Category Archives: The Kersting Archive

Yolanda Huang: Changing Space and Visuality – Norwegian Churches from the 11th to 20th Century in the Eyes of Anthony Kersting

Is it a temple? Or a pagoda? When my partner and I were digitizing a section of Anthony Kersting’s photos taken in Norway, we were amazed, but then struggled to associate this unique-looking wooden building (fig. 1) with part of the Norwegian architectural tradition. Later research demonstrates that it was one of the stave churches — its name deriving from the pine tree trunks used to construct the building — constituting a part of the great cultural heritages of Norway and the rest of the world. A search into the Kersting archive for photos of similar churches, however, introduced me to a series of churches Kersting visited during his trip to Norway, each distinct in style and history. Fascinated by the contrasting designs of the churches, I wish to peek into the changing devotional experience in Norway using Kersting’s photos and the broader collection of the Conway Library on Norwegian ecclesiastical architecture.

Fig. 1: A black and white photograph depicting the Stave Church at Vik. The church appears to comprise of a single nave with a raised roof, which is topped with a bell tower and culminates in a smaller, pyramidal tower. The church is built and ornamented in dark wood. The points of the roofs extend out into dragon shaped wooden carvings. A rounded turret is visible on right side of the photograph. On the ground floor, a small entrance is visible within a simple wooden porch. The left half of the church is obscured by trees and surrounded by grass and vegetation, and a small number of white headstones can be seen in the graveyard outside.
[KER_PNT_ H16811, The Stave Church at Vik, on the Bogn Fjord. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the contour of the history of religions in Norway than its churches — those disappeared, those still standing and those refurbished. While the polytheistic Norse religion filled people’s imagination of the spiritual world and their understanding of the natural world with stories of warring gods, since the 8th century gradual Christianization of the land began with converted Viking kings bringing their new religion home as they returned from England. King Olav Haraldsson — in particular, his death in 1030 CE — played a central role in Norway’s Catholic transformation. The alleged miracles associated with his tomb saw a massive number of conversions, his canonization and subsequent elevation into the patron saint of Norway, and the emergence of a cult of saints. Into the 16th century, Norway’s participation in the Reformation saw the royal family and the rest of the country breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church and converting to Lutheranism. Changes in the religious landscape of the country are reflected in the erection of new churches and the dismantling of old ones, as well as the adapted appearance of existing churches.

An adapted building not only reflects religious changes, but also calls for a closer examination of the devotional experience. As the ‘spatial turn ’prompted archaeologists to explore the interaction between landscape, building and material culture, Kate Giles theorizes the concept of visuality as “the social and cultural constructed-ness of vision” and the medieval way of seeing as a form of feeling… touching the object of vision” [1]. Giles’s work on pre-modern England provides valuable insight into studies on the surviving medieval churches in Norway, which, on top of demonstrating English influence, reflects regional interpretations of interactions between cultures and religions. Although Kersting did not document the evolution of one particular parish church, the geographical range of his photos allows one to appreciate the diverse religious architecture in Norway and to reimagine people’s unique memory of these transforming spaces. Many personal accounts of the churches were lost or yet to be told, but photos open a window for us to listen to the voices embedded in woods and stones.

The Exterior: Style and Material

Browsing through the photographic collection often gives one the opportunity to see buildings of contrasting styles juxtaposed with each other. In this case, Kersting’s trip to Norway captures the distinct architectural styles adopted by medieval and modern churches, which can be made more even apparent through collage (fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Collage of parts of different churches on top of the image of the stave church at Vik, Yolanda (Yiyun) Huang, 2023.

From right to left: the Trondheim Cathedral [KER_PNT_ H19105. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC], the Kviteseid Old Church [KER_PNT_ G10336. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC] and the bell tower of the Cathedral at Molde [KER_PNT_ H13157. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC].

The Stave Church at Vik, built between 1130 and 1150, is one of the 28 remaining stave churches in Norway — scholars speculate that about 1000 more existed in earlier periods. While there has been no consensus on whether the stave churches represent a more indigenous style or were influenced by the English basilicas, they certainly draw visitors’ attention at first sight with their large, steep and multi-tiered pitched roofs connecting to the bell tower. Dated between the 12th to 14th centuries, the Trondheim Cathedral also features a sky-reaching bell tower in the center (fig. 3), but it displays extensive Romanesque and Gothic characteristics.

Fig. 3 Left: [See previous description of Fig.1]
[KER_PNT_ H16811, The Stave Church at Vik. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 3 Right: A black and white photograph of the Trondheim Cathedral from the north. The photograph depicts a large cathedral, built in light stone. The architectural style is eclectic, encompassing both Romanesque and Gothic elements. The construction of the church is relatively simple, a nave with a bell tower extends upwards above a central entrance. Though not excessive, the ornamentation is significant. There is a curved tympanum above the entrance, which itself is set into a pointed porch. There are rows of stone windows only in the central section of the façade, which is flanked by two buttresses with simple, pointed pinnacles. There is a circular rose window set just below the point of the porch. The bell tower continues this ornamentation, also flanked by two pinnacles and culminating in a hexagonal point. A road leads to the cathedral, which is surrounded by trees.
[KER_PNT_ H13177, The Trondheim Cathedral, from the north. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Dated to a similar period of the late 12th century, the Kviteseid Old Church in Telemark, however, is built in a Romanesque long church design typical of many among the 159 preserved medieval stone churches in Norway. The church at Molde also adopts a long church basilica design, but it demonstrates striking characteristics of a modern and functionalist style in the 1950s, with a detached bell tower (fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Left: A black and white photograph depicting the exterior of the Kviteseid Old Church at Telemark. The church’s façade is simple, white stone, and the church comprises of two main parts: the main building, with a single nave, raised roof and porch, and a smaller choir section to the right. The roof is decorated with light tiles, and at the points there are miniature decorative pinnacles. On the main façade, there are two arched windows to the right of the entrance porch. The porch has a pointed roof, with a crucifix atop the point. There are a set of stone steps leading to the entrance door, which is flanked by carved wooden columns. The choir is decorated in a similar fashion, with a single small window and door. The church grounds are quiet, with trees behind and a small graveyard in front, from which numerous gravestones and crosses can be seen. The church is bordered with a rustic stone wall.
[KER_PNT_ G10336, The Kviteseid Old Church, in Telemark. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 4 Right: A black and white photograph depicting the Modern Church at Molde. There are two main buildings in the centre of the photograph, the main body of the church and a free standing bell tower to the right. There are also visible smaller buildings on either side. The main church building contains no ornamentation, and is a simple double nave church built in flat white stone. There is a dark, circular window in the centre of the façade, and a small, pointed entrance on the ground floor. This is where the only decoration is, as the walls either side of the entrance are patterned with stripes, and the tympanum is a tessellated diamond pattern. The bell tower is built in white stone, excluding the roof, which is dark grey and culminates in a metal pinnacle. There is also a simple, white clock face on the roof, and the main body of the bell tower is hollow with a white stone exterior. The bottom floor mimics the white stone exterior with the recesses filled in with brick walls. The different levels are surrounded by metal railings which wrap around the entire tower. Two separate roads can be seen to lead to the church with a grass verge between them.
[KER_PNT_ H13157, The New Church at Molde. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

The differences in styles may be more closely observed in the doors (fig. 5). A semicircular structure, for example, can be seen in both the door of the Stave Church at Lom and the Trondheim Cathedral, but the former was much narrower and had an intricate wooden carving of pagan abstract animal images. As the main entrances to the church, the doors — with their form and carving designed to convey meaning — guard the sacred space behind them, differentiating while connecting the inside to the mortal world.

Fig. 5: From left to right: The first door is a simple curved arch. The columns supporting the arch as well as the arch itself are made of ornate carved wood. The second door is a pointed church porch topped with a crucifix. The entrance is flanked by stone columns and a small set of stone steps. The third door is a more extravagant curved arch which is layered and decorated with a zigzag pattern. The final door is another porch, but is more modern, decorated with a tessellating diamond pattern under its gable roof, and with large striped columns to either side. [Detail of the doors of the Stave Church at Lom, the Kviteseid Old Church, the Trondheim Cathedral, and the Church at Molde]

Similarities in architectural style aside, it is the primary building material employed that further distinguishes the churches and people’s experience in the spaces from each other. The stave churches stood out because of their use of wood trunks, reflecting resources and skills inherited from the Viking ship-building tradition. Breathing in the scent of tarred wood and observing darkened wood as it changes color in time, one wonders whether the stave churches give visitors a uniquely soft, personal and sensory-rich experience to which the white stone churches of the same period could not compare. The major shift from wood to stone did not happen until the 16th century [2]. White remains the dominant color of many later churches, but modern churches like the one at Molde used concrete and plastered surfaces, giving a very different material feel to the aged white stone walls of the Kviteseid Old Church (fig. 6 and 7).

Fig. 6 Left: [See description for Fig. 4 Left]
[KER_PNT_ G10336The Kviteseid Old Church, in Telemark. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 6 Centre: [See description for Fig. 1]
[KER_PNT_ H16811, The Stave Church at Vik, on the Bogn Fjord. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 6 Left: [See description for Fig. 4 Right]
[KER_PNT_ H13157, The New Church at Molde. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 7: From left to right: Recent full color photos of the Kviteseid Old Church, the stave church at Vik, and the Church at Molde.

