Team London and I visited Bradford on Friday to spend time in its Science and Media Museum. And here we found Feathers McGraw, anti-hero star of The Wrong Trousers and Murder Most Fowl. Surely he should still be locked up at His Majesty’s Pleasure, instead of gazing out of the windows of the museum?
Here’s a window to cheer on a Monday morning. You’ll find it in Chichester Cathedral, and it’s designed by Marc Chagall the Jewish Modernist painter, who enjoyed working with stained glass too. You’ll find his windows in churches in France, Germany, England and the USA, as well as in Jewish settings. Essentially, this window illustates Psalm 150, a hymn of praise to God suggesting He be praised – noisily – with every instrument to be found, as well as by singing and dancing. That’s what this window illustrates.
Chichester Cathedral came with surprises. This quintessentially English place of worship was built, as so many English cathedrals were, between the 11th and 14th centuries. So it was unexpected to find so many works of art from recent years there: a startlingly bright tapestry designed by John Piper; ‘Noli me tangere’ by Graham Sutherland; murals by Hans Feibusch, exiled from Nazi Germany in 1933; the ‘Reconciliation Tapestry’ designed by German artist Ursula Benker-Schirmer and woven partly in Germany, partly in England tells the story of Saint Richard and is a symbol of reconciliation between Britain and Germany after WWII.
Chichester CathedralJohn PiperHans FeibuschThe Reconciliation TapestryGraham Sutherland: ‘Noli me tangere.’
The bots are out to get me! For the last few days, I have been the World’s Most Popular Blogger, with stratospherically high viewing figures. This has happened in the past, and changing my password has instantly solved the problem. This time it’s had no effect. Any suggestions?
Today I bring you not just one, but twenty or more windows from the shop on the ground floor of Salts Mill in Saltaire. Its magnificent bookshop is upstairs, but here, as you come in, you can buy posters and cards, stationery and supplies, art materials – all temptingly laid out for browsers who wander around this space, decorated with vast ceramic pieces from Leeds-based Burmantofts pottery, elegant vases of fresh lilies. The window in the featured photo is in the entrance hall to the Mill, and hints at the treasures to be found within.
The other week, we visited Saltaire. It’s a Victorian Model Village built near Bradford by mill owner Titus Salt. Built between 1851 and 1871, it was a philanthropic project to provide better living conditions for the workers of his Salts Mill than were available in the crowded city slums. The village was designed with well-constructed houses, a church, a school, a library, and a park. But no pub. Salt had seen the dire consequences over-consumption of cheap liquor could have on workers and their families, so emphatically – no pub. Hence the name of this modern bar, which reflects Titus’ mill in its windows. The village and mill deserve a post to themselves. That’ll be for another day.
After a weekend of Storm Darragh, our car needs a litte TLC. On the way into town this morning, we’ll have a session at the car wash, and enjoy the view through the window as the suds and brushes do their work.
A sunrise captured in one of our downstairs windows one December morning. This image always makes me happy, so I’ll make it a bonus post for Ann-Christine’s This Made Me Smile challenge too.
This post is just an excuse to share a few photos from the outside of Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona and the modern buildings round and about. When I went, the music festival Primavera Sound was in full swing in the evenings – Emily and Miquel had been the night before – so whole swathes of the area were out of bounds. My plans to explore were curtailed.
So after I’d ‘done’ the museum (maybe worth a post later?) I caught a tram to the Port Olímpic.
Both areas are full of glass-clad buildings reflecting images of the space in which they stood. Connecting with them, just too late for me to pop them into Donna’s Lens-Artists Challenge: Connections. You can connect with me too – two and a half times – there I am in the last photo of all, snapping away.
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