A 13th Century guide to the heavens Jennifer Evans, 5 June 2013 Ioannis de Sacro Bosco [c. 1195 –c. 1256] was a scholar, monk and astronomer [probably English] who taught at the University in Paris. In around 1230 he wrote this authoritative medieval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera [On the Sphere of the World]. It gives a readable account of the Ptolemaic universe[the universe according to the Hellenistic astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 2ndcentury AD] that went on to become required reading by students in all Western European universities for the next four centuries. Though principally about the heavens it contains a clear description of the earth as a sphere and its popularity shows the nineteenth-century opinion that medieval scholars after this date thought the Earth was flat as a fabrication [Wikipedia].This copy [photographed here] is dated 1577 and forms part of our Vaynor Collection; this consists of a number of 16th and 17th century astronomical works, including several of the writings of Galileo. The collection was formed and donated by John Herbert James of Vaynor [which is just north of Merthyr Tydfil].The condition of this book is excellent; the paper is bright and unmarked, robust to the touch and all the little volvelles [rotating paper wheel charts] still work perfectly.It is bound in pure white vellum [calf skin] as are the majority of the Vaynor astronomical books which I always think gives them a very "celestial" look.
David Jones (1895-1974) Oliver Fairclough, 4 April 2013 Y Cyfarchiad I Fair, a watercolour of about1963, set on a Welsh hillside, and linking the Annunciation to the Celtic myth of redemption. Frontispiece to 'In Parenthesis', 1937, the Christ-like figure of the common man, caught in the predicament of war. Capel-y-ffin, a watercolour of 1926-7, given by David Jones to Eric Gill. Trystan ac Essylt, a highly complex watercolour completed in 1963, showing the doomed lovers of Arthurian legend. David Jones was more profoundly influenced throughout his life by the landscape, language and myths of Wales than any of his contemporaries. An extraordinary and multi-talented man, he occupies a unique place in twentieth-century British art, and is often called the greatest painter-poet since William Blake. It may seem a paradox that David Jones was born a Londoner, visited Wales regularly for just four years between 1924 and 1928, and never made his home here. But then until the 1950s almost all Welsh artists were obliged to make their careers largely outside Wales. Senior Curator, Beth McIntyre explores the visual world of David Jones for Welsh National Opera Jones's father came from Holywell in Flintshire, and passed on a deep sense of his Welsh identity to his son, who was to devote a lifetime to the study of a Welsh culture that he felt was lost to him. When the First World War broke out in 1914, he was determined to join a Welsh regiment. He was wounded on the Somme in that Welsh epic, the battle of Mametz Wood. After three years at Westminster School of Art he joined a community of Catholic craftsmen at Ditchling in Sussex. One of its leaders was the sculptor, typographer and engraver Eric Gill, who was to have a pronounced influence on how he thought about art. He became engaged to Gill's daughter Petra for a while, and went with him when he moved his family from Ditchling to Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains. There Jones found himself as a painter, primarily in watercolour. He developed a personal and modernist vision of the Breconshire landscape that has its roots in the art of Cézanne and Van Gogh. During these years (1924-1928) Jones also spent time with his parents in the London suburb of Brockley, and at the Benedictine monastery on Caldy Island. In 1927 he was commissioned to make a set of copper engravings to illustrate Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the following year he was elected a member of the modernist exhibiting group the 7 & 5 Society. Late in 1932, when he had nearly completed his intricate, poetic narrative of his experience of the First World War, In Parenthesis, he had a nervous breakdown, and found it increasingly difficult to paint. He also turned his back on the modernist art world as it moved closer to abstraction, and spent most of the 1930s holed up in a small hotel in Sidmouth. In Parenthesis was published in 1937, and is now regarded as one of the great achievements of British literary modernism, alongside the works of James Joyce, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence. More poetry followed, and he was also painting more during the Second World War. His work comprising large watercolours - delicate, highly detailed, scholarly, and representational - which often took months to complete. In 1945 he began to work on lettering and to paint inscriptions, drawing on passages from literary works in a mix of Latin, Welsh and Old English. He had another breakdown after the Second World War, and from 1948 he lived in a single room in boarding houses in Harrow. His inspirations, in both painting and in poetry, were his Catholicism, and especially the central mystery of the Mass, and the 'matter of Britain' the Arthurian Legends and the history of post-Roman Britain. His late paintings are uniquely