Dear Colleagues,

Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, in partnership with The Millennium
Galleries Sheffield has recently been awarded major funding from the Esmee
Fairbairn Foundation Regional Museums Initiative for a specific touring
exhibition that will uniquely bring together the usually quite separate
worlds of academic geology and art appreciation.

By displaying and examining evidence ranging from ancient prehistoric cave
art, through works from the Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelites, the
Impressionists and Art Nouveau, to thoroughly modern 20th and 21st century
artworks, this exhibition will aim to bring our direct and indirect
relationships with geology to the attention of the British public in an
original context. From raw geological specimens to piles of pure mineral
pigments, from marble busts and jewellery to oil paintings, prints and
drawings, the exhibition should be a visual and academic treat for the
amateur geologist, art connoisseur, social historian and natural historian
alike. This exhibition, planned for 2006, will be on show at Norwich Castle
Museum & Art Gallery and will then tour to Sheffield and one other UK venue
(for further details of our plans please read the document below giving the
present summary of the exhibition).

We are currently drafting a wish-list of artworks and specimens to put on
display in this exhibition and we are inviting you to be involved in this
process. We would like you to tell us of your favourite works of art that
relate either directly to geology or that speak to you personally of
geology or geological processes. Whether you are fond of the cliffs in the
background of the Mona Lisa, whether you know a little about the rare type
of marble used for one of Anish Kapoor’s recent installations, if you know
something about the specific mineral pigments that were used in Turner's
great works, or whether you simply like a particular picture that shows
some aspect of geology quite well – like, for instance, “Vesuvius in
Eruption” by John Ruskin, “The Glacier des Boissons” by JMW
Turner, “Prospero and Ariel” by Eric Gill or “Mother and Child” by Barbara
Hepworth - we would like to hear from you.

Suggestions can include paintings, lithographs, photographs, sculptures,
decorative art, jewellery and geological specimens etc. It would be helpful
if the artworks or specimens were owned by an institution in the UK, though
that is by no means a limiting factor. It would be particularly useful if
they were owned by one of our partnership institutions which include Tate
Britain, Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the British Museum.

Please tell us the name of the artist, the title of the work and briefly
why you suggest it. If possible, also mention in what media the artwork is
made (painting, photograph, sculpture, decorative art etc) and who has
ownership/where it is displayed, if known.

Please email us with your suggestions or comments, and please do forward
this message to your colleagues or relevant email distribution lists as you
see fit.

We thank you in advance for your suggestions and your generous help.

With many thanks and best wishes, Nigel Larkin (Curator of Geology) and
Andrew Moore (Keeper of Art & Senior Curator), Norfolk Museums and
Archaeology Service.

Nigel R. Larkin BA MSc
Telephone 01603 493645 Fax: 01603 493623
Curator and Conservator, The Natural History Department,
Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service,
Norwich Castle Study Centre, Shirehall,
Market Avenue, Norwich, Norfolk. NR1 3JQ.

http://www.norfolk.gov.uk/tourism/museums

Associated Member of the "Ancient Hominid Occupation of Britain Project"
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/ahob/


ART AT THE ROCKFACE
The Meaning of Stone in Art

Project Outline
(The artworks mentioned in this document are merely examples of what we
might eventually try to have on loan. This is a very informal list, and
potential lenders have therefore not yet been contacted)

INTRODUCTION

‘When from the lofty Castle I espie
The ragged rocks, which round about it lie;
My working thoughts begin from thence to raise
Some Meditations to their Makers praise’
William Prynne, 1641

We are all brought up short by the reality of Geological Time.  Nothing
more clarifies the brevity of human life for us than our relationship to
the planet on which we live.  One of the most fundamental sources of
clarity for us lies in our understanding of the origins of our planet.
Artists over the millennia have responded to their environment and tried to
capture something of our fundamental relationship to landscape.

