‘Holyrood’, <em>The Bulletin,</em> 12 November 1903
Battle of Flodden (9 September 1513), Bonnie Prince Charlie, bush ballads, Corridor of Kings, Edinburgh, David Riccio, David Rizzio, Flodden Field, Holyrood Abbey, Holyrood Palace, Jacobite Uprising, James IV (1473-1513), Lord Darnley, lute, Mary Queen of Scots, monarchy, nostalgia, royal residence, Scotland, the Forty Five, Will H. Ogilvie (1869-1963).
As a young man, William H. (‘Will’) Ogilvie spent 12 years in outback Australia, ‘horse-breaking, droving, mustering and camping out on the vast plains’ before returning home to Scotland in 1901 (See Clement Semmler, 'Ogilvie, William Henry (Will) (1869–1963)', <em>Australian Dictionary of Biography</em>, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ogilvie-william-henry-will-7890). He was a prolific writer and much of his poetry and verse appeared in <em>The Bulletin</em>. This poem is set in Holyrood palace, the principal residence of Scottish royals from the fifteenth century. The poet’s reference to ‘ancient tower and archway’ hints at the older provenance of the site, where Holyrood Abbey had stood since 1128. In the poem, the reader is taken on a journey “down the storied halls” while the lives of persons and events of note are recounted. The Scots massacred by the English at Flodden Field are remembered, including James IV - the last of the medieval kings in the ‘Corridor of Kings’ - who ruled Scotland from 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The verses also reference Mary Queen of Scots, who resided at Holyrood from 1561-1567; her Secretary David Rizzio (also Riccio), who was violently stabbed to death by Lord Darnley in 1566; and ‘Bonnie’ Prince Charlie (“a rebel prince”) and the 1745 Jacobite Uprising. Ogilvie’s nostalgic poem appeared in <em>The Bulletin</em> in November 1903, after first being printed in <em>The Scotsman</em>.
Will H. Ogilvie
<em>The Bulletin</em>
<em>The Bulletin</em>
12 November 1903
Public Domain
Journal (Microfilm)
‘The Seasons window,’ Mandeville Hall, Toorak
autumn, country, cupid, David Relph Drape, Diana, Ferguson & Urie, foliage, frieze, harvest, Joseph Clarke, landscape, nature, nostalgia, Romanesque, Saint George, seasons, spring, St George, stained glass, stairwell, summer, Toorak, VIC, Victoria, window, winter
This staircase ‘Seasons’ window at Mandeville Hall in Toorak was designed by David Relph Drape and created by Ferguson & Urie for the original owner, millionaire Joseph Clarke, in 1877. The circular medallions in the centre of the window depict scenes of the four different seasons, beginning with winter. The idyllic country scenes that fill the main medallions are of typically English views, and doubtless served, as Beverley Sherry suggests, as “persuasive [and ‘nostalgic’] reminders of ‘home’†(Australia’s Historic Stained Glass, Sydney, Murray Child, 1991, p.39). The figures to the left and right of the medallions also represent the four seasons, and feature banners identifying which season they represent. Clarke’s initials appear on the central lower border flanked by curved floral motifs that were probably adapted from classical Roman frieze work. There is also a star-studded cross of St George at each of the corners. In this way, classical Rome, medievalism, and British imperialism appear as natural offshoots of the other. This decorative and largely opaque window is intricately patterned with entwined foliage, and dominated by figural seasonal vignettes. It is crowned by a semi-circular top light (another concession to the architectural ‘Romanesque’ or Norman style) containing a reclining Diana, and Cupid holding a bow.
Brown, Ray
6 December 2010
© Ray Brown
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In Springtime (Im Fruhling)
Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), art, beauty, Felton Bequest, feminine ideal, landscape, medieval dress, medieval theme, music, musical instrument, naturalism, nature, nostalgia, Renaissance art, Renaissance beauty, seasons, spring, springtime, VIC, Victoria
This work by Swiss-born artist Arnold Böcklin was acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria with funds from the Felton Bequest in 1977. The painting depicts two beautiful ‘otherworldly’ female figures in flowing, colourful dresses walking in an idyllic green landscape. Although the dresses are of a romanticised medieval style, the naturalism with which the landscape is rendered is a typically nineteenth-century artistic style. “By bringing a modern sensibility to a late medieval sceneâ€, Ted Gott et al have suggested, “the artist has brilliantly linked to his contemporary world the fifteenth-century ideal of beauty†(19th Century Painting and Sculpture in the International Collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 2003, p.63).
