the late medieval world probably too strongly for accuracy's sake.  When you look at his paintings together it is hard not to assume that the painter was a little disturbed.  Paintings such as 'Dulle Griet', and 'The Triumph of Death' have a strong impact and their obsessive tiny details (as seen in Dadd's 'The Fairy Fellers Masterstroke') suggest madness.  But I don't think Bruegel was mad.  You just need a degree in medieval art history to tease out the meanings of the details and interpret them.  So sorry, can't help you there. 

Hunters in the Snow.  Detail of the mountain range.

 But when you look at 'Hunters in the Snow', although I'm sure it's jam-packed with hidden meaning, it's the basic representation that we can all understand and appreciate.  It's apparently one of the most popular medieval images to appear on secular style Christmas cards.  It's a beautifully realised image of three men as they make their way through a snow covered - landscape on a hunting trip.  It's unclear if they are coming back or starting out, they have no animal carcasses with them so they might be starting out, but on the other hand maybe they've been unsuccessful and are returning empty-handed.  The figures are framed between three thin stark tree trunks, and following behind them are about thirteen hounds.  They pass by houses, an inn on their left where the people are burning something outside their door.

The hunters are on the peak of a hill, and are starting their decent.  Below there are a number of large frozen-over fish ponds, offshoots from the nearby river visible in the background, and at the bottom of this hill stands another red brick house, complete with a raised brick arch conveying a road over the pond.  At one side of this house, is a large brick structure that may possibly be a boathouse with a tall arched opening from which hangs a thick mass of icicles.

An Artist with his Patron.  Possibly the main figure is a self portrait by Bruegel.

 I remember these kinds of winters, although the UK doesn't have them any more; when I was a child between the ages of one and ten, the UK had real winters with real bite, the last such winters the country had in the twentieth century.  I remember it would snow in early December, a good fall, and then instead of melting the next day as it always did after about 1970 (global warming deniers take note) it would stay on the ground, freezing hard until a few days later a second fall would cover it.  The temperature would remain constant and there would be a third fall of glittering white snow, frequently with the clear blue sky that always accompanies really cold days.  Its these sorts of memories that come back to me when I see this painting.  Bruegel's painting however has a grey green sky, a great colour choice for representing a certain kind of cloudy sky.

Yes, I remember the kinds of days Bruegel is depicting, although I suspect his winter was harsher than any I ever experienced, the air so cold, it seems to attack you, makes your skin sting and toes and fingers ache, even though the air is still, with no wind.  Bruegal's painting is wonderfully detailed, you need to see it for real or have a very high quality print reproduction to see it all.  It is one of the best landscapes I know, receding back - and back again and filled with lively activity and incident.  Beyond the frozen ponds on which tiny figures skate and play there are more houses and trees, a church and beyond them more tinier figures are hurrying across a bridge over the river, carrying a ladder - the reason?

Hunters in the Snow.  Pieter Bruegel  A painting of space, cold and silence.

On the other side of the river is their house, and other people are in the process of climbing another ladder on to the thatched roof - because the chimney is on fire.  (See top of page)  A little drama all played out in miniature in the background of this painting.  But the painting goes back further, more trees, copses of trees, hamlets, a profusion of churches and to the right a large mountain range projects upwards towards the green sky.  To the left is the distant coast, and some large town, maybe a busy harbour or fishing community with a prominent church steeple.

I suppose if it has a meaning it's something to do with the smallness of human endeavour and the hugeness of the world; although we are close to the hunters and see them looming large in the landscape, all the life around them is there to be seen, so much in fact that they begin to dwindle in importance in their own picture, they become part of the landscape, merely compositional marks on the white.

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Sons of the desert.

It's interesting to reflect on the influence that past archaeological investigations have had on our modern way of seeing the world.  Before the military campaigns of Napolean people in the west had heard of Egypt, but just had a general sense of it being a hot country far away.   In medieval times they knew the country was Moslem and therefore the opposite of good Christians, and very likely the kind of people the crusades were being fought against.  But as for having a good solid well formed picture of Egypt and its people the western idea was as a fanciful but rather indistinct place where magic might be real and possible, as in Mozart's The Magic Flute.

