Kettle's Yard anew - a sense of space

I managed to make a proper visit to Kettle's Yard in Cambridge this month,  with its light-filled new galleries and Education wing, reopened in February after  several years' closure for the extensive building programme.  The House holds Jim Ede's personal collection of art as he wished to see it among his books and furniture in his daily life.  The house itself seemed twice as large as I recalled from  memories of long ago visits, and while I was happy to meet again favourite pieces in the  collection, very many paintings, sculptures, textiles and objects somehow looked entirely new.  One happy rediscovery was a pencil drawing by Elisabeth Vellacott, an artist of great subtlety, whose work only began to be appreciated in the 1960s.   These two images give some impression of the range and quality of her work.

"Vestigial Room"   Elisabeth Vellacott,   Photo the Arts Council collection, © the artist's estate 

This pencil drawing had stayed with me for its wonderful sense of depth achieved with such simplicity, and it was Jim Ede's first purchase of her work. 

"Bare Trees and Hills"  c. 1960   Elisabeth Vellacott  (possibly drawn near Llanthony, Wales)

©  Kettle's Yard and the artist's estate

In the galleries themselves is Subject, five sculptures by Anthony Gormley, which I was keen to see.  The star of this for me was "Infinite Cube II", which simply does not translate to a flat image, even in this enlarged section.  'Alice-through-the-looking-glass' style, you walk around a mirrored "three dimensional cube" of a thousand tiny lights, "with the possibility of infinite expansion" in which you lose yourself.  

Infinite cube II, 2018  © Anthony Gormley

It was only in recollecting the visit to House and Gallery, that I realised that both Vellacott and Gormley in different ways gave me that wonderful sense of a space into which you were drawn;  always a mark of the best artists.  

August Labours - Ceres: "Earth's increase, foison* plenty, Barns and garners never empty" Shakespeare, The Tempest

Depending on geography and a region's expected August weather,  harvesting would continue with reaping and the subsequent threshing and winnowing of the grain, i.e. separating the wheat (or rye or barley) from the chaff.

This lovely miniature shows the sheaves of wheat, and the thresher with his flail lifted over his head, beating the ears of corn from its straw on the floor.   His companion the winnower with his basket, will toss the grain to let the lightweight husks fly off, leaving the heavier edible grains ready to bag up for grinding.  Shoes and hose (rolled down and tied?) protect their legs from all the flying dust and sharp debris.  Overseeing all this activity is the image of Ceres, goddess of the Harvest, who variously holds  a sheaf of wheat or a palm frond, and also represents Virgo, the constellation for the month.

Vignettes of monthly Labours from the Fontana Maggiore, Perugia.  

Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, c. 1277-78

In this Italian version, the Pisanos, father and son, have carved a vigorous thresher with his flail, with its long weight jointed to swing down on the ears of wheat, alongside the winnower using a broad long-handled spade rather than a basket, to toss the grains and separate the chaff.  In sunny Italy this threshing takes place under the earlier zodiac sign of Leo, the lion, seen tucked into a top corner.  

The new realism Nicola Pisano brought to these Labours of the Month sculpted figures, decorating twelve of the twenty-five sides of Perugia's  great public fountain,  show clearly that these all-important labours require a lot of physical effort. Working in stone and marble, with hammer and chisel, the carvers would have understood the harvesters' effort;  these vivid sculptures around Perugia's fountain were Nicola Pisano's last major work.

*foison: plenty, abundance (Dr. Johnson cites Shakespeare as his source for 'foison' in his Dictionary)

July Labours: "bright, glittering, joyous art"

Although Jean, Duc de Berry, brother of the French king Charles V, was an important figure in the 100 Years' War  between France and England (from the Edward the Black Prince to Henry V),  his international fame is based on his patronage of the arts, most particularly for his exquisite Book of Hours, the Tres Riches Heures, and its 12 monthly Calendar pages painted in glowing colours by the Dutch brothers, Paul, Jean and Herman Limbourg, around 1412-1416.

July:  Harvesting and sheep shearing, probably painted by Paul de Limbourg  

Institut de France, Musee Conde, Chantilly 

Here two larger-than-life reapers are cutting the corn, one of whom is cutting out the poppies and cornflowers, beside the river Boivre with its swans, reeds, and pollarded willows, while on the other bank sheep are being sheared.  In the background is the famous triangular castle of Poitiers, one of the Duke's many castles which are shown in most of these monthly calendar pages.  He renovated and extended the existing castle, adding two more towers, which the artist has portrayed in its finest International Gothic style. The zodiac signs above show Cancer the Crab waning and Leo the Lion ascending, while the Sun is pulled by the god Phoebus, with his carriage.

Strategically placed at the confluence of two rivers, midway between Paris and Bordeaux,  Poitiers was an important fortress and town in Aquitaine.  In 1356 the Duke's father, King John II had been captured

The Gothic Cathedral of St. Pierre, west front, Poitiers, 12th-16th centuries

by the English, led by Edward III's son the Black Prince, at the Battle of  Poitiers, and eventually died in England.  As an elder statesman almost sixty years later, Duke Jean wisely persuaded his nephew Charles VI not to take part and risk capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

While Jean de Berry was Count of Poitiers, and a discerning collector and patron, the town also grew as a centre of art and learning.    With his revenues from Poitiers and produce from his many other domains, like wheat, wool, meat and wine, he could afford to employ the best illuminators and provide them with the finest materials.  The vellum pages of his Tres Riches Heures are each cut to size from the centre of best calfskins, with no ragged edges or noticeable blemishes, and the piercing blue of the zodiac calendar and the shearer's robe  (that rich colour on a peasant an artistic device) would be from rare imported ultramarine*.

Both the Duke of Berry and the Limbourg brothers died in 1416, probably of the plague, and his wonderful Book of Hours was completed by other leading artists later, passing to his descendant by marriage,  Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands in the 1500s.   She was also a discerning patron of the arts, with careful inventories of her collections, but the Duc de Berry's jewel of a manuscript then disappeared from record, only resurfacing in Genoa in the nineteenth century.   It was purchased by Henri d'Orleans, Duc d'Aumale in 1856 and bequeathed to the Institut de France.  Now its dazzling images can be enjoyed around the world, thanks to those French peasants labouring in the fields every month.

"All over the intelligent world was spread this bright, glittering, joyous art, which had now reached its acme of elegance and beauty."
William Morris on International Gothic art. 

*Ultramarine was sourced from Afghanistan lapis lazuli, at huge expense, so some blues may be copper-based azurite, although Duke Jean did own two pots of ultramarine.