Lectures and Walking Tour

Justine Hopkins' lecture on British portrait painting pointed out that by mid-18th century the new middle classes had become subjects, as much as the rich and powerful. Gainsborough and Reynolds exemplified the two developing streams, with G painting who people are, capturing his subjects' humanity, personality in conversation pieces, and R, using classical compostion, painting WHAT people are, formal paintings that include assembled symbols emblematic of a defining moment of success & power.

This golden age of the amateur was the last moment when one could know everything about something and something of everything.

On our walk, Richard Guy Wilson and Justine pointed out English architecture Jefferson would have seen on his 1784 landing at Cowes, Portsmouth; his 1786 10 day garden toot with Adams; and his 14 day layover preparing for departure back to Philadelphia in 1789.

Jefferson and Adams came through Oxford, but what they saw is all speculative since he left no written comment, but maybe the 4-tiered frontispiece with its stacked orders by Henry Savile at Merton College.

Maybe Hawksmoor's Clarendon Bldg [Oxford Press]; Wren's Sheldonian and the original Ashmolean, the first purpose-built theater and museum; maybe Gibbs' s Radcliffe camera- all standouts in the heart of Oxford.

I liked this decorative oxhead detail on the Bodleian:

The day ended with Merton gardener Lucille leading us along the paths lined with all manner of greenery for which she only knew the Latin names, plus a 17th century black mulberry [a mistake, not the right kind for silk production], a huge chestnut and dawn redwood, the croquet lawn ...

And a brilliant PhD candidate in Middle Eastern history, an unlikely but enthusiastic docent shared rich details about the medieval chapel, the bells, Wren screen, the stained glass and brass lecturn that escaped the reformation purges ... Perhaps music there as the week's finale on Saturday night.