The Interior: Space, Light and Decoration

The change in the use of building materials is part of the trend of “dark, small and cold churches being replaced by bright, big and warm churches.” The expanding woship space is clearly reflected in Kersting’s photos (fig. 8). The left shows the interior of the Kinsarvik Old Church in the Hardanger and the stave church at Vik, respectively seating about 240 and 350 people. The right shows the Trondheim Cathedral and the Cathedral at Bodo, respectively seating about 1850 and 850 people. The majesty of the Trondheim Cathedral can be explained by its nature as a pilgrim site and venue for the consecration of new kings, but the scale of the Cathedral at Bodo has become conventional for churches (re)built in the 20th century.

Fig. 8 Upper Left: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of the Stave Church at Lom. The interior is made entirely of wood, and comprises of a central nave with a raised roof supported by wooden beams. There are two visible aisles to either side of the photograph, which are set behind loggias punctuated by thin, wooden beam columns. Above this, there is an open gallery, with wooden balustrades decorated with large decorative diagonal crosses. The gallery is also punctuated with columns, though these are rounded and not unlike doric columns, joined together by arches. Hanging from the centre of the ceiling is a chandelier, and behind it the chancel screen is visible. Beyond the screen, an ornate carved portal arches over the altar, and carved angels flank a painting on the altarpiece. The altarpiece is surrounded by a small, decorative balustrade. A heavily decorated pulpit is visible to the right of the photograph, and there are two rows of wooden pews filling the central floor space.
[KER_PNT_ H16796, The Interior of the Stave Church at Lom. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 8 Upper Right: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of the Trondheim Cathedral. The interior is decorated in the Gothic style, and is heavily ornamented. The nave is very large, with aisles to either side enclosed in a richly ornamented loggia punctuated by Corinthian columns. These are further mirrored by smaller decorative Corinthian columns on the interior walls of the aisle, with pointed arches joining them together. The ceiling of the nave is also decorated by dark coloured ribbed vaulting, and the space is lit by thin, hanging lights. Towards the choir, there is a chancel screen taking the form of a large pointed archway flanked by two smaller copies. Above the central arch is a decorative entablature, which itself is topped with a statue of Christ on the cross. This is accompanied by two smaller statues, likely of saints, on either side. The rest of the chancel screen is made up of rows of smaller pointed arches. On the ground floor, there are rows of many individual chairs which stretch back of the threshold of the nave.
[KER_PNT_H13190, Interior of the Trondheim Cathedral, Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig 8. Lower Right: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of the choir loft of the cathedral at Bodo. The ceiling is curved, with a raised central section spanning the entire space. There is minimal ornamentation, with light coloured concrete walls and a simple repeating dot pattern running down the centre of the ceiling. The interior walls are lined with dark coloured artworks and hanging metal lights in the modernist style. The floor is similarly plain, with rows of dark wooden pews. There is a modern chancel screen at the front of the choir, with brick walls either side. Behind there is a pulpit and altar, with a tall, narrow stained glass window on the back wall depicting the crucifixion.
[KER_PNT_H13205, Interior of the Cathedral at Bodo. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 8 Lower Left: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of the Kinsarvik Old Church in the Hardanger. The space is open and light, with white stone walls with little decoration. There are three arched recesses in the walls, two larger arches on the left and right, and a smaller arch at the top centre. The larger recesses are covered by wooden covers, and the smaller at the top contains a miniature architectural model of a cathedral. Dark wooden beams span the perimeter of the walls. The floor is made of simple wooden planks, and there are numerous rows of wooden pews in the central space. There is a large, curved arch door beneath the smallest recess, through which a densely ornamented altar is visible, covered by a cloth, with two single candlesticks flanking a seven-branched candlestick at the centre. Behind this is an altarpiece, comprised of a selection of six religious paintings bordered by a carved wooden frame. Within the large central space there is a decorated wooden pulpit to the left, surrounded by painted wooden panels depicting various saints. Above the pulpit is a carved, octagonal ‘roof’ which appears to be suspended from the ceiling. Finally, a large metal chandelier hangs from the centre of the ceiling.
[KER_PNT_H20213, The interior of the Kinsarvik Old Church. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Perhaps not obviously shown in the black and white prints, but a visit to the above churches definitely gives you a clear feeling of the differences in the amount of light shining in through the windows. The small, high-up windows in the medieval churches work to create a mysterious and contemplative atmosphere in line with the enclosed space decorated with stylized pagan figures, while the bright light shone through the elegant sweeping curves of the gothic windows renders an extra layer of holiness upon the nave and choir.

Meanwhile, it is often necessary to point out individual characteristics of the lighting design in certain churches to better appreciate the unique local memory they carry. The Kinsarvik Old Church in the Hardanger, for example, evokes tourists’ curiosity with its high-up windows on the west gable (fig. 9). In this case, instead of illuminating religious figures and spaces, the position and size of the windows seem to be more closely connected to the church attic up to which they lead — the attic was used to store ships sails and masts during the winter [3].

Fig. 9: A black and white photograph mounted on card depicting the Kinsarvik Old Church at a distance. The church is a brilliant white, with a simple stone façade that contrasts against the dark trees and mountains behind the building. The gable roofs of the main church building and smaller choir are tiled in a diagonal striped pattern. The façade of the front gable is similarly plain, with a single small window and two crucifixes visible. On the other façade, two slightly larger windows are visible, as well as a simple arched doorway. The church is surrounded by a rustic stone wall, several trees, and benches. Beyond the church is a large lawn.
[CON_B03479_F002_002, The Kinsarvik Old Church in the Hardanger. Photographic print on mount. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

The new Church at Molde, rebuilt after the war, also features a special design: the windows on the right are much higher than those on the left, changing the symmetry of the building and the source of light (fig. 10).

Fig. 10: A black and white photograph depicting the interior of the New Church at Molde. The nave ceiling forms a pointed arch, and is decorated with what appears to be a painted geometric pattern. Rows of metal light fittings hang from the ceiling along either side of the nave. On the left side, there also appears to be a wooden model of a ship hanging from the ceiling. The interior walls are simple, painted white, with an aisle on the left side of the composition. Dark coloured modernist columns punctuate the aisle, and a glimpse of a painting can be seen at the far end of the aisle space. To the right, the wall is made of white brick, and lined with three tall, narrow windows. There are many rows of dark wooden pews lined up on either side of the nave which extend to the pulpit and altar. On the left wall in front of the altar is a black and white patterned pulpit, and to the right is a simple crucifix. At the very back, there is a large altarpiece comprised of a central, rectangular portrait and three smaller square pieces, arranged into the shape of a cross. Directly above this, on the interior wall of the nave, there is a small, triangular window.
[KER_PNT_ H13159, The interior of the new Church at Molde. Attribution: Anthony Kersting, The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

The amount of light dims or illuminates the faces and figures drawn or carved onto the walls and columns of the church. While each church discussed above has its interior decorated with rich human, animal and divine figures, I wish to especially draw attention to the two figures of angels.

The first is a painting on the north wall of the Kinsarvik Old Church, depicting a devil beneath the archangel Michael. The second shows a part of the painting ‘Easter Morning’ by the Norwegian Artist Axel Ender, in which an angel raised the arm to guard Christ’s empty tomb (Fig. 11).

Fig. 11 Left: A black and white photograph depicting a wall painting of the devil and the archangel Michael. The figure of the devil is significantly smaller than that of Michael, and is using a poker to attempt to tip his scales of judgement over to the side. The devil is depicted as animalistic, with large claws, with a smaller winged minion to his right. Archangel Michael is shown to tower over the devil, his wings outstretched and consuming almost the entire wall. The painting shows signs of extensive damage or weathering, and much of its detail has been lost.
[CON_B03479_F002_006, Painting on the North Wall of the Kinsarvik Old Church. Photographic print on mount. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 11 Right: A black and white photograph depicting a painting of an angel guarding Christ’s tomb on Easter Morning. The angel is depicting sitting on some steps, dressed in white with full white feathered wings. She holds one hand aloft, looking outwards to the exit of the tomb.
[KER_PNT_ H13160, the painting “Easter Morning,” now forming the altarpiece of the north aisle of the new Church at Molde. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Both forming an eye-catching and dominating presence on their respective walls, the figures of angels demonstrate very different initiatives from the artists and evoked distinct memories of modern-day church-goers. With its informal, monochrome style, the archangel Michael and a devil painting could represent a familial or personal effort to transcribe their religious identity into something visible and tangible. The presence of a devil trying to tip the scale of the soul inside a devotional space could be disturbing to medieval and modern audiences alike, but the figure of Michael towering over the devil might as well offer a sense of protection against evil.

On the other hand, “Easter Morning” was originally in the old Church of Molde destroyed during the Second World War. The fact that this particular painting had been previously removed for safekeeping and now forms the altarpiece of the north aisle of the new church creates a precious sense of continuity between the modern church and its disappeared predecessor, while further strengthening the new church as a symbol of security, hope and new direction.

