Muse shows a leg

On top the Colonnade in the gardens at Alton Towers is a line of statues of which this is one.

In her pose, she rather confidently 'shows a leg'; resting her right arm on her thigh, with her right leg stepped up onto a support of what might be small rocks. 

I was surprised, as you rarely see the legs on modest Graeco-Roman sculptures of women - unless it is of Diana, goddess of the hunt (who needed a short skirt in order to run), or, erm, nudes. 

In the catalogue, she is named as Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy, though traditionally it would be her left leg raised. The object she holds is the Mask of Tragedy.

But nowhere can I find the significance of the raised leg. I wonder what its import is?

Action - frozen

The only action at Port Vale Football Club in Stoke on Trent right now is in this frozen pose of Roy Sproson. 
Games at the ground have been cancelled due to the coronavirus.

Roy was one heck of a player; and fans toiled long and hard to raise the funds to have this staue made and installed. 
The Vale languishes at the moment, but once, seventy years ago, reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Fans have long memories.

Nudes for the suburbs

January is the month for garden centres.
It is very strange to me that sales of nude and semi-nude female statues are the centrepiece of many of them, such as this one at Trentham.
What is it all about?

Although they pretend a guise of being quasi-classical atworks, they are in reality, plainly ... semi-naked ladies, meant for the pleasure of the suburban gardener.

Queen Vic in the flowers

More than 100 years after her death Queen Victoria still stands highest in Newcastle under Lyme.
Statues of royalty are in fact few and far between in North Staffordshire, though the area does celebrate many of its industrialists (and sportsmen) with public statues, as well as, of course, its war dead. So this image of Queen Victoria seems a bit of an anomaly really locally.

The municipal gardens in the virtual centre of the town are beautifully groomed. This year the theme is of the Peacock Butterfly.

Staffordshire Day today!

It's Staffordshire Day today!
It is 1000 years since the first recorded mention of the term Staffordshire, written as 'as Staeffordscir'  in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (for 1016) - so this is a millennium anniversary. 
And why May 1st?  I wondered that; but it turns out that May 1st was the date of the founding of the Wedgwood pottery company, which is based in Staffordshire, and, arguably, the county's most historically famous name.

Why the powers that be wanted to tie Staffordshire Day into the pottery industry, I don't know, but even the Oxford Companion to British History states quite categorically that "Staffordshire is one of the counties most affected by the industrial revolution" so, there you go.
It's all a bit artificial, but it's fun.

Old Josiah Wedgwood himself might have be surprised at seeing his work made quite so central to the whole county's identity, but then again, there are probably more famous images of him than any other Staffordshire figure.     (Barring Saint Chad of course - and Sir Stanley Matthews...)       The one in the picture above is on the side of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London - although the most famous statue of him is in Stoke.

Strangely enough, I celebrate 1000 posts on this photo-blog myself this month.  Bit of a coincidence...

Rugeley Roman mystery

No one actually seems to know what this Roman soldier is doing here, on the facade over some shops in Rugeley.  The sculptor is unknown; and the material it is made out of is fibreglass.  Rugeley has no more Roman history significance than any other market town in England.
Most puzzling.

Werburgh, a home-grown saint

It's the feast-day of Saint Werburgh on February 3rd, so spare a thought for her this week. 
She is one of Staffordshire's own home-grown saints, which is why she has her own special niche on the frontage of Lichfield Cathedral (see photo).

The story of her relics (ie her bones) is an odd one, because they were whizzed away from her grave as the Vikings advanced - in order to find a safer resting-place for them.  They ended up in Chester, but were destroyed (historians believe) in the Reformation.

Uttoxeter 'centaur'

There was some controversy over the two new sculptures (either side of the Tesco store) that have been put up on the road into Uttoxeter. But I love them.

You might not see it well from this photo - but the statue is metal, and full of perforations which allow light through. This combination of metallic glint and pricks of light, which come glittering through, makes the sculpures terrific in my humble opinion.

The subject is in homage to the nearby Uttoxeter Racecourse, and is a half-man/half-horse, a 'centaur'. The other scupture is a bull.

Uttoxeter is not known for its high cultural profile - so these created some overdue credit for the town!

Ten years - and looking good

This statue of the airplane designer RJ Mitchell has now completed ten years in situ (it was erected in 1995, the 100th anniversary of Mitchell's birth) in central Hanley - and it has worn well. 
From this angle he appears to be smiling ... though the original intention was that he look "studious".
I'm also happy to report that someone seems to be taking very good care that pigeons don't tarnish the figure's dapper haircut for any length of time.

Flaxman looks down

It's a bit of a surprise to see John Flaxman up there on the exterior walls of The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  He isn't exactly the best of all sculptors; and some of his stuff is a little 'obvious' even for the Neo-Classical period (IMHO).
However the V&A celebrates craftspeople too, so he may be being remembered for the spark he brought to the Wedgwood Pottery enterprise (here in Staffordshire) during the decade from 1775 when he was employed by the company.
For a long while, there was even a gallery in Stoke named after him - at the university.  But it seems to have been wound down - almost to the point of disappearance.

Strangely, Flaxman didn't do much of his own carving, but, if you've got lots of assistants, as he did, why should you?

Peace undermined

With Armistice Day this week, one looks to war memorials.   This statue of Peace (with dove in hand) stands on one side of the war memorial in Burton. 
As is usual - but extremely odd to modern eyes - this female classical figure seems to be wearing a tight body-stocking under her voluminous cloak and helmet.  One wonders what the point of that is...

