Saturday 22 August 2015

All Cannings, Wiltshire

Like Bishops Cannings, All Cannings is village that lies in the gap between the Downs to the north and the Salisbury Plain to the south - the Pewsey Vale. The Kennet and Avon canal and the young River Avon weave about between them all.

The tower at the All Saints church is in the building's centre - a feature that B and I have come to associate with Ancientness and the oft-fulfilled promise of carvings and weirdness. We found not only a couple of superbly trumpety Norman capitals, but a couple of enigmatic faces.


I did enjoy sitting there drawing this magnificently chunky capital. The weird shapes on the right are not a product of my dodgy artistic skills but were genuinely like that. The church had a nice atmosphere, one of those places where time feels quite heavy and you can almost imagine the long hours and years and centuries the carvings have sat there, usually in silence, with the light of the sun moving around the walls.

 

B drew the other capital - even more chunky and less fiddly, but as with all these things it always becomes more difficult when you actually start observing and drawing. What you think it looks like isn't really what's there at all, and you have to fight that boring, lazy, impatient and ever critical bit of your brain that won't let the other bits get on and draw.

I enjoyed looking for the colours in the stone - purples, blues, browns, pinks, yellows. It often makes me think that I'd like to bring some acrylics with me and just paint rather than do the ink + wash thing. But can you imagine the mess I'd make. And I'm sure it'd take me even longer. I always try to relax and take as long as I need, give the sculptures the attention they deserve. But one can't help having the Itinerary somewhere in the back of one's mind. Only because there are always new and exciting things to be seen, and only limited time in which to see them.



You can see this face in the background of the photo above, on the wall near the organ. I don't know how old it is, but I liked it because it has simple bold lines like the Norman carving, and the diamondish eyes are also reminiscent of Norman sculptures we've seen. It has a very patient air.

We didn't notice the carving below until we were about to leave - Mr Pevsner didn't spot it and no wonder, because it's up high and round a corner (actually somewhere up above my carved capital). Sometimes we really get the impression he zoomed about and sometimes was thinking more about his tea. I mean I don't blame him or anything, I can't begin to imagine how he sustained his enthusiasm and energy levels for the massive undertaking. His books are an outrageous achievement. I can hardly think less of him because sometimes he skims over magnificent Norman fonts and misses the odd bit of peculiar sculpture. He must have been totally knackered half the time, judging by the way I feel at the end of the day, and that's after only a handful of locations.


So what can this carving be? It was hard to see as it was high up. Having seen the Minute Face at Maperton, I'm inclined to see a bit of similarity with this face. But what's going on with the attached body? I wonder if there's something wave-like and watery going on towards the bottom. The figure certainly has a hand in a sleeve. But the other 'hand' seems to be too large and carved without fingers? which made me wonder if it were something else. And the head doesn't have any hair... so then I thought 'baby... water... Moses in the bulrushes...' but on reflection I think that's probably quite silly.

I'm wondering if I should start taking a ladder round with us.

I found this anonymous document which I think is the same thing I read in the church. It says:
"A relic of an earlier structure exists in the form of a curious stone carving on the south face of the Southwest tower pier. It appears to be the figure of a man entwined by a serpent or snake. It would, therefore, have probably formed one of a pair of allegorical carvings of Adam and Eve. Its date and origins are, however, unknown."

I have to disagree though, because I don't think it appears to be the figure of a man entwined by a serpent at all, largely because we couldn't see any serpent. If you want to call that twirly bit a serpent, it's going to have to be a two-headed one, and one without eyes or a tongue or anything else serpenty. Plus as far as I know, Adam isn't usually depicted wearing sleeves, because in the garden of Eden, he didn't have to wear anything at all. So I'm monumentally unconvinced by the idea.
 
 Update: Stiffleaf has a better photo here. It could be a dragon. It's not a snake as they don't have ears. Maybe he's got a bag of something in his hand. Maybe it's not a him at all but all that stuff at the top is hair. So I'm none the wiser but it's interesting to see it more clearly.

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