The Environment: Changing Space and Use of Space

As the history behind the rebuilt church of Molde suggests, images of churches often give the viewer a false impression of an unchanging religious and cultural symbol standing against the erosion of time. The reality, in fact, is that many of the churches discussed above underwent destruction, reconstruction and adaptation. So instead of capturing their timeless beauty, photos actually encourage us to explore the ever-changing appearance and cultural significance of the churches to the locality.

Being a manifestation of the Norwegian cultural identity that combines Christian and Viking themes, the stave church at Lom was constructed in the 13th century but has a 17th-century addition of transept and sacristy — re-adapted to fit a new form of Christianity in the radical transformation to Lutheranism. Similarly, in the stave church at Vik survived an altar screen and chapel — a later addition depicting the nativity of Jesus in an English/French style (fig. 12). In addition to the Lutheran re-adaptation, the difficulty of preserving wood means that the remaining stave churches more or less underwent rebuilding — something one can look for in the lighter-colored, thus newer, wooden walls.

Fig. 12: A black and white photograph depicting one of the altars at the Stave Church at Vik, contained underneath a wooden portal. The portal comprised of a curved archivolt standing on four wooden legs, and its roof contains many ornate carvings, with filigree-like patterns about the archway to the front. It is further decorated with carved icons, one on each of the wooden legs, and a larger one at the point of the arch. The interior of its roof is painted with a selection of religious scenes. Underneath the portal, there is a white stone altar covered with black cloth. A curved doorway is visible to the right of the photograph, and this too is carved wood with smooth wooden columns. The rest of the wall, which stretches behind the portal, is punctuated with a row of small arched windows. A gallery is visible above the door and portal, and is enclosed behind a broad balustrade and large columns. A metal chandelier hangs from the ceiling in the centre.
[KER_PNT_ H16812, One of the wooden altars in the Stave Church at Vik. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Standing at the center of the traditional pilgrim destination, the majestic Trondheim Cathedral in fact witnessed numerous additions and renovations since its established and into the 2000s. Kersting managed to capture one moment of reconstruction work on the never-completed west front, with a temporary modern structure concealing the work to be done. An earlier photo from the Conway Library gives us another look of the west front before the new figures of saints and kings in the niches were installed (fig. 13).

Fig. 13 Top: A black and white photograph depicting the west front of the Trondheim Cathedral. The façade is built in the Gothic style, with a large rectangular section on the ground floor which is decorated with rows of arched recesses. In the future, these recesses will come to house a multitude of sculptures of various figures, but in this photograph they are empty. The rectangular section of the façade is split into three main parts: a strip of narrow, pointed recesses at the top, rows of shorter recesses in the centre with clover shaped arches, and much wider pointed arches along the ground floor. On each section, there are two windows, apart from the ground floor, which has three doors. At the top of this rectangular section, in the centre there is a large stained glass rose window, with a row of smaller, narrow arched windows underneath. Surrounding the rose window is a square, dark wood structure which mimics the tiles on the roof of the west façade. This, in turn, is topped with a large dark wood pyramid. Beyond the façade, a large pointed bell tower is visible, which culminates in a metal crucifix.
[CON_B03484_F001_001, Trondheim Cathedral, West Front: General views before restoration. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Fig. 13 Bottom: A black and white photograph depicting the west front of the Trondheim Cathedral. There is a large amount of scaffolding about the cathedral’s right side, where a simple, square wooden structure has been built over a tower to the right of the composition. This structure is built with wooden planks, giving it a striped appearance. There is another tower to the left, built in the Gothic style, with square flat roof with pinnacles at each corner. The roof also possesses a decorative balustrade with a clover pattern. Set into the tower is a tall, narrow arched window. In the centre of the façade there is a pointed gable with a decorative relief, this too is ornamented with pinnacles and a row of smaller arched recesses. The central façade of the cathedral is richly ornamented, with rows of sculptures of various figures set into arched recesses in the wall. There are minimal visible windows, with most of the space being occupied by these sculptures. In the very centre of the facade, there is a large stained glass rose window, with a row of narrow arched windows underneath, topped with another gable decorated with a carved relief.
[KER_PNT_ H19105, The West Front of the Trondheim Cathedral. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

Changes happened in the exterior and interior of the churches but also in the ways people use these spaces. A few medieval churches such as the Kinsarvik Old Church remain close to the public but continue to host sacred concerts and events. Yet most stave churches have become tourist sites with little or no religious activities. The shift in the nature of the space reminds one to think about the changing relationship between the building and its surrounding — the physical world and the people who live in it.

Fig. 14 Instagram post of details of visitors going in and out of the churches in previous figures.

Many Norwegian churches were built in proximity to nature, making the surrounding environment and traveling to go to churches a central part of the medieval religious experience. The Kinsarvik Old Church was located at the junction of the fjord Hardangerfjord and the Sørfjorden, meaning that many locals would row their boats to attend church. Stave churches like the one in Vik are often located between mountains and rivers, speaking into the intricate wood carvings which drew inspiration from nature (fig. 15). In the present day, however, the natural environment — and the effort to go into the mountains — became an integral part of the tourists’ quest to find and visit the distant monument of ancient culture.

Fig. 15: A black and white photograph depicting the Hopperstad Stave Church at Vik from a distance, partially obscured on its left side by trees. Only the multilevel roof is visible, with a pyramidal bell tower at the apex, which attaches to a smaller gable at its base. The gable then sits atop the raised roof above the nave, which in turn connects to the main structure of the church. The points of the corners of the roof all extend out into small carved dragons. A smaller structure is seen in front of the church, which appears to be a hollow portal with a gable roof. In the distance, behind the church, a steep grassy mountain is visible. A small dirt road leads to the church, and the side of a simple wooden building can be seen to the right of the photograph.
[KER_PNT_ G5534, The Hopperstad Stave Church at Vik. Attribution: Anthony Kersting. The Conway Library, The Courtauld Institute of Art, CC-BY-NC]

The wood is not only a source of ancient cultural inspiration, but also of anxiety about preservation and destruction. News in 1996 articulated the worries about the homegrown Satanist movement whose slogan was “Kill the Christians, burn their churches.” More than 20 stave churches were destroyed by arson in the early 1990s [4]. Entering the millennium, stave churches stood between the dilemma of preservation and tourism. The study conducted by the Stave Church Preservation Programme in 2015 shows that a door sill in one stave church was worn down by 0.50–1.50 mm during the year [5]. With different churches taking different scales of protective measures, the sacred, historical wood symbolic of Norwegian identity continues to be subject to the threat of disappearance.

Photos capture the building at one historical moment, but they encourage one to look beyond that moment. The changing space and visuality documented by Anthony Kersting and collection of the Conway Library allow us to explore the hidden narratives behind wood and concrete, reimagining people’s shifting devotional experience and memory in transformed architectures.

References

[1] Giles, K., ‘Seeing and Believing: Visuality and Space in Pre-Modern England’, World Archaeology, 39/1 (2001), pp. 105-121
[2] Cook, W. R.,‘Episode 11: The Stave Churches of Norway’, The World’s Greatest Churches (2014) [3] Emma, ‘Hidden Secrets at Historic Kinsarvik Church’, https://thehiddennorth.com/historic- kinsarvik-church/, written on November 11 2022, accessed on June 21 2023
[4] Caryl, C., ‘Staving Off the Devil’s Flames’, The Wall Street Journal Europe, (23 August 1996)
[5] Berg, F., ‘Wear and Tear of World Heritage: Preventive Conservation and Tourism in Norway’s Stave Churches,’ Studies in Conservation, (2018), pp. 320-322

Yolanda (Yiyun) Huang
Courtauld Connects Digitisation
Oxford University Micro-Internship
Participant

Christopher Williams: A Maritime Life-Story – The ‘Venus’ Who Rose From The Waves

May 25, 2023Conway Photographers The Kersting Archive Volunteers No Comments

Audio Version

Read by Christopher Williams

Text Version

On Board Venus: Motor Vessel: Captain.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N01525, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

My fellow Digitisation Volunteer Richard True has described in two blog posts how he set about trying to identify the girl ‘Mary’ at the wheel of a passenger ship called ‘Venus’.

Mary features in a photograph taken by Anthony Kersting on a voyage from Southampton to Madeira in March 1953.

The links to his blog posts are below – and he does track her down!

Kersting’s Visit to Madeira

Search for Kersting’s Mary Continues

My curiosity was piqued by Richard’s search: what is the story of the other ‘she’ in the photographs, namely, the ship herself?

What a story it turned out to be:

a source of Norwegian national pride when she entered service in 1931, dubbed the ‘Queen of the North Sea’ and featuring royalty on her passenger lists;
requisitioned in WW2 by Nazi Germany and used to train U-boats in the Baltic;
sunk at Hamburg by allied bombers;
re-floated at the war’s end – Venus rises from the waves!
repaired and returned to peacetime sailing;
running aground in a storm in Plymouth Sound and again rising from the waves!
in her most glorious hours, rescuing the crew of a stricken vessel in horrendous conditions in the North Sea, to international acclaim and as commemorated in oils by the eminent maritime artist Frank Mason.

