As the UK begins its LGBT
History Month I return to the subject of my article written to celebrate the
official launch last November. That article looked at the venue chosen for the launch
and its link to the lgbt community (other than the curator) through the artist
Caravaggio.
The Museum of the Order of
St. John in Clerkenwell hosted the launch, and it is where Caravaggio’s
painting “The Cardsharps” can currently be seen. Caravaggio’s own links to the
Order of St. John were given in that previous article so today I’ll look at the
painting itself, because just over 2 weeks ago a court case based around the
painting came to an end (appeal pending).
What the court case
proved, to use a card-playing analogy, is that the value of a painting can
change as quickly as the turn of a card. The card in this analogy being in the
hand of Sir Denis Mahon. He was the Caravaggio expert whose identification of
“The Cardsharps” as a genuine Caravaggio turned it from a work of art worth
£42,000 to one worth £10 million overnight.
The painting had been
owned prior to its sale by Sotheby’s in 2006 was Lancelot “Bill” Thwaites,
owner of Hornby Hall in Cumbria. He had always been led to believe that “The
Cardsharps” was genuine but had no authentication. When he offered the painting
for sale he did ask Sotheby’s to do a proper scientific analysis to prove it
one way or the other, which Sotheby’s did. Their analysis included x-ray
examination but didn’t provide conclusive proof to list it in the sale
catalogue as anything other than “after Caravaggio”. Several art experts
examined the painting closely and they agreed.
Why did Bill Thwaytes
believe “The Cardsharps” was by Caravaggio? You have to go back to its previous
owner to realise why.
Bill Thwaytes inherited
the painting from his father’s cousin, William Glossop Thwaytes (1889-1965), a
retired Royal Navy Surgeon Captain. Capt. Thwaytes (a “lifelong bachelor”) was
an avid art collector and bought “The Cardsharps” in 1962 for a meagre £142 in
a Sotheby’s sale.
Capt. Thwaytes was no
stranger to Caravaggio’s work. In 1947 he had bought another of his painting,
“The Musicians”, from an art dealer in the Cumbrian town of Kendall. In 1952
Sir Denis Mahon examined it and declared it to be a genuine lost Caravaggio.
The captain also suspected “The Cardsharps” was genuine but didn’t carry out
any further research. When the painting passed to Bill Thwaytes in 1965 this
suspicion passed on with it.
Re-enter Sir Denis Mahon.
As I said in my previous article Sir Denis was a leading authority on
Caravaggio and had also identified other Caravaggio paintings. He bought “The
Cardsharps” at the 2006 Sotheby’s auction for £42,000. He, too, wanted to run
tests to ascertain whether it was a Caravaggio.
Within a year Sir Denis
announced suddenly that, to his satisfaction, “The Cardsharps” was indeed a
long-lost genuine Caravaggio and valued it at £50 million (more recently valued
at £10 million, the amount it is insured for while at the St. John Museum).
It is acknowledged that
Caravaggio’s works are often difficult to attribute because his style varied
over the years and often his style was easy to copy. So I can understand why it
took two investigations to confirm the attribution. I can also understand why
Bill Thwaytes thought that not enough investigation had been done by Sotheby’s.
Unfortunately, the High Court decided a couple of weeks ago that Sotheby’s had
done the reasonable amount of research that it could and Mr. Thwaytes lost the
case.
If you can’t get to see
“The Cardsharps” in London in person, you can see Caravaggio’s own copy of the
work which is currently on display at the Kimbell Art Gallery in Forth Worth,
Texas.
As I wrote in my previous
article I saw the painting myself in 2013. The current curator of the museum,
Tom Foakes, is to be congratulated on bringing the painting into a public
gallery, and it seems that over 400 years after Caravaggio’s death his
paintings can still create as much controversy and dispute as the life of the
artist himself.
Ten years ago a gay fossil
hunter, a professional palaeontologist, Edwin Cadena, uncovered a new species
of giant turtle which helps to explain how such creatures could grow so large
and what ecological environment could have led to its evolution. Edwin was a
member of an expedition from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in
Panama and the University of Florida.
