Tag: J.M.W. Turner

  • Three solitary figures in a landscape

    Three solitary figures in a landscape

    1   Man on a mountain Caspar David Friedrich painted the work usually called The wanderer above the sea of fog in 1818.  Though it found little fame at the time, it’s long been seen as the quintessence of German Romanticism in the visual arts. Friedrich was the mountain man of the early nineteenth century.  Until…

  • Delweddu pont: Pontypridd a’r artistiaid

    Delweddu pont: Pontypridd a’r artistiaid

    Mae llawer o sôn yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, a gynhelir yng nghanol Pontypridd ym Mharc Ynysangharad, am ‘bontio’ rhwng siaradwyr Cymraeg a’r mwyafrif o’r trigolion lleol sy ddim yn medru’r iaith.  Perthnasol iawn yw’r metaffor, o gofio bod Pontypridd yn cynnig esiampl wych o adeilad sydd wrth ei wraidd. Dyw’r gair ‘gwych’ ddim, mewn gwirionedd,…

  • Breaking up the Hannibal

    Breaking up the Hannibal

    Bruges may be his birthplace and where you’ll find his museum, but Swansea has a claim to be the second home of Frank Brangwyn, ever since his huge ‘British Empire’ panels were diverted from the House of Lords in London to Swansea’s Guildhall in 1933.  Today it’s possible to see Brangwyn’s visions of the fruits…

  • The Last Bard: loops of an invented tradition

    The Last Bard: loops of an invented tradition

    By now the ‘invented tradition’ is itself a tradition.  Since Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger published their edited collection The invention of tradition in 1983, we’ve become familiar with the idea that rituals, histories and beliefs that seem age-old were actually recent fictions devised with specific purposes in mind. One of the chapters in The…