This exhibition examines the principle ways by which artists have explored
our relationship with the geology of the land – the rocks and strata,
formations and faultlines – which can inspire artists in their quest for
truth.  These concerns parallel the traditional study of the human body:
the study of geology has been as long-lived as that of the human body.  The
roots of these twin obsessions come together for those practitioners who
sculpt with the chisel, grind pigments, manipulate colour or work with
graphite or charcoal.  Early man drew or painted on the rockface,
fashioning flint by which to live; Civilised man selected stone by which to
worship, build and sculpt.  The invention of painting enhanced the
opportunities to explore the meaning of stones as an expression of man’s
place in the universe.

1. The Fundamental Landscape

The first section addresses the idea of fundamental landscape.  These are
the landscapes of history, beyond the memory of mankind.  Geological
formations have always had an impact upon the human imagination.  Mountains
provide the habitat of the Gods and of monsters, which live above the
clouds.  The seas contain landscapes that we can barely imagine.  The
response to fundamental feelings engendered by awesome events through
Geological time has been made manifest in mankind since the earliest
times.  Early man’s response was to kill and make sacrifice using the
materials at hand - with skill and art - by which to live.

Content: 3D reproduction of rockface cave painting; Geological specimens,
including The Giants Causeway; Flint axe heads; Native American Art;
Aboriginal Art; Ansel Adams, Photographs of Southern Arizona; Frederick
Edwin Church, Niagara Falls from the American side, 1867; Thomas Moran,
Nearing Camp, Evening on the Upper Colorado River, Wyoming, 1882; John
Brett, The Glacier of Rosenlui, 1856; Richard Wilson, Mount Snowdon; Thomas
Banks, The Falling Titan, 1786; John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath,
1851-3; Michael Andrews, Ayer’s Rock;

2. Travel & Exploration

Confrontation with new landscapes is made possible through travel.  In the
18th Century the Grand Tour of Europe was a prime means by which a young
and cultured gentleman might complete his education.  While his quest
included the artefacts of civilization, he was also confronted by changing
landscapes, often of the most awesome nature.  Travellers, including
artists, throughout the centuries were tested by the beauty, horror and
sublimity of the landscapes through which they passed, before mountaineers
sought to attain the peaks as an expression of personal quest and
endurance.

Content: J.M.W. Turner; Joseph Wright of Derby; John Ruskin, Vesuvius in
eruption; John Ruskin, Aiguille Blaitiere, Chamonix; Peru and Machu Piccu;
Vesuvius and Pompeii; Etna; The Alps; Mount Everest, Tibetan artefacts and
Younghusband; Richard Long; Andy Goldsworthy.

3. Painting with Minerals

The earth’s crust abounds with iron oxides, ochres, and rubefied earths
that provide the original palette of pigments for the artist.  The history
of the science of colour provides a key example of the way we have applied
science and art to express our response to the land.  The original pigments
were extracted from ground rocks containing Hemetite, Limonite and Terra
Rossa.  The Egyptians added blue to the prehistoric palette, but also
greens in the form of powdered malachite (copper carbonate), violets,
white, yellow (Jarosites, Orpiment (arsenic trisulphide)) and gold.  A
typical Egyptian combination of colours would include red ochre, cornelian,
gold, turquoise, lapis, and malachite, a colour range that inspired
subsequent artists, notably Bridget Riley.  The medieval mind also sought
meaning in rocks, making lapidaries which recorded their symbolic
associations, subsequently propagated by alchemy.

Content: Geological specimens; minerals; medieval lapidaries; paintboxes;
Albrecht Durer, St. Jerome; Egyptian artefacts; William Holman Hunt, The
Sphinx,Gizeh, Looking towards the Pyramids of Sakhara, 1854; Bridget Riley,
Edge of Day (1981);

4. Studying The Rockface

The study of rocks has traditionally inspired artists since at least the
Renaissance.  The landscape background in Renaissance religious painting or
portraiture is often uniquely attuned to the region in which it is
painted.  Michelangelo, prior to selecting the marble for his next
commission, would study the stone at Carrara for his perception of the
human form within it. More recent interventions on the landscape may be
those of a quarry or mine, catching the attention of the artist.  In the
fourth volume of Modern Painters Ruskin lamented that in his day no
contemporary artist seemed interested in creating representations of
landscape that would be of interest to geologists: ‘it is only in ancient
art that, generally speaking, we find any careful realization of Stones’.
Ruskin is the prime example of the aesthetic motive behind the study of
rocks and their representation in art.  Those most admired by Ruskin
included JMW Turner, and later Millais, John Brett and John William
Inchbold.  Yet Ruskin was to fall out with Brett and Inchbold when he felt
that their representations of the rocks and mountains of, for example, Val
d’Aosta were too literal.