They had been alerted to a
potentially rich seam of fossils in a huge open-cast coal mine in Cerrejón in
northern Colombia by a fossil plant in a display case at a coal company. It was
only when a professor from the University of Florida recognised it as part of
an unusual jawbone and not a leaf that fossil-hunters began to get excited
about what else they’d find at the mine.
Studying for an MSc in
Geology at the University of Florida, Edwin Cadena was invited to join the
expedition team that went to Cerrejón. Being a native of Colombia Edwin was an
ideal choice. In 2004 the expedition collected as many fossils from the coal
mine as it could.
They came back several
more years and the specimens were sent to the University of Florida for
cleaning and identification. Three years later a graduate student unpacked one
fossil vertebrae labelled “crocodile”. After it was cleaned up it was obvious
to him that it was too big for a crocodile (specimens aren’t usually examined
in detail on site). When a specialist in fossil snakes saw it he was amazed at
its size and began research into the bone and others bagged up from the same
site in the coal mine. With only an incomplete snake skeleton to go on it took
a couple of years of comparing other known giant snake fossils before
palaeontologists finally revealed that the Cerrejón fossil belonged to the
biggest snake ever known. They gave it the scientific name of Titanoboa
cerrejonensis – literally “titanic boa from Cerrejón”. Later discoveries of
other Titanoboa fossils have confirmed their findings.
Titanoboa was so big that
it could swallow a fully-grown adult crocodile whole. It weighed over a ton,
and about 42 feet long. If you own a car think about this next time you open
any one of the car doors. It doesn’t matter what make of car it is, Titanoboa
would find it a bit of a squeeze getting through that open door, if at all!
Titanoboa was discovered
in rock strata that were formed between 58 and 60 million years ago in what is
called the Palaeocene epoch. That was long after the extinction of the big
dinosaurs.
Other giant fossils were
discovered at the Cerrejón mines, and that brings us back to Edwin Cadena.
While research was still being carried out on Titanoboa Edwin was back in that
coal mine chipping away at the rock. It was ten years ago this month that he
discovered that brand new species of giant turtle. It wasn’t the largest ever
found, but he was the first human to set eyes on this new animal. It must have
felt like his birthday. Considering he discovered the first bone a couple of
days after his actual birthday, that’s probably true!
In fact there were two
discoveries. First Edwin found a huge fossil turtle shell. It was about 5 feet
7 inches from front to back – just about the same at Edwin’s height. About 200
meters away he found a huge turtle skull. It was of a species previously
unknown to science and Edwin eventually proved it was a new species. He gave it
the scientific name Carbonemys cofrinii (literally “fresh-water turtle in coal,
named after Dr. David Cofrin” – Cofrin funded Edwin’s expedition). Although
there was nothing to link the shell and the skull together directly, and
because no other skulls have been found in the vicinity, it is assumed that
they belong to the same animal.
The Cerrejón mine has
revealed other examples of giant fossils. Why did Titanoboa and Carbonemys grow
so big? The mine used to be a hot swampy environment, hotter than any jungle
today, and palaeontologists believe this may have been the reason. Cold-blooded
reptiles need heat to enable them to move. The bigger the animal the more heat
it requires, so in the hot swamp the reptiles were able to evolve into bigger
species.
The illustration below
gives a better idea of the relative size of these giant reptiles compared to a human,
Edwin Cadena himself. (The reptile silhouettes are representative of a snake and turtle
and are not actual silhouettes of the species named).
[Achievement – the name given in heraldry to the
full pictorial representation of a coat of arms.
Generally, today’s
Holocaust Memorial Day is about remembering the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany.
As we now know there were other groups of society who were persecuted. Several
days ago I wrote about Otto Rahn, a historian who was forced to serve as a
guard in Dachau concentration camp when his own homosexuality was suspected.
It’s a subject I’ll return to in the next “Around the World in 80 Gays”
article, when I’ll write about the persecution of German gay athlete. As a kind
of prelude to that this article features another German gay sportsman who was
persecuted because of his sexuality – Baron Gottfried von Cramm (1909-1976).
