Queering the art collection: new LGBTQ+ tours Stephanie Roberts, 6 March 2020 On 15 March we launch our new LGBTQ+ tours at National Museum Cardiff. The tours have been developed in partnership with Pride Cymru working with self-confessed Museum queerator Dan Vo and an amazing team of volunteers.You may already have read Norena Shopland's blog about the Ladies of Llangollen, and Young Heritage Leader Jake’s post, Queer Snakes! There are so many more LGBTQ+ stories in our collection – stories that have been hidden in dusty museum closets for too long. Friends, it’s time for us to let them out!To whet your appetite, here’s a quick glimpse at one of the works you might spot on the tour…The Mower, by Sir William Hamo ThornycoftThe Mower is a bronze statuette on display in our Victorian Art gallery. It is about half a metre high and shows a topless young farmworker in a hat and navvy boots resting with his arm on his hip, holding a scythe. This sassy pose, known as contrapposto, was inspired by Donatello’s David - a work with its own queer story to tell.The Mower was made by William Hamo Thornycroft, one of the most famous sculptors in Britain in the nineteenth century, and was given to the Museum in 1928 by Sir William Goscombe John. An earlier, life-size version is at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and is said to be the first significant free-standing sculpture showing a manual labourer made in Britain.Thornycroft became fascinated with manual labourers and the working classes after being introduced to socialist ideas by his wife, Agatha Cox. He wrote ‘Every workman’s face I meet in the street interests me, and I feel sympathy with the hard-handed toilers & not with the lazy do nothing selfish ‘upper-ten.’ In The Mower, he presents the body of a young working-class man as though it's a classical hero or god – a brave move for the time.Queering the MowerWith the rising interest in queer theory, many art historians have drawn attention to the queer in this sculpture. In an article by Michael Hatt the work is described as homoerotic, which he describes as that ambiguous space between the homosocial and homosexual.One of the main factors is the artist’s relationship with Edmund Gosse, a writer and critic who helped establish Thornycroft’s reputation in the art world. Gosse was married with children, but his letters to Thornycroft give us a touching insight into their relationship.He describes times they spent together basking in the sun in meadows and swimming naked in rivers; and they are filled with love poems and giddy declarations of affection. ‘Nature, the clouds, the grass, everything takes on new freshness and brightness now I have you to share the world with,’ he wrote. Gosse was so obsessed with Thornycroft that writer Lytton Strachey famously joked he wasn’t homosexual, but Hamo-sexual.Gosse and Thornycroft were spending time together when the first inspiration for The Mower hit. They were sailing with a group of friends up the Thames when they spotted a real-life mower on the riverbank, resting. Thornycroft made a quick sketch, and the idea for the sculpture was born. A wax model sketch from 1882 is at the Tate.The real-life mower they saw was wearing a shirt, but for his sculpture Thornycroft stripped him down. He explained to his wife that he wanted to ‘keep his hat on and carry his shirt’ and that a brace over his shoulder will help ‘take off the nude look’.Brace or no brace, it’s difficult to hide the fact that this is a celebration of the male body designed for erotic appeal. Thornycroft used an Italian model, Orazio Cervi. Cervi was famous in Victorian Britain for his ‘perfectly proportioned physique’ (art historical speak for a hot bod!)Later in the century, photographs of The Mower and other artworks were collected and exchanged in secret along with photographs of real life nudes, by a network of men mostly in London – a kind of queer subculture, although it wouldn’t have been understood in those terms back then.This was dangerous ground. The second half of the nineteenth century saw what has been described as a ‘homosexual panic’, with rising anxieties around gender identity, sexuality and same-sex desire. Fanny and Stella, the artist Simeon Solomon and Oscar Wilde were among many who were hounded and publicly prosecuted for ‘indecent’ behaviour.These tensions showed up in the art world too. Many of the artists associated with the Aesthetic and Decadent movements in particular were under scrutiny for producing works that were described as ‘effeminate’, ‘degenerate’ or ‘decadent’. But works like The Mower suggest that art might have provided a safer space for playing out private desires in a public arena at this time. Book your place on our free volunteer-led LGBTQ+ tours here, and keep an eye on our website and social media for future dates!