This is her story…

Display model of MS Venus as originally configured, 1930s. Photo: Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum

Built at Helsingør (Elsinor) in Denmark, MS Venus was owned by the Bergen Steamship Company (Norwegian: Bergenske Dampskibsselskab or BDS) – the company’s funnels were painted black with three widely spaced narrow white bands. She had a gross tonnage of 5407, a length of 398 ft and a beam of 54 ft; she was a twin-screw vessel powered by 2x Burmeister & Wain four-cycle, 10-cylinder diesels delivering a total of some 9,500 bhp, giving her a speed of 19.5 knots. The ship originally had cabins for 278 passengers. She cost NOK 5.2 million when delivered in April 1931 and was the most expensive ship BDS had owned to date.

On 30 April 1931, Venus went to Oslo to be presented to King Haakon VII and representatives of the Norwegian government and the Storting. The king raised a toast on behalf of the fatherland and believed that such a beautiful ship as Venus must be at the service of the whole country. A few days later, the Danish king stated after seeing the ship that there was only one fault with her; that she did not belong to a Danish shipping company.

On 6 May 1931, she took her maiden voyage from Bergen to Newcastle. In the years leading up to WW2, she maintained a summer service along with another BDS ship of four round trips per week, with departures from Bergen at 11.00 on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and from the purpose-built Tyne Commission Quay, North Shields, Newcastle at 19.30 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Queen Maud of Norway was a frequent passenger until her death in 1938 and other notable travellers included the Thai royal family in 1936.

It was on one of these inter-war journeys that Venus had undoubtedly her finest moment. Late at night on 19 January 1937, Venus was en route to Newcastle in a storm when an SOS was heard from the cargo vessel Trym, which was en route from Kirkenes to Middlesbrough. Venus went to assist and remained standing by Trym, with the winds increasing to hurricane force. First attempts at rescue were thwarted until early in the morning of the 21 January, Venus launched a lifeboat with 9 volunteers under the leadership of 2nd Mate Rolf Andreassen. With extra-ordinary bravery, Ordinary Seaman Perry Opsahl on the Trym jumped into the wild seas and swam to take a line to the lifeboat, allowing six of Trym‘s crew to be taken off and brought back to Venus.

With conditions worsening and the Trym at risk of foundering, Captain Dreyer of the Venus manoeuvred close to Trym so that a line could be fired from the bow across to the Trym so that those still on board could be hauled over the wild seas to safety. All were saved. The success of this rescue made headlines across Europe. British newspapers referred to it as the most heroic rescue operation of the century and portrayed Captain Dreyer as a wise, calm and masterful Viking.

Venus received a great reception on return to Bergen – probably 25,000 people showed up. Opsal from Trym and those of the crew of Venus who had participated directly in the rescue operation were awarded the ‘medal for noble deeds’. First mate Brynjulf Bjarnir and nine crew members were awarded the King’s Medal of Merit in gold. Opsal also received a gift of NOK 10,000 from the city of Oslo.

As well as these Norwegian awards, the committee of Lloyd’s in London commemorated the event with a bronze plaque and awarded medals for saving life at sea to Captain Dreyer and those who manned the boat from Venus.

Lloyd’s Commemorative Plaque. Photo: Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum

Trym and Venus, painting by FH Mason, oil on canvas, 60cmx100cm – detail. Photo: Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum

The rescue of the last crew members was depicted in a painting by Frank Henry Mason RBA, RI, RSMA (1875-1965), an English artist best known for his maritime, shipping, coastal and harbour paintings, and as a creator of art deco travel and railway posters.

He had served in the Great War as a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve – undoubtedly giving him a further insight into depicting maritime events.

*Lt Frank Henry Mason RNVR in WW1 – photo IWM collection*

His painting Trym and Venus now hangs in Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum (Bergen Maritime Museum). Look closely and you can see a crewman from Trym being hauled across to Venus, suspended from the line running between the two ships.

Darker times lay ahead for Venus, however. Following the outbreak of World War 2 and the occupation of Norway by German forces, Venus was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine and sailed to the Baltic Sea under the German flag, to be rebuilt at Neptunwerft in Rostock, where the interior was removed. The ship was then used as a training target by the 26th U-boat Flotilla, which trained newly commissioned U-boats in the firing of torpedoes. In 1945, as the Soviets advanced deeper into Eastern Europe, the flotilla relocated westwards. Finally, on 20 March 1945, Venus was bombed and sunk by Allied aircraft in Walterhofer Hafen near Hamburg. One bomb hit the aft hatch and another hit next to the ship, causing her to sink – though the water was so shallow that parts of her structure remained above the surface.

But her story did not end there.

In June 1945, it was decided that it would be possible, though expensive, to salvage her. This work took until early 1948 to complete; she was repaired and refitted in Helsingør, Aarhus and Copenhagen in Denmark and Landskrona in Sweden.

A cargo hold on the ship was scrapped and passenger accommodation increased and a garage fitted out. After the conversion, the ship could take 143 passengers in 1st class, 257 in 2nd class and an additional 60 in a cheaper class aimed at groups of young travellers – totalling 460 passengers, against 278 passengers before the war. The bow, deckhouse and bridge were also modernised. The restoration cost around NOK 16 million.

On 4 May 1948, she arrived back in Oslo to be displayed, where it was agreed that it was still right to call her the “Queen of the North Sea”. King Olaf of Norway said it had been a pleasure to have the MS Venus again “in her new, beautiful guise”. The next day, she sailed into Bergen, after visiting Stavanger and Haugesund. Six thousand people turned up on the quay to welcome her. The first trip to England after her restoration took place on 8 May 1948, sailing first to London then on to Newcastle before the return trip to Bergen.

During the summer seasons, MS Venus continued to sail the North Sea route from Bergen to Newcastle. Every winter season from December to April from 1948 until the mid 1960s, MS Venus offered ten-day cruises from Southampton or Plymouth in Great Britain to Madeira and Tenerife in the Canary Islands, which also took advantage of the cargo opportunity provided by the import of fruit and vegetables to the UK. It was one of these cruises in the spring of 1953 that carried Anthony Kersting and his camera – and when he pictured ‘Mary’ on the bridge at the ship’s wheel.

Portugal, Madeira, Funchal, Harbour: Motor Vessel Venus, 25 March 1953.
Detail of image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N01577, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Portugal, Madeira, Funchal, Shore, 25 March 1953.
Detail of image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N01575, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

MV Venus: On Board, 23 Mar 1953.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_T000003, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Spain, Canary Islands, Tenerife. 6 April 1953.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N01570, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Portugal, Madeira, Funchal, From Reid’s Hotel, 26 March 1953.
Detail from image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_H07489, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

MV Venus: On Board, 23 March 1953.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_T000002, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Not all voyages were smooth sailing. Most conspicuously, on 23 March 1955, Venus dragged her anchors in a storm in Plymouth Sound and ran aground on the Mountbatten Reefs on the eastern shore of the Sound. Three tugboats arrived in the morning to try to pull the ship free, but without success. All on board, apart from essential crew, were put ashore.

Venus aground in Plymouth Sound, March 1955.
Photographer(s) unknown. Source: M/S Museet for Søfart [Maritime Museum of Denmark] – Berlingske Tidende

Major damage was visible at the bottom of the hull and there was water seeping into some of the cabins. Compressed air was used to keep the water out. Finally, on 26 March when there was a spring tide, the salvage crew managed to pull the ship free at the fourth attempt. She was towed into Plymouth and examined by divers to get a full overview of the damage: outer plates in the bottom were torn up and a leak was discovered in the tanks forward and amidships.

Some of these events in Plymouth Sound were captured on film in unused British Pathé News footage, which can be seen in this YouTube clip.

She was eventually towed to Amsterdam for full repairs to be carried out; she arrived back in her home port Bergen on 31 May to resume her sailing schedule – and to give Kersting further opportunities to sail on her on his photo expeditions.

Norway, Venus in Bergen Fjord, June 1958.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N02197, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Norway, On Venus, June 1958.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_N02229, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

Norway, Vestland, Bergen, Bergen Fjord: M/S Venus, 14 July 1962.
Image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_G02178, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC

In early 1965 the ship made two cruises to the Mediterranean and the Greek Islands, before starting on a new direct route from Stavanger to Newcastle, but still making some calls to Bergen. In March 1966, Venus again set out on a cruise to the Mediterranean, this time as far east as Haifa in Israel.

In contrast to this time cruising in Mediterranean sun, financial clouds were however gathering over MS Venus. Four cruises planned for the autumn of 1968 from Southampton to the Canary Islands were cancelled because of poor ticket sales. BDS put the ship up for sale – her fate was sealed when she was bought for scrapping by Shipbreaking Industries Ltd. based at Faslane on the Lower Clyde. On 5 October she arrived in Bergen for the last time. Valuable objects and artworks were removed and on 17 October 1968 she sailed on her final journey from Bergen to the Clyde and her destruction.