Before I look at his coat
of arms lets learn a little about his life. Gottfried was one of the world’s
top tennis champions. He was ranked number 1 in the world in 1937, he was
Wimbledon finalist for three consecutive years (losing twice to Fred Perry, and
once to Don Budge), and his 1937 Davis Cup match against Budge is considered as
the greatest in tennis history.
Throughout his playing
career Gottfried opposed all attempts by the Nazis to use his typical Aryan
looks in their propaganda. Despite being married Gottfried was arrested in 1938
for homosexual activity in an admitted relationship with a gay Jew. He was
imprisoned for a year, though because of his hero status among the German
people and to avert popular protest he wasn’t sent to a concentration camp like
so many others were.
On his early release
Gottfried was subjected to anti-German abuse on the international tennis
circuit. When World War II broke out he was forced to serve on the Eastern
Front. The harsh conditions killed most of his division and he was one of the
few who made it back to Germany. He was discharged in 1942 and returned to
tennis. He died in a car accident near Cairo in 1976.
The von Cramm family is
one of the oldest in Germany. Their origins are shrouded in the mists of
history and the first reliable records of the family appear in the 12th
century as a knightly family in Saxony. Throughout the centuries the family
married heiresses of other dynasties and added their coat of arms to their own.
This was common in Germany, so that by the 19th century some German
noble families had dozens of coats of arms on their shield. Even if there were
a hundred of arms on one shield they were all called quarters. To avoid
unnecessary complications I have painted only the von Cramm arms in Gottfried’s
achievement shown here.
The symbolism of the
fleur-de-lys, as also seen in its most famous example in the arms of the royal
Bourbon dynasty of France, goes back to the medieval legends of the Feast of
the Annunciation. This is the event in the Bible when the asexual/intersexual
Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to inform her of her divine
pregnancy. The early von Cramms were devout Catholics. At another time I may go
into Gottfried’s family tree in more detail, but for now all I need to say is
that the family later became friends and followers of Martin Luther and turned
to Protestantism.
The helmets I’ve used are
those assigned to German barons. Even though Gottfried was born with a title,
all titles were abolished in Germany in 1919. As with the other nobility and
royalty Gottfried’s title became part of his surname. Before 1919 he was
Freiherr (German for Baron) Gottfried von Cramm, and after 1919 he was
Gottfried Freiherr von Cramm. All coats of arms were also stripped of their
noble trappings, so the painting I’ve produced depicts Gottfried’s coat of arms
from his birth until 1919. After that the only change would have been different
styles of helmet.
The reason I’ve shown two
helmets is because the family seems to have had two crests. This is not unusual
in German heraldry, and there are examples in the 19th century of
depictions of some German nobles who, as well as showing dozens of quarters on
the shield, have up to 5 helmets and crests above it. The crests shown are
those used by the von Cramms at various periods by various branches of the
family. Gottfried would have been entitled to use either. The two stylised
eagle’s wings on the left is a common device in German heraldry and may be
derived from the coat of arms of the German-based Holy Roman Empire, whose
emblem was an eagle. They are coloured in the von Cramm’s livery colours.
It is often stated in
biographical accounts of Gottfried’s life that he received the Iron Cross for
bravery from the Nazis. I’ve looked in official databases and records and can’t
find any record to this. His brother received one, but there’s nothing to show
Gottfried did. On reflection, if he did officially receive the Iron Cross it
would not really be appropriate to show such an iconic symbol of Nazi power in
Gottfried’s coat of arms on this day.
The von Cramms had no
motto so I can’t do what I usually do and indicate Gottfried’s sexuality by
colouring the back of the motto scroll in rainbow Pride colours. As I’ve done
once before in this case I’ve put the colours on the helmet wreaths.
Back in August, in a
previous “Flower Power” article, I wrote about Rupert Barneby. In that article
I mentioned his life partner, a fellow botanist called Dwight Ripley. From very
early on in their lives they became connected through a mutual love of botany
that blossomed into a real love for each other that lasted almost 50 years.
Even though they can be
regarded as a couple they had different personalities and interests. But it would
be difficult to write an article about one without including the other. I’ll
come to Dwight’s particularly botanical talents in a moment, but first I’ll
talk about one of his other talents – art.