Meet Ming the clam – how do we know it is the oldest animal in the world? Anna Holmes, 4 March 2020 A slice though a tree trunk. Can you see all 88 lines? Ocean Quahogs, called Arctica islandica by scientists, grow up to 13cm long and can reach great ages. One shell was aged at 507 years old and so was nicknamed Ming because it would have been born in 1499 during the Ming Dynasty in China.But how do we know how old Ming is? A slice though a tree trunk. Can you see all 88 lines? Trees, corals and clams grow by adding layers that create annual lines. Counting these lines allows them to be aged. This process of counting them is called Sclerochonology pronounced ‘sklero-kronologee’. Tree rings can be found by simply cutting through a tree trunk and the lines, visible as rings because tree trunks are roughly circular in cross-section, are clearly visible. In our Natural History gallery we have a large tree section with important events in history labelled on the rings – come and see it! Coral polyps Corals are made up of many individual animals known as polyps. The polyps are tiny – only a few millimetres – but can form huge reefs. Polyps form a living mat over a calcium carbonate skeleton. As polyps die their calcium carbonate skeleton is left behind and then new polyps are formed to replace them. The layers of calcium carbonate vary from season to season and so can be counted to age the coral reef. Corals are found all over the world, not just in the tropics. The polyps in the image are from a British specimen of Dead man's fingers (Alcyonium digitatum) in our marine invertebrate collections at Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd - National Museum Cardiff. A mushroom coral and a brain coral, cut to reveal the age lines Enlarged models of shell sections Ocean Quahogs lay down layers of calcium carbonate every year and these layers form lines that can be counted. The thin sections of shell need to be embedded in resin so they can be handled without breaking and the lines within can then be counted. As with corals, calcium carbonate is taken from the surrounding ocean to create layers of calcium carbonate and so Information on sea temperature, light and nutrient conditions is trapped in the layers. These characteristics can then be analysed decades or even centuries later to provide information on climate change. Scientists have already analysed over 1,300 years of past climate information from the North Atlantic. Resin blocks with thin shell sections inside To find out where Ocean Quahogs live and how long some animals can live for go to:https://museum.wales/blog/2020-02-12/Meet-Ming-the-clam---the-oldest-animal-in-the-world-/
The Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt, 1842–52 Elen Phillips, 2 March 2020 Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt, 1842–52 Collections Online: Patchwork Bedcover Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales is home to over two hundred examples of quilting and patchwork. This vast collection includes a wide variety of styles and techniques, ranging in date from the early 1700s to the present day. The Wrexham Tailor’s Quilt is probably one of the most well-known patchworks produced in Wales. Made by James Williams – a military master tailor from 8 College Street, Wrexham – its design is unlike any other in the Museum’s collection. The quilt’s background is a pieced composition of diamond patches, chevrons, squares and rhomboids. Biblical scenes dominate the centre – Adam naming the animals, Jonah and the Whale, Noah’s Ark with a dove bearing an olive branch, and Cain and Abel. Other figurative motifs include Thomas Telford’s Menai Suspension Bridge (opened in 1826), a Chinese pagoda, and Cefn Viaduct, complete with a crossing steam train. Details are picked out through embroidery in silk thread. Meticulously pieced, James Williams made his quilt by recycling a variety of felted woollen cloths, possibly off-cuts of broadcloth from military uniforms. In total, it consists of 4,525 separate pieces of cloth, butt-joined with overcast stitches worked from the reverse. Examples of this type of inlaid (‘intarsia’) patchwork found in museum collections are usually the work of professional tailors. The technique requires a high degree of skill and the use of thick cloth that does not fray to accommodate the oversewing required. According to family history, James Williams spent a decade completing the piece, the work being done in his leisure hours between 1842 and 1852. The quilt soon became an exhibition piece; it was displayed at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Wrexham in 1876, at the Palace of Arts in Wembley in 1925, and to much public acclaim at the Wrexham National Eisteddfod of 1933. Census returns for the Wrexham area suggest that James Williams was born in 1818. His tailoring establishment appears in numerous trade directories from the 1850s onwards. He died in 1895, leaving his son to inherit the family business. Forty years after his death, the economic depression of the 1930s prompted Williams’s grandson to sell the quilt to the Museum, stating that “it has always been my wish that the quilt should be sent to [the] National Museum of Wales so as my fellow countrymen should have the opportunity to admire a work of art that today could not be done if you were to pay the most skilful craftsman £1 a minute to do”.