This is how the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende described her departure on its front page:

“The 36-year-old North Sea Queen set out from the quay at Laksevåg and headed across the Puddefjord towards Nordnes and made an elegant turn outside the Skoltegrunnskaien, where it has docked for all these years. With a series of deep blasts from the whistle it sent a final salute into the town and instantly there was a response from a number of boats from the harbour… bidding the proud ship farewell. And then the course was set west, for the last time Venus rounded Kvarven and disappeared out of sight from the city as hundreds of proud schooners have done before her.”

Epilogue – Did she ‘Leave not a wrack behind’? – Not quite.

You can still bid for MS Venus memorabilia on e-Bay!

Items for sale on e-Bay, 4 April 2023 – exactly 70 years after Kersting’s voyage to Madeira and the Canaries on MS Venus

And of course, you can trawl the Courtauld Digital Archive for images of the ship and the places she visited with Kersting and his camera on board.

Christopher Williams, Digitisation Volunteer, May 2023

***

Sources:

There is a comprehensive [Norwegian language] history of MS Venus on Wikipedia at:

https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_%C2%ABVenus%C2%BB

and of the Bergen Steamship Company (Bergenske Dampskibsselskab – BDS) at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen_Steamship_Company

Maritime Museums:

Norway: Bergens Sjøfartsmuseum: https://digitaltmuseum.no/owners/BSJ

Denmark: M/S Museet for Søfart: https://mfs.dk/

The grounding in Plymouth Sound is featured in British Pathé News unused footage ‘SS [sic] Venus Runs Aground (1955)’ duration 2m:12s, viewable at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zrJXI2skrQ

Eyewitness accounts and images of the grounding and repairs in Plymouth can be found on this forum: https://www.submerged.co.uk/gotaway-venus/

The artist Frank Henry Algernon Mason’s life and works are described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Henry_Mason

and here:

https://www.pannettartgallery.org/havens-and-harbours-the-marine-art-of-frank-henry-mason/

Richard True: Search for Kersting’s Mary continues

January 30, 2023The Kersting Archive No Comments

The Musgrave Trail

I’ve continued the search for ‘Kersting’s Mary’ and have found that Mary Musgrave and her parents went on another voyage the following year 1954, this time it was to Lisbon, Portugal on the Alcantara. However, after this it has been difficult to find any definitive information to follow the ‘Musgrave trail’ further.

The Gilmour Trail

Mary Gilmour and her parents also went on another voyage together in 1959, to Melbourne, Australia on the Iberia. This made me think that they may have been emigrating there, but on the passenger list it showed that their ‘Country of future permanent residence’ was Scotland. Amongst the details listed were full names, dates of birth and a permanent address:

Walter Cockburn Gilmour (b 23 Jul 1898), Dorothy Mary Gilmour (b 25 Mar 1903) and Mary Margaret Gilmour (b 29 Jan 1942) of Mistylaw, Bridge of Weir.

I now decided to focus on Scottish records and was able to establish a number of useful pieces of information:

Walter Cockburn Gilmour married Dorothy Mary Noble in 1931 at Paisley

Mary Margaret Gilmour’s birth record showed that she was born at Bridge of Weir, near Glasgow, in 1942 and that her mother’s maiden name was Noble

A further birth record search found that she had an elder brother, Walter Noble Gilmour born in 1932, also at Bridge of Weir

I made further searches for Mary, but could not find any definitive results. So I now turned my attention to Mary’s brother, Walter Noble Gilmour, and found that sadly he had died in 2015 at Poole, Dorset. This then led me to a probate record, which revealed details of his will and grant of probate at Oxford. Surprisingly the will was drawn up when he was living at Sanctuary Cove, Queensland, Australia in 2007. (Could Mary’s trip to Australia in 1959 with her parents have been to visit her brother?) His wife is shown as Christina Gilmour and his son as Mark Noble Gilmour.

Next I searched for information about Christina Gilmour and discovered through electoral register records that between 1998 and 2022 she had lived at a number of addresses in Sussex and Dorset, initially with her husband. The latest address (2018-2022) was in Bournemouth, Dorset and I wrote to her there to see if she could help with my attempts to find her sister-in-law Mary Margaret Gilmour.

Just over a week after sending the letter I was excited to receive an email from Christina who had kindly forwarded the information in my letter to her sister-in-law Mary. She had also lived in Australia, but was now living in North Wales.

A few days later I was delighted to receive an email from Mary expressing her fascination with my search and surprise at seeing the photo, which had ‘brought back long forgotten memories’.

I also received feedback from Christina, her sister-in-law, saying that she and the rest of the Gilmour family were delighted to hear the story.

Richard True

Courtauld Digitisation Volunteer

18 Dec 2022

Richard True: Kersting’s Visit to Madeira

October 6, 2022Conway Photographers The Conway Library The Kersting Archive No Comments

Having started work on the Kersting Photographic Archive as a Digitisation Volunteer in August this year, I decided to try to find out more about his life. As part of this I used an online genealogy service and amongst various records that I discovered was a passenger list for a ship called “Venus” showing an entry for Anthony F Kersting, Photographer, aged 36, of 37 Frewin Road SW18. This sailed from Southampton to Madeira in March 1953 and when I checked in his ledger there were entries for photographs he had taken there at this time.

Looking through the relevant boxes I was surprised to find in one that there were photographs he had taken of the ship itself and some of its passengers. One particular photograph intrigued me. It was of a young girl who looked to be about ten years old, standing at the ship’s wheel, with an excited expression, pretending to steer. This prompted me to go back to the passenger list to see if I could identify her.

It helped that the passengers were put into age categories, one of which was ‘Children between 1 and 12’, and under the column for females there were two possible candidates, both called Mary. They each appeared to be travelling with their parents:

Mary M Gilmour (Schoolgirl, aged 11) with Walter Gilmour (Produce Merchant, aged 54) and Dorothy M Gilmour (Housewife, aged 49)

Mary F Musgrave (Schoolgirl, aged 10) with James P Musgrave (Carpet Manufacturer, aged 53) and Margaret Musgrave (Housewife, aged 53)

The Gilmour’s address was shown as being in Bridge of Weir, which is in Renfrewshire, Scotland and the Musgrave’s in Halifax, Yorkshire.

Armed with this information I started to search further to try to find which Mary it was in the photograph and whether she might still be alive. If so, my idea was to make contact and arrange to invite her to come and see her photograph at The Courtauld.

Unfortunately, I have so far been unable to follow the trail much further with enough certainty, but am continuing the search…

Richard True

Courtauld Digitisation Volunteer

5 Oct 2022

Alessandro Torresi: Wanderers / wonderers through the Roman night

June 4, 2021Architecture The Kersting Archive No Comments

At night, when people fall asleep, the city wakes up and starts to live. And this is particularly true for Roma. There is something mystical about this eternal city which seems to transcend the reality we live in. Only at night, when the streets get empty and there are no tourists wandering through the narrow alleys and hidden corners of the city, you can truly feel what it means to say: “I am in Rome”.

Roma is a protective mother who guides us from street to street, ancient palace to ancient palace, in a perpetual quest to understand the essence of our fragmented life. And as we walk, we might notice lonely and adventurous wanderers who are stuck in the same quest. And as we pass each other, we feel our nostalgia growing, even if we don’t know why. It is like we are aware that we are missing something in our lives, or that we can never fully have it: but the melancholy caused by a lack of love, success, or happiness is heartened by the warm arms of Roma.

Roma is a protective mother who cannot be fully understood. You feel loved, you feel protected, but you cannot fully understand why. You just know that you must keep walking and you must keep passing people by. Roma is unreachable, because thousands of years of history are shown off with pride every inch of the city, but you constantly sense a decadent presence that confers to the city a folksy halo.

Roma embodies the ‘Cabiria’ character in Fellini’s “White Sheik”. When the bourgeois character Ivan is sitting at night in an empty square, crying because his wife has snuck off to meet her soap opera idol, he is the lonely vagabond who’s oppressed by social conventions. And when he is lost for words, in despair, the prostitute Cabiria suddenly appears, whose only way to show love and support is by making jokes and by keeping things light. Cabiria and her friend Assunta look at the pictures of Ivan’s wife, making silly but loving comments, raising Ivan’s spirit up. Roma, as Cabiria, will never take you seriously, but it will always make you feel comforted and at home.

A still taken from “The White Sheik” where an open-mouthed Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) sits next to Ivan, who is crying. — *A still taken from “The White Sheik”, 1952. An open-mouthed Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) sits next to Ivan, who is crying.*

I become that adventurous wonderer every time I have the occasion to visit Roma. Coming from a very small village located in Southern Italy, I have cultivated, since I was a child, a fascination for Roma. The capital was just a four-hour drive from my village, but my family and I were not used to travelling a lot. So, when we visited our cousins in the city it almost felt like we were travelling to the other side of the world. Roma was on the national newscast every day; Roma was the place where my fellow countrymen were going to try their luck to find a job; and Roma was the city where my older cousin was attending University. There is a very special unsaid tradition in my family that tells you that every time you leave the village, you have to wave goodbye to every relatives’ home. And I remember those moments, when my cousin had to return to Roma, as heart-breaking and painful, feeding my view of the capital as “The” destination with no return. Even today, although travelling has become a more common thing for me to do, when I visit Roma, I feel in the same way I used to feel when I was a child.

