Lit and Art Lab [PC File]

Visions of London The Beauty and the Beast

London, William Blake from Songs of Experience (1794) Composed upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth (1802) View of Westminster Bridge, Daniel Turner (approx 1804) London from Greenwich Park, William Turner (1809) Engravings from London a Pilgrimage, Gustave Dor (1872) London in Bleak House, ch 1 Charles Dickens (1853) Welcome to the Jungle, in Appetite for Destruction Guns and Roses (1987)

London from Greenwich Park, William Turner (1809)

This oil on canvas was painted by Turner after he had returned to England from his journey to Europe, a period during which he studied at Louvre Museum. There he had the unique opportunity to see the great works of art, notably by Correggio and Raphael, recently brought back from Italy by Napoleon. The influence of Titian (1488-1576) is particularly evident in this picture, which exhibits the warmth of the colour typical of Turners large oil paintings of the early 1800s. From the pastoral foreground with grazing deer, Turner looks over the Queens House and Greenwich Hospital towards London where St Pauls Cathedral and the City churches rise through the smoky pall above the metropolis. The subject is rather unusual as the artist preferred natural landscapes and countryside to the city. In fact, the elements that mostly catch the viewers eye are the open green space with the deer in the foreground, the sky and the river. The whiteness of the clouds scattered above and the luminescence of the Thames create a pleasant chromatic effect which is matched by the contrasting hues of green of the countryside. The building in the distance hint at human presence, which is otherwise invisible. The whole scene convey a sense of peace and tranquillity where natural and man-made elements are harmoniously balanced, a feature that characterises Turners early landscape painting. However, the artist wrote a few lines to accompany this painting, which clearly voice his ambivalent attitude towards the city, and describe the mingled beauty and energy of the scene. Where burthend Thames reflect the crowded sail Commercial care and busy toil prevail Whose murky veil, aspiring to the skies Obscures thy beauty, and thy form denies Save where thy spires pierce the doubtful air As gleams of hope amidst a world of care

Engravings from London a Pilgrimage, Gustave Dor (1872)

Paul Gustave Dor (1832-1883) was a French artist who started his career as a literary illustrator in Paris when he was very young. In the following years several works were commissioned from him, including an illustrated edition of Coleridges works and Cervantess novel Don Quixote, both of which gained him wide popularity. His illustrated edition of the English Bible in 1866 was so successful that the following year he was invited to exhibits his works in London. There he met William Blanchard Jerrold, a famous political journalist, who suggested working together to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. Dor spent three months walking around the city, and the result was a book which included 180 engravings by the artist. The work was a great success even if contemporary critics disliked it because of its insistence on poverty and degradation. The engravings provided reproduce the squalor and misery of the Londons slums, i.e. the poorest overcrowded districts of the town where derelict houses, lack of fresh air and extreme poverty maximised the spread of infectious disease. Bluegate Fields and Houndsditch were two of the worst slum areas that grew without any sanitary or social control during the 19th century in the east end of London, north of the docks on the Thames. Dors style faithfully reproduces the wretchedness of the people living there through the inclusion of many realistic details, which highlight the inhuman conditions in which so many people were obliged to live. The Gothic atmosphere created by the prevailing darkness of the scene conveys a sense of suffocation and lack of individual freedom that so effectively characterises Dors representation of Londons horrors.

London in Bleak House, Charles Dickens (1853) the very beginning

Chapter 1 In Chancery LONDON. Michaelmas1 Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor2 sitting in Lincolns Inn3 Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, [] Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers4. Foot passengers, jostling one anothers umbrellas in a general infection of illtemper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, []. Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits5 and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses6 of collier-brigs7; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging8 of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges9 and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing10 by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether11 sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.[] The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincolns Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery. Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering12 condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary13 sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth. []

1 2

29 September Member of the Cabinet, he is responsible for the functioning and independence of the courts. In Dickenss time we was a judge in different courts and the president of the supreme court. 3 The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London, professional associations to which every barrister of England and Wales must belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. The Lincolns Inn is situated on Chancery Lane 4 paraocchi 5 isolette 6 Cambuse, cucine di bordo 7 Types of vessels 8 Equipment, ropes 9 Parapetti delle chiatte 10 Che ansimano 11 Lower, underneath 12 Annaspare/brancolare e confondere/agitarsi 13 venerabili

You are going to compare the different visions of London. The grid below will help you to focus your attention on relevant aspects of the works under examination. Points to notice London from Greenwich Park, William Turner (1809) The natural landscape Main focus in natural elements The scene doesnt convey an idea of movement Light colours (of the clouds) that matched with the green of the countryside Outside, because the point of view is far to the scene. Details of natural landsdcape He showed an attractive view of London because he balanced man-made Composed upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth (1802) London in the early morning. No movement because all sleep. Both Natural and human elements Engravings from London a Pilgrimage, Gustave Dor (1872) The poverty in the London. Human elements. No movement London, William Blake from Songs of Experience (1794) Man are slave of the industrial society. Interest in human elements, natural soppressed by the society. No movement. Main colours: black and red. Yes, London in Bleak House, Charles Dickens (1853)

Subject What is the main subject of the work? Is the focus of interest mainly on human or natural elements? Is the scene still or does it convey an idea of movement?

Contrast light/darkness Do light or dark colours prevail? Is the scene set in daylight or at night? Are there significant chromatic effects? Viewpoint Do the viewers/readers get the impression of being inside or outside the scene? Which details does the authors attention mainly focus on? Message What message does the author want to give his public? Does the work highlight Londons attractive

Light colours (sun rises, buildings bright) No. Outside. The peace of London when all people sleep

Dark: black and grey. No defined, no chromatic effect. Outside because the scene is far. Show the worst situation in London of the poor people Its ugliness, London is represent as a bad city

London as a foggy dirty city. Natural elememnts explain in negative way, that influence some human elements. Gave movement. Dark colours: grey Afternoon. No. Inside, because the fog surround him. In every details of London, in particular on the fog The life in London was not very good. Its ugliness.

He gave an attractive view, because in this part of the day the city is

Inside because he walks throught the streets. On the colours and the noise, on the 3 victims Ugly side of London because blake underline all negative features

side or its ugliness? Viewers/readers response What general impression does the work convey? What feelings and emotions does the work induce in the viewer/reader?

elements and natural elements Impression of tranquillity and peace.

perfectly balanced. Calm and awe. Unhappy, slavery, sadness Sadness, melancholy, Because the text give a sense of oppression.