Dwight’s style of drawing
has been described as surrealist. He had studied art at Harrow, the school
where he and Rupert met. It wasn’t until the 1930s that Dwight appears to have
begun to paint with the intention of exhibiting. His friend Jean Connolly had
lots of connections in the New York art scene which was quite vibrant at the
time. This appealed to Dwight, and was probably an important factor in his and
Rupert’s decision to move to New York in 1943 (the major reason was to study
the plants of the American deserts).
Dwight drew Rupert’s
portrait while at Harrow, and many years later drew a similar one with Rupert
wearing a top hat that turned into a flower pot. This portrait was used on the
cover jacket of Douglas Crase’s 2004 joint biography of the couple (pictured
below).
Dwight’s first exhibition
was in 1946 at a New York gallery owned by another friend Peggy Guggenheim.
Indeed, the two had a brief and very open affair. Dwight and Rupert’s
relationship was never officially monogamous.
The prospect of future
exhibitions there were scotched when Peggy closed the gallery in 1947 and moved
to France. Dwight then considered opening his own gallery, or at least
financing one, and he met art critic Clement Greenberg. Between them they
created the Tibor de Nagy Gallery (65 years ago today). Tibor de Nagy was the
co-director of the gallery and sponsor of its first exhibition. Although Dwight
had always intended to be a silent backer for the gallery many in the art world
were aware of where the money had come from. Dwight was to host his own
exhibitions there right up to 1962.
Rupert Barneby was himself
an accomplished artist, though his art was mainly scientific – making accurate
drawings of the plant specimens he and Dwight found. Dwight’s art was born out
of imagination and personal interpretation rather than a pursuit of accuracy.
Another of Dwight’s
talents was poetry. He wasn’t a great poet, but he used another of his talents,
languages, to write poetry in a variety of languages which ranged from Polish
to Catelan. Dwight spoke 15 languages and could read 30 more. He and Rupert
both studied modern languages when they were at Oxford University, and Dwight had
shown a somewhat precocious talent as a child for Latin.
Which brings me back to
Dwight’s “Flower Power”. It was his knowledge of botanical Latin that was part
of the attraction between him and Rupert at Harrow. Dwight had designed his own
gardens from the age of 8, and he made lists of the plants he wanted to grow,
all in their Latin names. So by the time he met Rupert he was as knowledgeable
on botanical Latin as any boy his age today might be on their favourite boyband.
This knowledge appealed to Rupert for another reason. Rupert was beginning to
take an interest in the meanings, use and application of scientific names, or
taxonomy (the oldest profession in the Bible, as Adam was given the task of
naming the animals and birds).
After university,
together, or sometimes Rupert alone, they made trips into the American deserts
looking for new plants. Their first success came in 1940 when they discovered
the plant now called Aliciella ripleyi. This was the first of six plant species
to which Rupert assigned Dwight’s surname. The full list is:
Aliciella ripleyi,
Astrogalus ripleyi,
Cymopterus ripleyi,
Eriogonum ripleyi,
Omphalodes ripleyana, and
Senna ripleyi.
(Rupert’s name was also
used by other botanists to name various other plant species.
Dwight Ripley’s legacy and
talents affected the world of botany and art long after his death in 1973.
Rupert survived him, and they jointly received an award from the American Rock
Garden Society for their contribution to the successful cultivation of rock
plants. Rupert authorised the publication of Dwight’s journals, and Douglas
Crase, the author of their joint biography, has curated exhibitions of Dwight’s
drawings.
Last Time : (1) Alan Turing features in the 2014 film “The
Imitation Game”, based on a biography written by (2) Andrew Hodges, which centres around his code-breaking work at
Bletchley Park with (3) Noel
Currer-Briggs, a leading authority on the Turin Shroud who followed the
theories of Holy Grail historian (4)
Otto Rahn.
(4)
Otto Rahn (1909-1939)
became interested in the Grail legends in his childhood in Germany. Living
through the First World War and the economic depression in his country that
followed Otto found the Grail a way of escaping from the harshness of inter-war
Germany.