Weaving the Future at the National Wool Museum Ann Whittall, 26 February 2020 Wool is being heralded as the all-natural, planet friendly, renewable and biodegradable future fibre. In an age in which we must question the impact that clothing and fast fashion are having on the planet, a growing number of consumers are returning to natural fibres – not just for clothing, but also to insulate and furnish their home. Preserving traditional skills is an important part of the work of Amgueddfa Cymru, but with this growing interest in natural and sustainable fibres, as well as the upsurge in homespun fashion and textiles, what have for years been considered ‘heritage crafts’ may well become important skills for the future.Visitors to the National Wool Museum in Dre-fach Felindre already enjoy watching the master weavers of Melin Teifi, a commercial woollen mill who are tenants at the museum, weave beautiful fabrics in traditional patterns on mechanised looms. They provide visitors with a fascinating insight into the workings and processes of a working mill. But sadly, Melin Teifi is the last mill in Wales producing traditional Welsh flannel. At the height of the industry in the 20th century there were 217 mills in Wales, mainly producing Welsh blankets, flannel and tapestry cloth. There are currently 7 to 8 woollen mills operating in Wales, and there is a serious danger that these skills will not be preserved for the future, unless a concerted effort is made. That is why Amgueddfa Cymru is especially delighted to welcome three new trainee Crafters to our team at the National Wool Museum. They are James Whittall, Jay Jones and Richard Collins. They joined in December and have already begun their training in heritage craft skills. They’ve recently begun demonstrating some of their newly acquired hand craft skills to our visitors. This helps us bring the story of the wool industry and the museum’s collection alive. As they develop weaving skills over the coming months and years, they may also help us fulfil some of the increasing demand for products with provenance and develop new commercial activity for the museum.Our hope is that such activity could, in the future, support our rural economy and stimulate opportunities for our young people to realise the potential of gaining skilled work and fulfilling lives in this region, with the added benefit of supporting the maintenance and development of the Welsh language. The landscape of the woollen industry in Wales is likely to change over the coming years, and there is potential for the growth of ‘micro mills’, providing that traditional skills are retained to enable supply to Welsh designers. We are delighted to be playing our part in reclaiming these valuable skills to support the regeneration of what has historically been one of Wales’s most important industries.Richard Collins, Trainee Crafter, learning to spin on one of the museums treadle wheels.BBC Radio Wales Roy Noble Programme 01/03/2020: National Wool Museum's new Crafters (Listen from 1:12:00)
Why we collect flower data Penny Dacey, 24 February 2020 Hello Bulb Buddies,I hope that you have had a good half term. Have any of your plants flowered over the holidays? Remember to enter the date your plant flowers and the height of your plant in mm to the website. We ask for the flowering date for every single plant to be entered, these are then used to work out the average flowering date for your school.Schools that are taking part in the Edina Trust Extension Project are also asked to note whether each daffodil record they enter is from a bulb planted in the ground or in a pot.We talk a lot about the weather records you take each week, but the flower records are just as important. We are investigating how changes in the weather effect the flowering dates of spring plants. To do this we need to be able to compare flowering dates for each year the investigation has been running.The bar chart below shows the average flowering dates for spring plants in Wales since 2006. You can see from the chart that 2019 saw the earliest flowering dates since 2008. Do you think our plants will flower earlier or later this year Bulb Buddies? Average flowering dates for Wales 2006-2019 The bar chart below shows the average flowering date for each country in 2019. You can see from the chart that plants flowered earliest in Northern Ireland and latest in Scotland. Do you think we will see the same pattern this year Bulb Buddies? Average flowering dates 2019 Watch your plants closely over the next few weeks. Last year the average flowering dates for crocus was 22 February.It’s fascinating to see how your plants change over time. There are activities on the website about the life cycle of plants: https://museum.wales/spring-bulbs/Remember to share your photos with me Bulb Buddies.Professor Plant