Böcklin, Arnold
National Gallery of Victoria
National Gallery of Victoria
1873
National Gallery of Victoria
Oil on Canvas, 104.5 x 78cm;
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Bouguereau’s Virgin and Child
art, artwork, child, Christ Child, crucifixion, devotional art, devotional, gaze, halo, icon, infant Jesus, Madonna, Mary, nostalgia, religious, religion, religious art, SA, South Australia, virgin, Virgin Mary, William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)
This work by William Adolphe Bouguereau was acquired by the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1899 with funds from the Elder Bequest. It depicts the Virgin Mary, clothed in a dark green dress with gold trim and seated against a backdrop of rich gold cloth, holding the infant Jesus on her lap. The child’s arms are outstretched in a crucifixion pose. Although this painting dates from the nineteenth century (1888), it is strongly reminiscent of devotional religious art from the medieval period. The colours and composition are generally similar to those employed by medieval artists, while Mary’s downcast gaze and the use of gold circles to represent halos recreate more specific motifs that were common in medieval representations of the Madonna and Child.
Bourguereau, William Adolphe
Art Gallery of South Australia
1888
Art Gallery of South Australia
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Oil on Canvas, 176 x 102.8 cm
The Loving Cup
Art, Arthurian, Arthurian romance, chivalry, cup, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Gouache, ivy, knight, legend, medieval clothing, nostalgia, Pre-Raphaelite, replica, romance, SA, South Australia, Victorian, watercolour
<p>This work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a renowned nineteenth-century painter and member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, depicts a young woman in a voluminous medieval-looking gown raising a golden cup decorated with a heart shaped design to her lips. In her other hand she clasps the lid of the cup to her breast. A lace cloth, ivy (the symbol of fidelity) and 4 brass plates (2 depicting deer, 1 depicting Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit and the other showing Hosea and Joshua with a bunch of grapes) are visible in the background. This painting is one of three watercolour replicas that Rossetti produced in 1867 of an oil painting that is currently held by the National Gallery of Western Art, Tokyo. The frame of the original painting is inscribed "Douce nuit et joyeux jour/ A chevalier de bel amour (Sweet night and pleasant day/to the beautifully loved knight)," which suggests that the woman is toasting her recently departed knight. The source of these words is uncertain, but it is thought that Rossetti, well-known for his poetry as well as his artwork, probably wrote it himself. (For more on the Tokyo painting, see <a href="http://collection.nmwa.go.jp/en/P.1984-0005.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0000ff;">http://collection.nmwa.go.jp/en/P.1984-0005.html</span></a>).</p>
The Arthurian theme and subject matter of the painting are typical of Rossetti’s work from the mid-1850s, and the work of the second phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood more generally. As Elizabeth Prettejohn suggests, these paintings convey a sense in which the “the world presented in the pictures is somehow distant or remote from the everyday”. They depict scenes of leave-taking, but the circumstances are left untold, and we do not learn the fortunes of the figures involved. This, she suggests, “contrasts abruptly with the narrative specificity of most Victorian painting, and of earlier Pre-Raphaelite pictures. The precise detail in the drawings gives us a medieval world that is apparently complete in itself, but to which we as spectators only have partial access” (Elizabeth Prettejohn, <em>The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites</em>, Tate Publishing, London, 2000, pp.106-7).
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel
Art Gallery of South Australia
c 1867
Art Gallery of South Australia
Gouache on paper, 52.6 x 35.9 cm
Sir Galahad and the Pale Nun
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), Art, Arthur, Arthurian, Arthurian legend, Arthurian romance, chivalric, chivalry, Galahad, gallantry, Holy Grail, Idylls of a King, illustration, knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, legend, Mabinogion, narrative poem, nostalgia, nun, piety, poem, purity, Sir Galahad, Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471), Victorian revival
This photograph, taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1874, is held by the Art Gallery of South Australia. It depicts Sir Galahad, one of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, and a nun. The illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, Galahad was raised in a convent under the care of the Abbess, his Great Aunt. He was one of only 3 Knights to see the Holy Grail, and is renowned in legend for his gallantry, his piety and his purity. He was a popular character in the Victorian revival of Arthurian myth, and these qualities were emphasised in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1842 poem ‘Sir Galahad’. This particular photograph appeared as Plate IX in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and Other Poems, a collection of 12 narrative poems retelling the King Arthur legend published between 1856 and 1885. Tennyson’s version was based primarily on two well-known medieval texts: Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and the Mabinogion.
Cameron, Julia Margaret
Art Gallery of South Australia
1874
Art Gallery of South Australia
Albumen-silver photograph, 33.4 x 27.2 cm;
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