personal, being richly worked and full of allusions to theology, history and legend. His meditation The Anathemata, one of the great long poems of the twentieth century, was published in 1951. Two of his last great paintings encapsulate his post-war achievement, Y Cyfarchiad i Fair or The Greeting to Mary and Trystan ac Essylt, both dating from 1963. The first shows the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin, who is seated in a garden within a landscape based on that around Capel-y-ffin. The second, over which he laboured for three years, depicts the central drama of the legend of Trystan and Essylt, when King Mark's knight and his master's bride drink a fatal love potion on their voyage from Ireland to Cornwall, and is full of richly complex iconographical detail. Why then was this strange, shy, lonely man one of the greatest and most influential Welsh artists of the twentieth century? It is, I believe, because he identified so passionately with the idea of Wales, and of the importance of its language and culture to the shared experience of Britain over the last two thousand years. Jones was part of Wales's growing political and cultural consciousness during the 1950s and 1960s (a friend and correspondent was Saunders Lewis, a co-founder of Plaid Cymru). His work was seen here, for example in a major touring exhibition organised by the Welsh Arts Council in 1954, and he was awarded a gold medal by the National Eisteddfod in 1964. He shows us how an artist can develop a Welsh voice far beyond mere representation of place.
The launch of 'Wallace 100' Julian Carter, 29 January 2013 On the evening of Thursday 24th January I was fortunate to be invited to the Natural History Museum in London. The event was for the unveiling of a portrait of the intrepid explorer and brilliant naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace by comedian and fellow naturalist Bill Bailey.The painting was donated to the NaturalHistoryMuseum in 1923 to mark the 100th anniversary of Wallace's birth but was moved in 1971. It has now been restored and returned to its original position on the main stairs of the Central Hall, near to the Charles Darwin statue.The unveiling of the painting also marked the official launch of Wallace100 and the Wallace Letters Online website, both of which are part of the celebrations for this year's centenary anniversary of Wallace's death.Some famous names of the natural science world were in attendance at the launch including Sir David Attenborough, whose hand I got to shake!A number of organisations in Wales, including Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, will be joining the Wallace 100 celebrations. The museum is planning a number of activities and events to run alongside our exhibition planned for later this year. Keep an eye on our website for further information.
We have completed our work on the Wallace Palms! Julian Carter, 29 November 2012 Over recent months, botanical conservators Vicky Purewal and Annette Townsend have been carrying out painstaking work on a series of eleven historical palm specimens. They were collected around 1850 by the renowned British naturalist and explorer Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) during his travels in the Amazon. Wallace is best known for his studies on evolution, which helped trigger the publication of Charles Darwin’s ground breaking research ‘Origin of Species’.The Wallace palms reside at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the curators there requested that Vicky and Annette, who are specialist conservators in botanical collections at AC-NMW, carry out the necessary conservation work. The specimens are over 150 years old and had to endure adverse conditions in the hold of a ship, and then later to contend with soot and pollution from Battersea Power station. The palms were understandably very fragile and in need of plenty of careful cleaning, re-structuring and repackaging so that their true splendour could be appreciated by all. The palms have been re-housed in custom made boxes so that they can travel back to Kew safely and are also now fit for display.You will be able to see the palms for yourself on display at AC-NMW in Oct 2013, as RBG Kew will be loaning some of the collection for our Wallace’s bicentenary exhibition and celebrations.
Describing new worms Julian Carter, 21 November 2012 Marine scientist Teresa Darbyshire has just re-discribed a new species of Polychaete (commonly called marine bristleworms). Unfortunately, a recent description of the new species, Dysponetus joeli (Olivier et al. 2012) used damaged specimens and errors were made. This is because Polychaetes react notoriously badly to being handled roughly which is usually unavoidable with large marine surveys. Collected specimens are often in very bad condition by the time they are identified. However, hand collected specimens by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales from survey work done in 2009 in the Isles of Scilly were found to be the same species but in very good condition. Using these specimens and comparing them with the original specimens from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle Paris, enabled the errors to be corrected. A re-description and revised species key have now been published - http://goo.gl/uAUqM.
