Hunting - miscellaneous

Heywood Sumner's Stonehenge in it's complete form, a Ministry of Works leaflet.  Heywood Sumner is a favourite artist of mine I have written of him before,  He was a friend of William Morris but went for his own style based on the Arts and Crafts movement of the time.  Probably a favourite of his archaeological illustrations is the following..

There is something quite reassuring about the above, the swirling lines of the stream, the ponies with their load of pottery, shame it is not a good picture!  But on exploring his work, I find the easy swirling paintings of the New Forest a relief to the eye, something to contemplate, a serene example of nature.  The soft rounded downs echos the bushes and trees...

But he was an accomplished artist as this poster shows, one of four at the Victoria and Albert Museum depicting the four seasons.

You can of course trace the William Morris influence in the words, and Sumner drew the outline for this tapestry below for the Morris Studio.  It is called The Chace as in the 'chase', this time the hunting of a hind.  The edging of course tells all, and as I look at it it reminds me of the tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art... The Unicorn Tapestries

The Chace

Part of the Unicorn tapestry, the unicorn is captured. Late 15th century.

When I started writing the road my mind was following  Roman and Stonehenge thoughts, and absolutely nothing to do with Sumner, but his illustrations  was  the only  picture that jumped into my consciousness,  There has been a release by English Heritage of 80 monograms online, and the one I was thinking of was the,Uley Romano-British shrine* which was christianised at a later date, and the evidence of sacrificial animals came to mind.

Of course the media hunt is on now after Ed Milliband, seen as a bad leader, the media has scented blood and have set the journalist hounds on him.  Not that I have much sympathy for the man but I do so hate  this witch hunting, as of course I hate the hunting of animals for sport.  

*The Uley Shrines: Excavation of a ritual complex on West Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire 1977-9

Heywood Sumner