Men come together to make a man
I was wandering absently through the galleries of the Glynn Vivian the other day, trying, unsuccessfully, to remember what the Welsh word for ‘unflattering’ might be, when I stopped suddenly in front of a Japanese print. It was in one of the rooms devoted to the gallery’s founding collection, which once belonged to Richard Glynn […]
Iaith a Brecsit
Er Mehefin 2016 mae llawer o bobl yn cynnig llawer o resymau er mwyn ceisio esbonio pam dewisodd mwyafrif o bleidleiswyr Prydeinig i adael yr Undeb Ewropeaidd. Rhesymau economaidd – yr awydd i gadw swyddi a chodi cyflogau, i sicrhau masnachu rhwyddach gyda gweddill y byd, i wario rhagor ar y gwasanaeth iechyd. Rhesymau gwleidyddol […]
Wales and Brexit, by Emyr Lewis
In this guest blog the lawyer and poet Emyr Lewis considers some of the complex questions, constitutional and legal, economic and cultural, that arise for Wales from the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. The text was originally given on 8 March 2018 in Swansea University as the Royal Institution of South Wales’s St […]
Frank Brangwyn’s British Empire Panels
1 Introduction Most Swansea people are familiar with the British Empire Panels. Many sitting through a dull patch in a concert in the Brangwyn Hall will have turned to ponder Frank Brangwyn’s enormous work. In a few months’ time the Panels will get more exposure, as Marc Rees’s performance piece Nawr yr arwr / Now […]
A Pointless trip
1 M4 The thermometer’s well below zero, but we’re bowling happily along, in light traffic. Apocalyptic language in the news and weather reports – ‘Beast from the East’, amber warnings, trains cancelled before a flake has fallen – suggests the whole country lies under a thick layer of snow and ice. On the radio […]
Catherine Blake’s vision
Of all the astonishing visual images William Blake created, between the mid-1770s and his death in 1827, one of the most intriguing is a small sepia wash drawing (244 x 211mm) on a sheet of paper now in the Tate Gallery. It’s usually known by the title A vision: the inspiration of the poet. Since […]
Swansea’s rebel women
For all their strengths in the campaign to gain votes for women Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were by nature autocratic. In 1907 some members of their Women’s Social and Political Union took exception to their announcement that the WSPU’s annual conference would be cancelled in future and that they themselves and their inner circle would […]
Photo of a gate
On the wall almost opposite the foot of the bed, my home for a few days last week, was a thick frame containing a mounted colour photograph. Since it was one of the few unnecessary objects in the room, and the only occupant of its wall, I found myself giving it my full attention several […]
Popeth yn Gymraeg, yn llythrennol
Beth sydd ei angen er mwyn cyrraedd miliwn o siaradwyr Cymraeg erbyn y flwyddyn 2050? Llawer o bethau, heb os, ond un ohonynt yw cynnydd mawr iawn yn y maint o’r deunydd yn Gymraeg sydd ar gael i bobl – pethau i’w darllen, i’w gweld, i’w glywed. Ystyr ‘ar gael’, y dyddiau hyn wrth gwrs, […]
Dr Thurley crosses the border
Last year Ken Skates AM, then the Cabinet member responsibility for culture, commissioned a museum director from London, Dr Simon Thurley, to make recommendations on the running of the National Museum of Wales. (Technically the Museum’s latest English title is Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, a clumsy formulation which shows what trouble you get […]