Last August, for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, my family and I decided to take a two-day trip and there couldn’t be any other destination but Roma. We arrived in the late afternoon and we were supposed to leave the following day after lunch, so we had just one night. I was really looking forward to walking through the city centre when I could have spent some time really enjoying the empty city.

It was 3 am. While my parents and my brother embarked on the impossible mission to find an open ice-cream parlour, I ventured to walk around Piazza di Spagna. I climbed the iconic Trinità dei Monti steps and, reaching the top, I was dazzled by the view: the city enlightened by hundreds of tiny yellow lanterns. It reminded me why I love Roma so much. You can get bewildered by the grandeur of the architecture, but you never feel uneasy.

On the way to re-join my family, I suddenly felt observed by two stone hollow eyes. It was like being trapped in one of those oneiric scenes of Fellini’s movies. The city was alive, and it was peering at me. I instantly remembered when I visited the Cinecittà film studios for the first time and I got hypnotized by the majesty of the Casanova’s Venusia. This massive sculpture of a crowned head, which had been made for the opening scene of the movie directed by Fellini in 1976, now stands at the entrance of the historical studios. The hollow eyes that confronted me that night were, in fact, just the entrance of the Hertziana Library of Zuccari Palace, one of the largest History of Art research sites in Europe, but I really had the impression that the huge mouth of the creature was a magical portal to enter a parallel Roma. A photograph by Anthony Kersting held in the Conway Library as G19688 captures this strange doorway.

Photograph of the doorway of Palazzo Zuccari, in Via Gregoriana, Rome. By Anthony F Kersting. — *Two furious eyes reveal the entrance of Zuccari Palace, Rome. Photograph by Anthony Kersting, “Photograph of the doorway of Palazzo Zuccari Via Gregoriana, Rome. KER_PNT_G19688. The Courtauld.*

It is funny how an elusive glimpse can take you to impossible places. But this feeling is quite common when you visit this unique labyrinthine city. It is the atypical and the bizarre that transform Roma into a human, into a mother. The intrinsic contradiction between the sacred and profane, between the solemn and familiar is the blend that continues to attract hundreds of wanderers every year. If you arrive alone, you will have the city to keep you company. The towering fountains, the cramped cloisters, the wide arcades, the charming churches are a multitude of faces that will guide you through the city, that ascends to the eternal because every vagabond will leave a peace of their soul that will live the streets forever. And at night, when it’s just you and the city, strange miracles can happen.

Ben Britton: Building Independence – the Kenyan Parliament

April 23, 2021Architecture Large Format Cameras Photographic Prints The Conway Library The Kersting Archive Volunteer Audio No Comments

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Anthony Kersting’s photographs of the Parliament Buildings in Nairobi illustrate, rather neatly, the contrast between the two stages of its design. The first section, built in 1957, was commissioned by the colonial government, whilst the second was completed, by the same architect, following the country’s independence in 1963. The architect in question was New Zealander Amyas Connell, who, following a career in the UK in the 1930s, relocated to East Africa, and eventually attracted the attention of Kenya’s British governors, who sought a suitable design for Kenya’s post-independence parliament.

However paternalistic a gesture, the building and its history tell a complicated story which reflects a wider trend in the Global South, whereby international cooperation and modern architecture were implemented as part of the decolonisation process, and coincided with the adoption of policies of Non-alignment.

A photograph of the Nairobi parliament building, taken by Anthony Kersting. The photograph is black and white and shows the modernist clock down rising up from the low buildings. The photograph is catalogued as KER_PNT_G06606. — ‘Nairobi, National Assembly Building’, by Anthony Kersting, KER_PNT_G06606. Kersting’s ledgers date this photograph to the 12 March 1968. The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

The most prominent aspect in the first image is the clock tower. It was not, however, included in Connell’s first draft, and instead represents his response to the criticisms levelled by the British, who considered the designs not English enough, and lamented that it did not look remotely like Westminster. Indeed, the coolness and near-classicalism of the surrounding buildings represent not just the modernising of Kenya’s political environment but were designed more than anything in response to geography. The Modernist architects Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry, who did a considerable amount of work in Lagos, Nigeria, had recently published an influential and detailed study of Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone[1], which demonstrated the practicalities of the Modern style in equatorial countries. So as to appease the British, however, Connell included the central clock tower (then the highest building in Nairobi), a modern mock-up of St Stephen’s tower. There is something comically absurd, however, in its reduction to pure rectangles, and the omittance of Gothic detailing anywhere other than the clock-face itself.

Drew and Fry’s influences extended beyond the African continent. Most famously, they were invited by Prime Minister Nehru to be part of the design team headed by Le Corbusier for the new city of Chandigarh, a symbol of India’s post-independence development. Architectural Modernism was a prominent feature of many newly-independent nations, and, even in countries in which it was implemented prior to the end of colonial rule, a unifying feature of many Non-aligned countries.

Founded in Belgrade in 1961 and rejecting formal alliances with either of the Cold War superpowers, the Architectural Modernism movement allowed for communicative processes beyond those of ‘Iron Curtain’ politics and bloc-formation. As well as the work of Western architects, architectural historian Łukasz Stanek details the Modernist buildings designed by Eastern Europeans in a variety of Non-aligned nations at the invitation of post-colonial governments, as part of a process he deems “socialist world-making”[2]. Although not a founding member of the Non-aligned Movement, Jomo Kenyatta represented Kenya at the 1964 Cairo conference of these countries, and the parliament buildings represent an important addition to the Modernist practices and ideological implications which developed in the Global South.

A print of a black and white photograph of the parliament building in Nairobi, taken by Anthony Kersting. This photograph is catalogued as KER_PNT_G6608. — ‘Nairobi, National Assembly Building’, by Anthony Kersting, KER_PNT_G06608. Kersting’s ledgers date this photograph to the 12 March 1968. The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

These ideals are nowhere more stark than in the second section of the buildings, in which Connell takes a decidedly Corbusian approach, and which incorporates a sculptural frieze depicting the triumphant victors of the independence struggle. It is a shame that Kersting did not take a detailed picture of the frieze (the sculptor of which is unknown) as it is the most direct affront to the pro-British sentiment of the earlier section. His photograph does, however, demonstrate the fluidity and breadth of the National Assembly Building, housing the Kenyan parliament’s lower house. It is, in its architectural form, a testament to the newness of the country, both domestically and in playing a role on the international stage.

As Dennis Sharp writes, the building is an attempt “to develop a new and relevant architecture appropriate to the burgeoning political situation”[3]. The employment of the Modern style, which was implemented across Nairobi consistently in the post-independence period, was by no means constitutive of socialistic revolutionary activity; it was, however, and remains to this day, a demonstration of a solidarity shared across the Global South, to participate in international politics on the basis of positive neutrality, and to maintain relationships, architecturally or otherwise, beyond the division of the world into colonial and military blocs.

Ben Britton
Digitisation Volunteer

References

[1] Drew, J., Fry, M. (1956). ‘Tropical Architecture in the Humid Zone’, Tropical Housing & Planning Monthly Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 2-7

[2] Stanek, Ł. (2020). Architecture in Global Socialism, Princeton University Press

[3] Sharp, D. (1983). ‘The Modern Movement in East Africa’, Habitat International, Volume 7, Issue 6, p. 323

Lorraine Stoker: London Life – Beatniks and Barefoot Girls in Trafalgar Square

December 11, 2020The Kersting Archive Volunteer Audio Volunteer Voices No Comments

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Read by Celia Cockburn.

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As a child, growing up in a socialist household with a trade union activist as a parent, the 1960s were full of London marches and meetings. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and anti-Vietnam War causes were high on the list of mid-week and weekend activities – along with visiting art galleries, although a football match came before art! On reflection, it was a fascinating, innovative, fast-moving time, albeit an ominous and frightening decade overall.

In 1962, the US and the USSR had engaged in a 13-day political and military stand-off, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and Robert Kennedy would also be assassinated in 1968. The Vietnam war raged on, the British government pursued a Cold War nuclear policy, which saw squadrons of V- bombers armed with nuclear warheads. The government also continued with a commercial nuclear reactor programme – Sellafield and Dungeness, for example.

CND marches were held annually from 1959 to 1963 when the International Test Ban Treaty was signed, which partially banned nuclear tests. The Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston was always the destination for the CND annual march, starting at Trafalgar Square. These Aldermaston Marches, the CND symbol and their slogan “Ban the Bomb” became icons and part of the youth culture of the 1960s.

This photograph by Anthony Kersting bears the inscription “London Life – Beatniks and Barefoot Girls in Trafalgar Square” and seemingly captures the youth culture of the 1960s. Are we seeing the aftermath of a political demonstration, students waiting for the end of march speeches? Deep-political discussion after listening to Joan Baez and Donovan play and address the crowds at an anti-Vietnam protest?

“London Life – Beatniks and Barefoot Girls in Trafalgar Square”, image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_U02, The Courtauld, CC-BY-0.4.