It was the medieval
romance poem “Parzival” which was the specific spark that lit his interest in
the Grail, and like that other German historian before him, Heinrich
Schliemann, who went in search of the real Troy behind the myths, Otto went in
search of the real Munsalvaesche, the legendary location of the Holy Grail. Otto
believed he had found it in Montségur, the monastic retreat of the Cathar sect
in the French Pyrenees.
It was Otto who suggested
there was a close link between the Cathars and the Knights Templar, a link
which had not received common acceptance amongst historians, but it has been
fostered by Grail historians and followers of mystic legends ever since.
It wasn’t long before Otto
Rahn’s books and research came to
the attention of the Nazi party, in particular Heinrich Himmler who was
determined to find all the mystic and scared objects known in history and bring
them all under the control of the Nazis. These included not only the Holy
Grail, but also the Spear of Destiny which pierced Christ’s side as he hanged
on the cross, and even parts of the Holy Cross itself. This Nazi quest for
mystic sacred objects has been immortalised in films like the Indiana Jones
series.
Otto Rahn and (1) Alan Turing can be linked through their personal lives. Both
led secret homosexual lives in countries which persecuted gay men. The rise of
the Nazi party in Germany saw the enforcement of Paragraph 175, their anti-gay
law, which led to many gay men being sent to concentration camps. After Otto’s
homosexuality was suspected he was sent to Dachau concentration camp in 1937 as
a guard. For a historian this would have been harsh punishment and Otto would
have been an eye-witness to the treatment of gay prisoners. Alan Turing
underwent physical torture after he admitted his homosexuality and reluctantly
agreed to chemical castration. The
treatment both men received as homosexuals eventually led to them taking their
own lives – Turing by a poisoned apple, and Rahn by pills.
Otto’s theories on the
Holy Grail not only helped to keep the magic of the legend alive but it also
inspired a fictional account of a Grail quest in one of the most talked-about
novels and films of our generation, “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown.
Using another work of
fiction, the hoax about the Priory of Sion and a secret society to which many
famous people belonged, Dan Brown developed the myth further by introducing (5) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) into
the Grail legend for the first time.
Leonardo was claimed to
have been a member of the fictional Priory of Sion, whose sole purpose
(according to Dan Brown) was to protect the identity of a fictional descendant
of Christ, a descendant known as the Holy Grail. This human Holy Grail was
supposed to have been deliberately suppressed by the Church who tried to
elimitate her. The public like to believe in conspiracy theories, and so “The
Da Vinci Code” became an international best-seller.
Dan Brown used the common
belief that Leonardo put codes into
his pictures as evidence of this divine bloodline which led him to invent the
Da Vinci code – a series of clues and devices which revealed the location of
the Holy Grail. However contrived the link between Leonardo and the Grail may
be he does link us back to (4) Noel
Currer-Briggs, or, more precisely, the Turin Shroud.
Many theories have been
put forward to explain the existence of the Shroud. One of the most popular has
been that it was created by Leonardo. The fact that Noel Currer-Briggs proved
that the Shroud was already in the possession of the Duke of Turin in 1453,
when Leonardo was less that 1 year old, hasn’t dampened this theory.
There is another person
who links the Holy Grail, “The Da Vinci Code” and the Nazi concentration camps
– (6) Sir Ian McKellen (b.1939).
Sir Ian played a Grail
historian in the film version of “The Da Vinci Code”. It was his character who
explained the theories behind the divine bloodline descendant from Christ. Sir
Ian was a big-name star when the film was made. Way back in 1979 he won his
first Olivier Award for his role in the world premiere of the play “Bent”. This
play dealt with Nazi persecution of gay men and is partly set in Dachau concentration
camp where (4) Otto Rahn was forced
to do guard duty. As mentioned most recently in my “Twelve Noels of Christmas” series,
“Bent” was instrumental in bringing this persecution to the public eye.
There was another gay
German called Otto who was a Nazi victim, and he brings the world of sport into
our journey around the world in a couple of weeks time. His name was (7) Otto Peltzer (1900-1970).
When I was doing research
for my series “Around the World in 80 Gays” I came across many names I hadn’t
heard before, and of aspects in the lives of lgbt people I hadn’t really known about.
