Medieval Art in Ripon Cathedral...
Oct. 2nd, 2010 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endlessraritiesAnd now, a daily dose of culture!
Back to Ripon Cathedral, and some of its artwork. I'll start on the woodwork tomorrow, and dazzle you with some lovely misericords...
Today, it's sculpture of a different kind.
A funeral monument, first of all, featuring an effigy of a knight :-
The stag is thought to symbolise his allegiance to Henry IV.
Another figure who seems to crop up in various places throughout the cathedral is one rather familiar to Scots:-
Back to Ripon Cathedral, and some of its artwork. I'll start on the woodwork tomorrow, and dazzle you with some lovely misericords...
Today, it's sculpture of a different kind.
A funeral monument, first of all, featuring an effigy of a knight :-
The knight in question is Sir Thomas Markenfield, and he is noteworthy for the unusual motif of a stag impaled (i.e. enclosed, not shoved unceremoniously onto a spike) at his collar:-
The stag is thought to symbolise his allegiance to Henry IV.
Another figure who seems to crop up in various places throughout the cathedral is one rather familiar to Scots:-
It's James VI, King of Scots, (James I of England). He has strong associations with Ripon, having re-established the Chapter in 1604 at the behest of his wife, Queen Anne of Denmark (thanks to 'Ripon Cathedral: 1300 Years of Worship and History' by Barton and Punshon for that little pearl of wisdom). This particular statue is Victorian, but there is another dating back to the early seventeenth century.
And lastly, one of the real treasures of Ripon Cathedral, a fourteenth century alabaster tablet featuring the Resurrection:-
And lastly, one of the real treasures of Ripon Cathedral, a fourteenth century alabaster tablet featuring the Resurrection:-
It's one of a series of such tablets featured throughout the building. They were found beneath the Dean's stall, where they'd been hidden by some foresighted clergyman before the Reformation, presumably because he quite rightly feared that they wouldn't survive the religious purges on 'idolatry'.
Having read the guide book, I'm forced to confess that a return visit will definitely have to be in order. There are original medieval wall-paintings in one of the chapels, but it's not normally open and you have to ask to be granted access. I was, of course, oblivious to this during my visit...
A good excuse for another holiday in those parts, I think!! Though God knows when....
Having read the guide book, I'm forced to confess that a return visit will definitely have to be in order. There are original medieval wall-paintings in one of the chapels, but it's not normally open and you have to ask to be granted access. I was, of course, oblivious to this during my visit...
A good excuse for another holiday in those parts, I think!! Though God knows when....