And what did Kersting mean to evoke by his caption, ‘Beatniks and Barefoot Girls’? The media sold a stereotypical description of the Beatnik that consisted of dark clothing, turtleneck sweaters, berets and glasses – and women would go barefoot. Free love and drug-taking were also associated with the Beatnik style. Even Kersting appears to have bought into the stereotype. Yet it was always more a state of mind than a way of dressing.

But when were these beatniks in Trafalgar Square and why? It took some time, and several fruitless attempts to find the date of the photograph, but eventually the year 1965 was identified from another image held within the Collection Archive for Art and History, Berlin. This image captures the moment just seconds before the photograph held in The Courtauld library was taken.

You can imagine Anthony Kersting, armed with his camera, hanging over the concrete balustrades in front of the National Gallery, trying to capture the “perfect image”. Whereas the first photograph is far “too loose” and poorly composed, the one Kersting captures seconds later is strikingly composed, divided into two almost equal sections by a strong diagonal yet linked by engaged and connected figures. The heavily textured and rather dark top half is beautifully balanced by the lighter bottom half with its horizontal shadows and the out of focus balustrade. The image reveals a range of tones full of blacks and whites, with dark shadows and bright highlights. The high viewpoint is a creative way to enhance composition, giving the photographer an aesthetic advantage. Such subtle changes in viewpoint can add a deeper meaning or feeling to an image.

It is the physical connection seen within the line of people that draws the eye from one side of the photograph to the other side, weaving in and out of both the seated and standing figures. It is easy to become immersed in their conversations, eavesdrop on their political discussions or their thoughts of the key speakers at the demonstration.

There is a real possibility that the Anthony Kersting photograph was taken during the anti-war in Vietnam demonstration rally in Trafalgar Square where American folk singer Joan Baez, a political activist as well as a singer/songwriter, performed. Joan Baez was a fixture at marches and protests, especially in the Sixties, preaching a philosophy of nonviolence. In fact, she was everywhere – in the Village with Bob Dylan, Mississippi with Martin Luther King Jr. and Palo Alto with Steve Jobs. Both Bob Dylan and Steve Jobs were her lovers at various times. She also famously often went barefoot – although at this particular rally she was wearing shoes.

At the Trafalgar Square demonstration, Baez sang Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changing. The 5^th verse captures the rejection of the more conventional society:

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changing

If we make a reasonable assumption that the Kersting photograph in the Conway Library was taken on the 29th May 1965, it does indeed encapsulate the period itself. In the early 1960s, the Beatles’ Help premiered in the London Pavilion, National Service/Conscription was ended, and comprehensive education was introduced. Feminism became a more influential ideology, while recreational drugs became more commonly used. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated. Anti-Apartheid picketing continued outside South Africa House and 1968 saw the Ford Dagenham women’s strike for equal pay, while Barbara Castle became the first woman to hold the position of First Secretary of State. In March 1968, a crowd of 10,000 demonstrated against US involvement in the Vietnam War before marching to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square, yet a year later in 1969 we saw the first men on the moon. It was a period of rising living standards in the UK but still dire poverty for many. A decade which was so full of promise but also disappointment and frustration.

It is also ironic that Trafalgar Square, built to separate the rich from the poor and, years later, modified to prevent public gatherings (the fountains were built solely for this purpose) would become the focus of protest, rebellion, demonstration and celebratory social gatherings.

The general public sees Trafalgar Square as a place to express freedom of speech and the ability to create change in the space. Scholars argue that change takes place when public space is used for strong protests and the historic presence of protests taken place in Trafalgar Square make it a significant area for the public.

From experience, the “space” does become a rallying point, a resting place, an enveloping space, offering comfort and safety… for the most part. Some academics have labelled the square as a “liminal space”, but introspective as opposed to uncomfortable, a place holding one on the threshold of new experiences. As a beatnik in 1965, having listened to Joan Baez in Trafalgar Square, and now talking to friends, this would indeed become a reflective, introspective space.

If Trafalgar Square is this in-between space, it is often these days geographically half-way between the start and end of a demonstration. Sometimes, one rests in the square before moving on to Parliament Square, or Whitehall. It is the space when you are “on the verge” of something new: you are between “what was” and “what will be”. A transitional space, a transformative space – as was and still is.

Lorraine Stoker
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Volunteer

Muny Morgan: Stepping Back in Mind, South East Asia

December 4, 2020The Conway Library The Kersting Archive Volunteer Voices No Comments

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Read by Tianyu.

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Looking at Anthony Kersting images from the Conway Library at first glance took me back to my youth. It’s fascinating how a photograph – familiar or unfamiliar – can conjure up images of your experiences from a period in your life. It might do so directly – capturing a specific detail of a known building – or indirectly – by having a similarity with another place entirely. Almost like an aroma, or perfume, it can take you back to a specific memory, experience, time or place.

When I make this statement, I am referring to this image of Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, in Bangkok.

Bangkok, image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_G28266, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

Although at first glance I thought: “this is the temple I visited on one of my many trips to Bangkok whilst residing in Singapore”, it occurred to me that I saw so many temples in Thailand that I might be mistaken. It was only after going through my personal, disorganised archive of photographs that I could confirm that it was indeed the same one, although I couldn’t locate the image of the reclining Buddha inside the temple.

Image of the temple taken by Muny Morgan. In it we can see the golden spear behind the protective walls. — Image by Muny Morgan.

When I looked at the images I selected for this blog, they took me back to a period in my life when I had just completed my postgraduate studies in Architecture. At the time, there was a recession in the UK and the building industry is often one of the sectors that are negatively impacted first. There were no jobs for budding, enthusiastic, young architects with no work experience, like me. But this took me, thankfully, to my first job abroad in Singapore, where I lived and worked for two years, and from which I could travel around South East Asia.

The images taken by Kersting in Singapore took me back 20 years in an instant. I recall my weekend walks (in the extremely high humidity temperatures), searching for the historical context of colonial architecture, contrasting with the dizzying heights of banks, hotels and condominiums that tower over the domestic-scaled “shop-houses” on this tiny sovereign island city-state in South East Asia.

St Andrews Cathedral, Singapore, image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_G30646, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

An image of a rugby and football playing ground, with skyscrapers rising in the distance — Cricket Ground near City Hall, Singapore, image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_G30645, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

Old Supreme Court, now National Gallery, Singapore, image by Anthony Kersting. KER_PNT_G30640, The Courtauld, CC-BY-NC.

Kersting captured St Andrews Cathedral, white as icing on a wedding cake, and the Cricket Ground near City Hall, where you could envisage, under colonial rule, a game of cricket being played. These were all on my daily route to the office I worked in, as well as the Old Supreme Court which was the last building to be built in the Classical style in the former British Colony. This building is now part of the National Gallery.

I marvelled at the way this island expands at such speed from a construction perspective and at the amazing architecture that exists. The skyline continues to progress and increase in density, and the structures become more and more challenging. For this reason, this is a place I always want to revisit.

The last time I was fortunate enough to travel to Singapore was ten years after I had worked and lived there and I couldn’t believe the number of new buildings that had emerged.

It made me think of the images of places that have been recorded in history and time, buildings that have disappeared forever due to wars, human intervention and natural disasters, many of which are captured in the Conway Library.

Photography is an important tool for recording places and people as they are in a particular time. This makes the Conway Library, and other photographic archives of this kind, vital to reconstructing our heritage and history and makes the efforts to digitise it and present it to the public even more important. Preserving these items is to preserve that time and place forever, making it accessible to all across the globe, enabling research and consultation for whatever purpose.

Sat here in London on a rainy November day during lockdown 2, exploring Kersting’s photographs was a wonderful moment of escapism that transported me in an instant from my current burdening thoughts and worries to memories of the past. It made me feel more hopeful for the future, during a year of overwhelming disruption and changes to life as we know it.

Finally, for readers looking to spend some time with a good book on memories and olfactory triggers, I recommend Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by German writer Patrick Süskind.

Muny Morgan
Courtauld Connects Digitisation Volunteer

Lorraine Stoker: Kersting – Nassau – Bahamas – Chelsea Pottery

September 18, 2020Photographic Prints The Kersting Archive Volunteer Audio No Comments

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Read by Anne Hutchings

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The mix of European sculpture such as a George and the dragon sculpture and a European bust, alongside a young Bahamian apprentice, busy glazing a plate, piqued my interest.

A black and white photograph by Anthony Kersting showing a collection of various sculptures and a young black man wearing a white tshirt and jeans decorating a plate. — Anthony Kersting, “Nassau, Bahamas, Chelsea Pottery“.

Kersting’s hand-written note on the back of the photograph reads Nassau, Bahamas and Chelsea Pottery.

To put the Kersting photograph into context, the late 1950s and early 1960s saw Nassau as the playground of the rich and famous, who arrived to sample the social scene – the sun, the wild parties and one of the most important and prestigious motor racing events on the race calendar! At the same time, more American and European money began flowing through Nassau, and there was a market for fine pottery, especially among foreign tourists and the affluent ex-pat community in Nassau.