But it could be said that our present picture of Egypt is still the pyramids first, and the people second.  It's the impact that the discovery of the actual remains of this past civilisation had on the west, its artists, thinkers and scientists that still colours our thinking today.  The strangeness of Egyptian art for people who had based their vision on that of the renaissance which in turn was derived from the classical Greeks and Romans, must have been profound.  They couldn't dismiss it  (Though I'm sure some must have done) as being crude and without value, for any contemplation of the best sculpture and architecture from ancient Egypt shows that they were extremely sophisticated.  And wasn't there a Roman connection?  Hadn't the Romans conquered the place?  Hadn't Julius Caesar and Cleopatra got it on together?  They must be alright then.

The West's 'discovery' of Egypt fed into its art ever since and influenced more strongly than many other cultures.  But there were a few others that had an effect, and although they might not be as recognisable as Egyptian cultural heritage they have been acknowledged as very influential.  When I was a kid I was very interested in history but remember when I looked through a history textbook, I found certain parts of it less interesting than others.  I found chapters about the Assyrians difficult to get along with, as at the time I didn't 'get' their art, or dress or their inexplicable liking for long curly beards.  It wasn't until I was about twenty- nine that I finally got the Assyrians.

Gloomy nineteenth century engraving of John Martins 'Fall of Nineveh'

I read a book by an American named Arnold C Brackman called 'The Luck of Nineveh' and found it engrossing; an account of the discovery of a whole lost culture from top to bottom.  In the 1820s the Assyrians were people who appeared in the Bible, and nowhere else.  The Bible refers to the capital city of Nineveh as 'that great city', but there wasn't a single brick, a single line of writing, not one sculpture or wall painting, not one thing that could serve as evidence of its existence.  Historians talked about them as being a Biblical metaphor, not real in any other sense, just there to point a moral.  The Old Testament of the Bible tells how various vassal states of the Assyrian Empire got tired of being under Assyrian control and at last came together and marched a huge army on Nineveh.

 The cities dissipated emperor, Ashurbanipal (aka Sardanapalus) realising that the jig was up, created a massive funeral pyre inside his palace where he died alongside all his concubines and eunuchs (who had no choice) in one massive conflagration which ended the 800 year old empire.  The Bible has no good word to say about Assyria, it being in the minds of the writers of the Old Testament the very home of evil, and this is why historians believed it to be a Biblical metaphor for all bad things.  The Israelite prophet Nahum writing about Nineveh says 'Woe to the bloody city, it is all lies and wickedness!'  And later, after the destruction, 'Shattered is Nineveh, who shall pity her?'.  But all this comes from one book, with nothing in the way of real evidence.  The prophet Ezekiel said about the cities long standing greatness,  'Behold, the Assyrian is a cedar of Lebanon, and under his shadow dwell all great nations.'   So where were they, why, if the Bible account was correct were there no ruins, no artefacts ?

Drawing of Austen Henry Layard drawing at Kuyunjik, the site of Nineveh.

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817 - 1894) was the son of a merchant and diplomat of French Huguenot decent, and from an early age he displayed an aptitude for languages and adventure.  By the time he started out across Europe in 1839 with a friend heading for Ceylon to take up a post with the civil service he already spoke fluent French and Italian, and had seen at the British Museum (but unknown to him or anyone else at the time) an actual piece of Assyrian writing on a tablet - writing that we now call cuneiform.  Layards companion Edward Mitford decided to take the cross- land route because he disliked sea travel and because it gave them both a chance to study more of the antiquities along the way.  They intended to go through Europe, Asia Minor, Central Asia, down the Indian subcontinent and then across Adam's bridge, a chain of dangerous sandbanks which separated India from Ceylon.  But it didn't quite work out that way.  Layard and Mitford detoured into Mesopotamia (Now modern Iraq) and Layard became interested in the surrounding culture and languages.  Here Layard met an Italian born French researcher named Paolo Emilio Botta who had been digging in strange earthen mounds that stood in the deserts of northern Iraq.  Today we know these mounds, called tells, are the remains of very ancient cities made of mud bricks that have eroded into dust.

