Personal Blogs

I see the two chapters, the first on the History of Christianity in England, and the revival of the gothic tradition and pugin, as being an extended chapter and so I will reflect on both now.

What is striking is the impact that first Henry VIII had and then the subsequent protestant rise has had, not only on the traditions of the old medieval church but also on the daily lives of people in England.

It is very clear that the lives of people before the reformation revolved around the church and the monasteries. Indeed the church was woven into the very fabric of everyday life.

The rise of the Methodist movement and the dissenting of people like Pugin were almost symptomatic of the reversal of all of that tradition f medieval life.

What is also clear is that Pugin’s efforts to revive gothic styles in England were extremely successful, the palace of Westminster and Westminster abbey dominate the ‘idea’ of Britain for most of the world, a style copied later for Tower Bridge. Therefore Pugin was very successful in promoting the gothic style as being ‘brutish’. Sadly his ideas that the space would influence people’s way of life was less successful, and the materialistic result of the industrial revolution is very clearly with us still.

Pugin’s reliance on Flemish and northern Germany for inspiration is also very interesting, since our ‘Britishness’ has been influenced so much on Germanic styles. What is similarly intriguing for me is that this has remained whilst the British have tried to erase other parts of our culture that were Germanic influenced as a result of the two world wars (e.g. the royal family not inhering the German names but changing them to the ‘made up’ Windsor name).

When you compare Pugin’s work of St’Chads in Birmingham with that of Lübeck or even Köln the similarities are very clear indeed, and only the limited budget and site (and you could conjecture, imagination of the brits!) have constrained Pugin. Indeed when he has been allowed to flourish (St.Giles) the results have been tremendous.

On reflection this has been a difficult and challenging section for me, Art History is not my strong point, and neither is my tolerance for Christian doctrine. However I feel I have overcome my difficulties quite well. Having read further forward in to the Irish section of the course, I can see how these three chapters dovetail very nicely indeed. Whilst I am happy that this part of the course is concluded, I did enjoy parts of Pugin, and I think I have a much better understanding of how architecture can relate to the ideas of tradition and dissenting cultural conflicts. I also have a far greater understanding than ever before of the differences between the Protestant and Catholic traditions of Christianity.

OK So first day of studying Faraday, and so far I'm finding it a little dry.

Its the first discussion where I did not really get the same thing as the author.

I left a note in the margin to revisit it, and also to re-read the Obit in a bit more depth. I don't think I was empathizing with either the author or the historical period properly.

I thought that the public would have made Faraday famous for the simple reason that they found his lectures entertaining, I didn't really think of the world accolades and house given by the queen as particularly relevant. But like I said I wasn't seeing things through victorian eyes.

I think it was more down to be a tad rusty after the break with study whilst I had the flu.

After that initial burst of activity that lasted a good solid four weeks. The flu got hold of me and I was off work for a week. Last week I was back at work but had a real loss of stamina. Thankfully I was ahead enough with the course to be able to absorb that. Today is the first day I have been able to sit in my study and start to focus. So Mr Faraday and I have had to wait a while to get to know each other.

Very much looking forward to the first group tutorial next week. I know we will be going over things I have already studied, but it will be good to meet up with folks with similar interests.

Having read through the assignments for AA100 I decided that trying to do DD101 in Jan would be a major mistake. So I have pulled out of that. It will add a year to getting the degree but needs must.