Obviously, Chelsea Pottery was the first line of enquiry. In fact, Chelsea was the brainchild of David Rawnsley, a highly gifted and innovative man who had trained as an architect and engineer but who had also worked as a very successful art director in the British Film Industry. For those of us old enough to have watched the following in the 1960s with our grandparents or parents – One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) and In Which We Serve (1942). His film innovations were widely ridiculed by the Rank film crews. Despite this, David Rawnsley developed independent frame storyboarding and back projection, both radical improvements to the filmmaking process.

At the end of the war, Rawnsley had already set up an ‘atelier libre’ in Paris, followed by another in London 1952, where painters and sculptors could work alongside each other exploring the use of clay and sharing ideas and experiences, for a daily charge. Yet, he decided to leave Chelsea London and set up a pottery along similar lines, in Nassau in the Bahamas.

Four examples of Chelsea Pottery plates

A newspaper article – Chelsea Pottery of London comes to the Bahamas 1958, published January 11^th, 1958, in the Miami Times describes this branch of his famous London pottery house headed by David Rawnsley and assisted by two European ceramic artists. Two Bahamians, George Huyler and Kendal Hanna, were permanently employed.

Instead of pursuing the Chelsea pottery line of enquiry, I wondered about the young man in the photograph… was he one of the apprentices or full-time employees George or Kendal?

Trawling through online articles and photographs of the Chelsea pottery in Nassau, two images showed a young man identified as Maxwell Taylor, who became a much admired and respected Bahamian artist. I contacted Max Taylor and he kindly confirmed that it was him in the Anthony Kersting photograph.

So how did this young Bahamian who trained as a ceramicist in the Chelsea Pottery eventually become one of the greatest Bahamian artists, renown as a painter, sculptor and printmaker?

In an interview conducted by Anita Malhotra for Artsmania in November 2014, Maxwell Taylor revealed that it was working for Chelsea Pottery that really got him started in art.

Along with Brent Malone and Kendal Hanna, Maxwell became one of the ﬁrst apprentices of the Chelsea Pottery in Nassau. He always had a strong desire to draw and paint and admitted that David Rawnsley was instrumental in instructing and encouraging him. After the pottery closed, he later moved to New York and studied at the Art Students League of New York. Maxwell left New York after 20 years and travelled to South Carolina and Europe.

Maxwell Taylor as a young man in the late ’50s decorating a religious piece for Chelsea Pottery (photo courtesy of Maxwell and Therese Taylor)

Over the past 40 years, Maxell Taylor has dealt with issues which reflect his own life experiences, such as Bahamian women as single mothers, immigration, political satire and political commentary, the Middle Passage and Slavery – celebration and misery.

A woodcut print by Maxwell Taylor titled “The Immigrants (Rwanda)” recently auctioned and sold.

Maxwell Taylor, the young man who against all odds worked to become an artist, became a teacher, a highly accomplished craftsperson and is now renowned for his ceramics, paintings, and printmaking.

He certainly had an interesting life from his time as an apprentice in Chelsea Pottery, when Anthony Kersting photographed him, to his well-earned status as one of the greatest – possibly the first – Bahamian artist.

Lorraine Stoker
Digitisation Volunteer

Mihaela Elena Man: At a Crossroads – Kersting’s depiction of the Almudena Cathedral

August 28, 2020Micro-Internship The Kersting Archive Volunteer Audio No Comments

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One photograph that Anthony Kersting took during one of his journeys through Madrid reveals a site whose open roof, skeletal towers and central cavity would easily classify it as a plain depiction of an early twentieth century abandoned architectural project.

Front and back images of a Kersting print. The back side is annotated by Anthony Kersting. — A.F. Kersting. KER_PNT_H009971 and KER_PNT_H009971b, 27 April 1956. On the back Kersting has written: “The Madrid facade of the new Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Almudena as it now appears. The Cathedral was started in 1895, but only the Crypt was completed. Recently, however, the framework for the Twin Towers of the facade has been completed”.

As alluring as images of outmoded objects and sites are, they very often carry the intrinsic ability to make their viewers venture into a purely nostalgic cul-de-sac. American artist Robert Morris unsympathetically asserts “that all the great ruins have been so desecrated by the photograph, so reduced to banal image, and thereby so fraught with sentimentalising historical awe”[1]. I would’ve concluded with a similar statement had I not discovered the note Kersting wrote at the back of the photograph:

“The Madrid facade of the new Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Almudena as it now appears. The Cathedral was started in 1895, but only the Crypt was completed. Recently, however, the framework for the Twin Towers of the facade has been completed.”

In his caption, Kersting introduces the subject of the image, the Almudena Cathedral “as it now appears”, which was most certainly the moment when the image was taken in 1956. It also seems that at a later date he added two other details to the description, namely a note to say that 1895 was the year when the construction of the building began, and a more recent moment, when (to his seeming surprise) the twin towers of the façade were completed. This caption, attached to the image, pencils the troubling timeline of the Cathedral’s biography.

Postal de la maqueta del proyecto de Francisco de Cubas para la Catedral de la Almudena (Madrid, España).
(Postcard of the model of Francisco de Cubas’s project for the Almudena Cathedral)
By Unknown author – Memoria de Madrid, banco de imágenes históricas del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77758865

Due to insufficient funding, the building of the Cathedral was put on hold shortly after the laying of its foundations in 1895. The resumption of the project was further complicated by the death of Francisco de Cubas, the architect who drafted the initial plans. As such, only the Neo-Romanesque Crypt was finished and opened to the public in 1911. The following eruption of the Spanish civil war led to a more than a two-decade stagnancy.

In the 1940s, aesthetic criteria changed. Finalising the construction in a Gothic style was no longer suitable because of the stark contrast it may create with its urban surroundings. Therefore, the Directorate General for Fine Arts organised a national contest, which selected Fernando Chueca Goitia and Carlos Sidro to complete the Cathedral’s construction in a Baroque fashion.

Not accidentally, the exercise of visualising the Cathedral’s hectic timeline is interrupted by the skeletal towers, the centrepiece of Kersting’s photograph. At first sight, the moment of Kersting’s “now”, the “now” when he clicked the shutter, captures the absent façade of the building, which was not completed until the 1960s. This corresponds to one of the periodic moments in the Cathedral’s life when a cloud of uncertainty was hovering around its construction.

Closing the timeline of the Cathedral’s building is the completion of the Baroque cloisters and façade in the 1960s, and the subsequent embellishing of its interiors in 1993. Within a prevailing Neo-Gothic nave, “statues of contemporary artists, in heterogeneous styles, from historical revivals to pop-art decor”[2] are housed. The palimpsestic nature of the Cathedral’s architecture, coupled with Kersting’s ambiguous photograph, further highlights the tumultuous process of how it eventually came to be a fully functional site. Their association also proves that “the history of images is a history of objects that are temporally impure, complex, overdetermined”.[3]

A photographic document like Anthony Kersting’s is deceiving. It demands us to flip the “inert” or “escapist” side of the picture and read its description to realise that the captured moment is the indivisible and decisive element of the monumental timeline which concludes with the Cathedral’s eventual unveiling. In “Iteration”, Robin Schuldenfrei mentions the “barely visible”, yet visceral nature of “iterative gaps”. She gives the example of a ship, whose sailing from one destination to another is incredibly physical, in its speed through water and in the mechanics of towing, yet the “iterative gap” lingers in the uncertainty as to whether it will reach its destination.[4] Natural or technical threats constitute some of the many dependencies that such a travel embodies. These conditions are, however, predominantly neglected once the ship reaches the shore. In the case of the Cathedral, a gap is closed as the completed a place of worship in unveiled. While capturing such an iterative gap, Kersting encourages the unhealed edges of the edifice’s history to surface. Rather than a standstill, we have reached a crossroads.

Side view of the cathedral under a cloudy sky. — Main facade of Almudena Cathedral.
By Little Savage – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27077669

[1] R. Morris, 1970. The Present Tense of Space, in Continuous Project Altered Daily.

[2] Almudena Cathedral – Madrid Tourist Attractions. (n.d.). http://www.madridtourist.info/almudena_cathedral.html

[3] G. Didi-Huberman, 2000. Before the Image, Before Time: The Sovereignty of Anachronism, in Compelling Visuality: The Work of Art in and out of History.

[4] R. Schuldenfrei, 2020. Iteration: Episodes in the Mediation of Art and Architecture.

Mihaela Elena Man

Courtauld Connects Digitisation Oxford Micro-Internship Participant

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Category Archives: The Kersting Archive

Yolanda Huang: Changing Space and Visuality – Norwegian Churches from the 11th to 20th Century in the Eyes of Anthony Kersting

Christopher Williams: A Maritime Life-Story – The ‘Venus’ Who Rose From The Waves

Richard True: Search for Kersting’s Mary continues

Richard True: Kersting’s Visit to Madeira

Alessandro Torresi: Wanderers / wonderers through the Roman night

Ben Britton: Building Independence – the Kenyan Parliament

Lorraine Stoker: London Life – Beatniks and Barefoot Girls in Trafalgar Square

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Muny Morgan: Stepping Back in Mind, South East Asia

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Lorraine Stoker: Kersting – Nassau – Bahamas – Chelsea Pottery

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Mihaela Elena Man: At a Crossroads – Kersting’s depiction of the Almudena Cathedral

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