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“Vauxhall and the Other Pleasure Gardens of Georgian London” A picture by Rowlandson of The Prince of Wales at Vauxhall Gardens, seen when he was about seven years old, inspired this month’s lecturer, David Coke, to undertake thirty years’ of research into the gardens. The depth of his knowledge was evident in his fascinating talk on ‘Vauxhall and the Other Pleasure Gardens of Georgian London.’ David Coke revealed the extraordinary people, the avant-garde art, the underground music (literally played in a cavern so that the music appeared to emanate from below the bushes!), the expensive food, the special effects (the gardens could be flooded with light in an instant) and the exotic architecture. With the help of comments written at the time, David Coke evoked what it would have been like to visit these thrilling places in their heyday. Jonathan Tyers and his descendants ran the gardens for about a century. They created pleasure gardens which were places to see and be seen. They were some of the very few places where young men and women could meet with any privacy. The most fashionable costume was worn; the most up-to-date British music was played and the work of young British artists hung in the little supper boxes where the aristocracy dined alongside shopkeepers and ladies of the night. No wonder that 100,000 people visited the gardens each year and that Samuel Pepys, Charles Dickens, Fanny Burney and Georgette Heyer all wrote about these astonishing places of pleasure. Not only the subject of the talk but the enthusiasm of the lecturer made this an evening of pleasure for the Society’s members. The next lecture called ‘Visions of Paradise: Architecture and Decorative Arts in the Islamic World’ is on 26 April. CWDFAS is a member of NADFAS |
Cobbett’s Wey DFAS report April Lecture
In this month’s lecture, ‘Visions of Paradise: Architecture and Decorative Arts in the Islamic World’, Sarah Searight wove an extraordinary web as she tied together the strands of Islamic culture both secular and religious which held together an empire which at various times extended from Andalucia through the Middle East to Central Asia. The Mediterranean Sea was a pond which was likened to a busy highway across which the various influences of Islam cross-pollinated a culture rich and diverse. There were two separate threads in art and architecture, the religious and the secular. The religious artists, barred from using images of man, developed a style using patterns geometric and from plant forms for design and decoration. It was interesting to note that the use of lush flowers in their pattern work came as a result of their love for gardens and water. These were especially valued as much of the area where Islam first thrived was arid land difficult to cultivate where water was scarce. Slides illustrating the religious art showed the domes of mosques, the dome itself representing the celestial sphere, patterned in vibrant colours and covered internally with beautiful Arabic writing taking texts from the Koran. The buildings were made of stone or brick according to what was locally available. Those along parts of the silk routes featured some amazing brickwork often in herringbone patterns. The famed Mezquita Mosque in Cordoba is actually arches set on top of original Roman columns which give them their unique stature graceful and richly patterned. In secular art hunting scenes dominated. Young men with flowing hair on horseback using bows and arrows were painted on porcelain ware, or carved in wood or ivory to make chests and caskets. Again there were the images of lush forests containing animals of all types for them to hunt. Some of these caskets were intended for commodities like deodorant and toothpaste which we think of as very modern! GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE JANUARY 2006 & FEBRUARY 2006 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE OCTOBER 2005 & NOVEMBER 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE JUNE 2005 & SEPTEMBER 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE APRIL 2005 & MAY 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 2005 & MARCH 2005 GO TO PRESS ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 2004 & JANUARY 2005
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