The removal of the giant 'Lamassu' sculptures from the Kuyunjik mound.

Botta had the idea that there might be something of value in them, and even had a few tiles like the one Layard had seen in the British Museum.  Suddenly Layard saw the sense of the digging and became inspired to do some himself, just as Botta became discouraged from continuing.  From the moment he made his decision Layard entered in to the world of the thousand and one nights, he had adventure, some within the diplomatic service, romance, learnt languages by the handful and also managed to rediscover an entire civilization.  Although Europeans were a novelty to the people of Iraq at that time (They spoke of Europeans as 'the Franks', harking back to French crusaders) Layard could speak their language well, dressed like them and was charming and likeable.  He had problems from time to time but never any lack of co-operation.  Digging into a particular tell called Kuyunjik near the small town of Mosul he uncovered perhaps his finest contribution to world archaeology, the ruins of the city of Nineveh.  The mound twenty or thirty feet deep from top to ground level was once the large mud brick palaces of the Assyrian kings, each unfired brick that made up the walls had crumbled and formed a vast pile of dirt that had been seeded with grass and flowers over centuries and so the mounds had grown.  The mound had been known for thousands of years, the Greek general Xenophon had marched troops past it two hundred years after its collapse and had noted ; We marched one stage, six parasangs, to the great stronghold, deserted and lying in ruins'. 

Layards own reconstruction of the interior of a palace throne room.

Inside the mound although the brick and plaster structure had completely degraded, the shape of the walls could still be discerned because the builders had lined the walls with beautiful alabaster carvings of hunting scenes, battles, scenes of fishing, feasting and depictions of the gods.  And at the site of each gate into the palace complex were the most famous Assyrian sculptures of all, the winged 'Lamassu', giant stone sculptures depicting winged bulls with men's heads.  They were gate guardians, spirits seen throughout Babylonian, Assyrian and Persian art.  Layard discovered the very first seen by the western world.  They also discovered the 'cedar works' mentioned in the Bible, the huge wooden beams that had once supported the roofs, some badly burnt in the final destruction.  And maybe more importantly, they discovered libraries of clay tablets with the unknown arrow headed lettering, great rooms filled with tablets which were carefully taken and recorded.  This writing wasn't deciphered until about 1855, and the real mass of this work was done by an Irish clergyman named Dr Edward Hincks.  It helped to identify all of the Assyrian kings mentioned in the Bible and formed a chronology that gave a better understanding of their time and place in history.

Photograph from the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition, showing part of the Assyrian court.

 Layard had discovered Nineveh and the Assyrian empire when still a young man, but its study filled the rest of his life and the impact of the artefacts he discovered was felt all around the world.  At the 1851 exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London there were arcades of reconstructed historical periods, and as well as a Greek, Roman, medieval and Egyptian arcade, there was an Assyrian arcade, complete with a gate and painted Lamassu.  The great museums of the world competed to aquire Lamassu and other assyrian sculpture for their own collections and Layard was knighted in 1878.  He served in the Liberal party in various government posts, but found himself gradually sidelined from archaeology by changes at the British Museum which was a great frustration and disappointment to him.  His position in the history of archaeology has suffered over time because he made his discovery when young and then spent the rest of his life in the less than riveting arena of politics, unlike Heinrich Schliemann who made a big splash after he had become a multi millionaire and had all that business behind him.

Brackman's Luck of Nineveh was written between 1976 and 78, but as good as it is, it doesn't seem that Layard is any bigger in the public consciousness.  His life would make a great film or TV series, but whether that happens or not its certainly time for Layard to be more generally known.

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