Her message of peace is also rather undermined by a huge figure of Victory which stands on the top of the plinth, towering well above her (see a photo of the whole memorial by clicking here).
Oh well.

Izaak Walton - up with the saints

Happy birthday Izaak Walton! Izaak is pretty much the doyen of Staffordshire's greatest writers, though Arnold Bennett runs him a close second.  For some reason, a good number of pubs in the county are named after Izaak.
Of course, it's doubtful if anyone reads his works much any more, four hundred years later - even his famous 'Compleat Angler' but - would he have ever expected that anyway?

He has the unique (I think) honour of being the only writer to have his statue in the pantheon on the exterior of a cathedral - though I'd love to know if I'm wrong.
In this picture, he takes his place in a niche on the outside of Lichfield Cathedral along with saints and angels and demons (and occasional king and bishop) - beat that, Arnold Bennett!

Wedgwood statue is a lie

This is Stoke-on-Trent's most famous statue - it is the potter Josiah Wedgwood, on a plinth outside Stoke Railway Station.
But... bearing in mind that December 3rd is the International Day of The Disabled... it is an impossible depiction, as Wedgwood should be really shown with just one leg.

Wedgwood is holding a copy of the Portland Vase (a piece of ancient Roman work), but he actually was not allowed to borrow the vase from its owner until 1786 - before reproducing his famous replica of it in 1790 (when he was 60).
But... the fact is that, many years earlier, in 1768, Wedgwood had had to have his right leg amputated.  So, the statue is a lie.

Of course, the statue was erected long after Wedgwood died in 1795, but the sculptor may well have known of Wedgwood's amputation anyway... and simply ignored it. 
The tendency to want our heroes to appear 'perfect' often overcomes a desire for truth. Sadly.

Lady hiding from the cold

Poor girl !  I guess she's modestly covering up - but I wouldn't be surprised if she's shivering too.  Yes, winter has kicked in: there was a heavy frost this morning.
I'm told this is a copy of the nineteenth century Venus Italica statue, by the sculptor Canova.  Another copy can be seen in Sydney too (see Comments, below).
Seen in the gardens at Sandon Hall.

This post was featured on the International City Daily Photo portal

It doesn't frighten me...

There's a very fine line, when it comes to monsters, between terrifying and plain silly.
This dragon figure on the east end of Lichfield Cathedral is a case in point.  Because some of the very old 'grotesques', as they're called, had crumbled away, the cathedral authorities decided to replace them a couple of years ago - but in a  "21st Century style".
However, frankly, this figure doesn't look so much like an ancient guardian, warding off evil spirits, as a character from a child's computer game.
In my humble opinion.

This post was featured on the My Town Shoot Out Photo Blog for its Halloween theme

Staffordshire against slavery

It's Anti-Slavery Day tomorrow -and Staffordshire has a proud record in the campaign to oppose slavery at the end of the eighteenth century.  Erasmus Darwin (whose statue this is, in Beacon Park in Lichfield) was one of the local thinkers who were bitterly opposed to the slave trade, and was also one of those who took part in the campaign to boycott sugar from the West Indies in 1792.  (Strange to think that boycotts were used even back then...).

By the way, you'll notice in the statue's left hand three shells - because his motto was E Conchis Omnia (Everything From Shells).  He was one of the first people to consider evolution scientifically, and his motto reflected his thinking on that matter.

Two and a half millennia of Artemis

Artemis The Hunter is surely everybody’s favourite ancient goddess.  Strong, wonderful ... and, without being headstrong, refusing to let any of the other gods interfere with what she wanted to do. Free as a bird. (Also known as Diana by the Romans).

This sculpture at Sandon Hall has a strange story.  It is a 1999 re-creation of a piece destroyed in a storm at Sandon.  The destroyed piece was a copy of a Roman statue ('Artemis of Versailles') from the second century – which itself was a copy of a Greek statue of around 300BC.
You can’t keep Artemis down.

Boswell - in with the traders

James Boswell looks rather cheeky, and rather pleased with himself in this statue-portrait in Lichfield's Market Square.  Some people say he probably was just that, though this likeness was made some hundred years after Boswell had actually died.

The link between Boswell and Lichfield is a little tenuous.  James Boswell wrote the biography of the great eighteenth-century literary man, Dr Johnson, basically by hanging around with him and writing down a lot of what he said.  Dr Johnson was, of course, born in Lichfield.

I like this statue. James, who is up on a plinth, appears to be glancing down at the market traders in a seemingly wink-and-a-nod way...

Spring's green man

This Green Man figure is to be found on the archway into Blithfield Hall.  He is a symbol of the natural world, and of Spring.

It is curious how popular the green-man is - and how often it appears in statuary.

(Unexpected) working class hero

Sir Robert Peel, the early nineteenth-century politician, was MP for Tamworth - and his statue stands proudly before the Town Hall in the centre of Tamworth to this day.

What is hard to believe is that he was a working-class hero (well - a hero to the working class, in fact). It was he who, when he was Prime Minister, brought crashing down the iniquitous Corn Laws, which protected landowners by ensuring a price for their grain - at the expense of the poor.
Peel split his own party on the issue.  Historians may well dispute about his motives, but I still think it was a brave, principled act.