One of these was Giordano Filippo Bruno di Nola (1548-1600), more usually known
as Giordano Bruno. The more I read about him the more I thought how
extraordinary his life was. In particular I was surprised to learn that he
suggested a model of the solar system that was more accurate than that
suggested by the more famous Copernicus.
What I intend to do today
is concentrate on Giordano’s life as a Renaissance scientist, cosmologist and astrologer.
I’ll return to him later in the year where another aspect of his extraordinary
life will be covered.
First of all, some brief
details about his life before he ventured into science.
Giordano was born in Nola
in the kingdom of Naples. He entered a monastery at the age of 17 and became a
Dominican priest. He had an insatiable curiosity for the newly rediscovered
Ancient Greek writings which sparked the Renaissance, as well as other ancient
texts which the Catholic Church regarded as heretical. After he was officially
excommunicated by both the Catholic and Protestant churches Giordano was
summoned to attend an Inquisition, and he fled. Travelling around Europe he
wrote books on logic, memory and philosophy. He also wrote a comedy play called
“Il Candelaio” (translated as “The Candle-holder”), which was an Italian slang
term for a gay man which gay men would recognise today. In 1593 Giordano was
captured and sent to Rome for trial for blasphemy and heresy. He was found
guilty and executed in 1600.
So what of Giordano
Bruno’s science? We should clear up a common misunderstanding in popular belief
that the Catholic Church was anti-science. Most science was conducted by
churchmen. For instance, the recalculation of the calendar according to the
Earth’s orbit around the sun was initiated by Pope Gregory, and it’s the
calendar we still use today. It was a Catholic Cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa, who
first suggested that the stars and planets were not fixed onto invisible
spheres in the sky and that space was infinite. The Church accepted this, but
Renaissance scientists didn’t, so you can’t say the Church was any more
anti-science than the scientists. And those scientists believed in alchemy and
astrology as fact, even Giordano Bruno. No matter how far advanced Giordano’s
view of the universe was he still believed in astrology and the influence of
celestial bodies in the lives of ordinary people. However, he was no believer
in the creation of horoscopes or divination in the prediction of future trends.
Where Church and science clashed it was over God’s authority over nature and
the universe, not because the Church thought the science was wrong.
Giordano was not put on
trial and executed because of his science but because of his views on the
uniqueness of Christ. And his views on science were so extraordinarily ahead of
the times that not even other scientists believed him (just like science
rejected the ideas of continental drift and black holes in the early 20th
century).
Now we need to look at how
the universe was perceived in Giordano’s time. Nicholas Copernicus’s view was
out of date even when Copernicus made it. He believed that the stars were fixed
onto an invisible sphere which the Church had abandoned over 100 years earlier.
What Copernicus said that was different (but not new) was that the Earth orbited
the Sun, not the other way round. Again, it was Renaissance scientists and not
just the Church who didn’t believe him.
Giordano Bruno went
further than both Nicholas of Cusa and Copernicus. Not only did Giordano
believe in an infinite universe but he suggested that each star was like the
Sun and may even have planets orbiting them. The Church had no problem with
that, but other scientists did. What the Church objected to was his belief in
an infinite number of Christs, while the Church preached that the universe only
had one Christ. Giordano put it like this (and being a devout Christian he only
saw the universe in Christian terms) :-
In an infinite universe
with an infinite number of planets orbiting and infinite number of suns there
must also be an infinite number of Gardens of Eden. Even if on only half of
these planets Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit which led to their fall into
sin, as on Earth, half of an infinite number is still infinity. So these
infinite fallen, sinful societies would have God sending his son Jesus Christ
to save them from their sin. Giordano reasoned that there must be an infinite
number of Christs, as he couldn’t believe in one Christ visiting an infinite
number of planets. The Church preached that both God and Christ, as one deity,
existed in all places at all times. They objected to Giordano’s idea of more
than one Christ, but not in an infinite number of planets and extraterrestrial
life-forms.
With Giordano’s view of other
life on other worlds we can understand why he became a figurehead for various
fringe scientific theories, such as UFOs and alien visitations. The more
scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has also adopted
Giordano as a patron. The SETI League even named an award in his honour which
is presented annually to people who have made a significant contribution in
SETI.