Content: Geological specimens; John Crome, Slate Quarries; John Sell
Cotman, Domfront; Edwin Landseer, Loch Avon and the Cairngorm Mountains;
John Everett Millais, John Ruskin, 1853-4; John Ruskin, Coast Scene, near
Dunbar; John Ruskin, In the Pass of Killiecrankie; John Ruskin, Chamonix,
Rocks and Vegetation; John Ruskin, Alpine Peaks; John Ruskin, Rocks and
Ferns in a Wood at Crossmount, Perthshire; William Holman Hunt, Asparagus
Island, 1860; Eric Gill, Prospero and Ariel, 1931; Henry Moore, Four Piece
Composition: Reclining Figure, 1934; Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture with
Profiles, 1932 and Two Forms, 1933;

5. Zen Rocks

Zen philosophy teaches that we can experience the large in the small, the
universal in the personal.  In a grain of sand we may glimpse the meaning
of the world.  For centuries Japanese Zen masters have cultivated gardens
of harmoniously arranged rocks and raked gravel, to create landscapes for
peaceful contemplation.  They have been called ‘gardens of the mind’. The
tradition of arranging rocks with meaning goes back to 3000 BC.  In Japan
Mount Fuji has a central, essential geological presence.  The great
woodblock artist, Hokusai (1760-1849) made hundreds of images of Fuji at
different seasons and from various viewpoints: in one instance through a
spider’s web.  We see the Japanese sense of the spiritual and may respond,
finding parallels from the viewpoint of Western Culture.  Contemporary
artists are among those inspired to explore form and meaning in this way.

Content: Specimens typical of the geology of Japan presented as in a zen
garden, by an invited landscape gardener; Tadayuki Naito, Photographs of
Gardens in Kyoto; Hokusai, Views of Mount Fuji; Japanese Raku ware;
representations of Fuji in western Japonisme; Bernard Leach, painted
stoneware; Anish Kapoor.

Sacred Meaning and Memory

To wander amongst piles of stones evokes memory.  Sometimes the stones are
natural in their place, making manifest their geological origins.
Sometimes the stones are carved, evidence of the intervention of man.  In
this case we may experience the memory of ancient civilisations – perhaps
neolithic or those of Greece or Rome. A churchyard offers memorial stones
charting family achievement and loss. At other times the rocks and stones
we see are natural and uncarved, yet arranged by some unseen hand.  In this
way ancient and modern artists have called to our attention the natural
formations of our surroundings and responded by recording and showing their
response.

Content: Church monuments (drawings and watercolours); tombstones; Henry
Alexander Bowler, The Doubt, Can these Dry Bones Live?, 1854-5; John
Constable, Stonehenge; William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent; William Holman
Hunt, Our English Coasts, 1852, The Scapegoat, 1854 and The Plain of
Esdraelon from the Heights above Nazareth 1870,1877; Arthur Hughes, Home
from Sea, 1856-62; Edwin Landseer, The Stone-breaker; Henry Wallis, The
Stonebreaker, 1857; John Brett, The Stonebreaker; Henry Moore, Stonehenge;
Paul Nash, Stonehenge Study (photograph), 1933 and Equivalents for the
Megaliths, 1935; Graham Sutherland; Claude Cahun, Surreal photography;
Christian Ward;

Potential Lenders

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery; Bolton Museum &
Art Gallery; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Abbot Hall, Kendal; The British
Museum; Manchester City Art Galleries; Harris Museum & Art Gallery,
Preston; National Gallery, London; National Galleries of Scotland; Norwich
Castle Museum & Art Gallery; Royal Academy; Royal Collection; Royal
Geological Society; Ruskin Foundation, University of Lancaster; Sheffield
Museums and Galleries Trust; Tate; Victoria & Albert Museum; Walker Art
Gallery, Liverpool