Very often Giordano Bruno
has been seen as a martyr to science and someone who sacrificed his life in the
name of science over religion. The fact is that he was no martyr to science. He
was executed for his heretical belief in an infinite numbers of Christs, not
for his science which the Church accepted. Perhaps he should now be recognised
as a pioneer of Christian science.
On my tours of lgbt
Nottingham I talk about several well-known people associated with the city.
Sometimes I stand near the site of a significant event in that person’s life,
whether it’s the car park on the site of the home of the Masquerader or the pub
that sits on part of the site where a huge mansion once stood and on about a
dozen occasions housed King James I (or “Queen” James) and his court.
Fortunately there are 4 or
5 places on my tour where my task is already half-explained. There are plaques
on the walls of buildings which tell my tourists why I stop there. There’s 2
for Lord Byron, 2 for J. M. Barrie and 1 for D. H. Lawrence.
In the UK people often
think a dead celebrity has really made his/her mark in the world when they get
a blue plaque (similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame). Strictly speaking these
blue plaques only apply to Greater London. Any building where a famous person
stayed or lived often gets a plaque. I’m sure you’ve all seen at least one of
these if you’ve visited London. Nottingham, by the way, has green plaques. Other
cities also have their own but I want to concentrate on the London blue plaques
and some people in the lgbt community who have been commemorated with one.
There’s no way I can list all of the blue plaques to lgbt people so here’s
three of them.
I’ll begin with 34 Tite
Street in Chelsea and the plaque to Oscar
Wilde. This house was where Oscar lived with the portrait artist Frank
Miles from 1880. They weren’t lovers though they were very close. They had met
at Oxford, where Frank introduced Oscar to his then boyfriend Lord Ronald
Gower. Frank and Oscar asked architect Edward Godwin to design a house on Tite
Street for them. The result is the house which bear the blue plaque. Oscar
named his new residence Keats House, and it was where Frank’s most scandalous
sexual interests were expressed freely. He was very “fond” of under-age girls. One
night some policemen arrived at the front door with a warrant for his arrest
regarding this. Frank dashed up to the roof and made his escape across the
roof-tops of London. Oscar, in the mean time, was waiting until Frank was clear
before opening the door to the police. Oscar charmed them into believing that
Frank wasn’t in the country at the time and they left. Oscar and Frank had a
big row shortly after this (over something else completely) and Oscar stormed
out of the house and never spoke to Frank again.
We move to fashionable
Fitzrovia next and a tale of a “Woolf in Sheik’s clothing”. Writer Virginia Woolf moved into 29 Fitzroy
Square with her brother Adrian in 1907. It was far from being a fashionable
area at the time but Virginia and her Bloomsbury Group colleagues soon made it
so. Most of the Bloomsbury writer and artists were lgbt and visited Virginia at
her Fitzrovia home often. Virginia herself felt uneasy at the late night
discussions and closeness to central London though she enjoyed the partying. It
was while she was living at 29 Fitzroy Square that Virginia and some friends
pulled off one of the most imaginative cons of the 20th century.
Dressing up as Arabian sheiks and princes, she and the group travelled down to
Weymouth by train and succeeded in persuading Royal Navy officials into giving
them a tour of a battleship! They even had a naval band play the national
anthem of Zanzibar for them! All through this deception Virginia revelled in
the escapade, complete with turban and false beard.
Sometimes the home of a
famous person also becomes a museum. This is the case with George Frederic Handel.
In 1723 he rented the newly built 25 Brook Street in Mayfair and lived there
for the rest of his life. With the Christmas season being celebrated (Christmas
actually officially lasts until 2nd February) its appropriate that
Handel’s most famous work, that Christmas and Easter favourite “Messiah”, was
probably written here as well as many of his other famous works. The location
was spacious enough for Handel to hold rehearsals of some of his operas and oratorios,
including “Messiah”. After Handel’s death this property went through phases of
alteration under various owners. The ground floor was a shop for a time. It was
the musicologist Stanley Sadie who suggested the house be turned into a museum
in 1959. He formed the Handel House Trust which bought the property and in 2001
opened the museum you can visit today. Its one of the places my brother and I
have plans to visit on one of our annual London gallery trips.
