Folk Art in the Tower of London

As reported in my July 9 post, on my recent trip to London I encountered striking examples of English traditional crafts in the most unlikely places. Today’s focus is on the wood carvers of Britain, a group whose output was as illustrious as that of the more well-known stone masons who fashioned the cathedrals and monuments we see throughout Europe. The wood carvers were just as skilled, but their work does not survive in the same numbers owing to the fragility of their chosen medium.

The wood carvings that fascinated me the most in London were from a centuries-old display tucked away in the recesses of the Tower of London. As you may know, the Tower is a large complex consisting of many buildings constructed over the course of nearly a millennium. The central building (seen at the top of this post) is the earliest, and is known as the White Tower. In a room on one of the upper floors of this structure I found a series of carvings that were much more interesting than the Royal Armor that most people were viewing in adjacent galleries.

These carvings were associated with a display of British Royalty first created in the old royal palace at Greenwich in the 16th century, and moved to the Tower by 1660. The display was called the Line of Kings, and consisted of sculpted equestrian statues of the succession of English kings up to the present day (see the illustration of the display from 1660 above, second from top). Additional figures and horses were added over the years, employing the leading carvers of the day (whom the labels do not identify), until the late 18th century.

The carved horses are magnificent, and very reminiscent of the carousel figures we know so well in the United States. These animals truly project the power and authority of their former “riders” (the labels give no indication of the current location of the figures of the kings themselves) and the sculptors went to great lengths to show realistic poses and musculature.

Off to one side of this display is something really strange: a case full of carved mahogany heads (below). Human heads. At first I thought this may be the kings, but the label told me that they were in fact a sculpted King’s Guard, a 136-man unit added in the early 19th century to “attend” the Line of Kings. All that remains today are the heads and hands.

These 17th-century horses and 19th-century heads attest to the continuity of the European carving traditions that immigrants brought to America’s shores from the time we were an English colony. We see their contributions to American folk art in ship carving, commercial sculpture (show figures such as cigar store Indians), carousel horses, and circus carvings. This is just another clear indication that even the humblest of our folk art forms has an illustrious ancestry.

The Folk Art Skyline of London

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, owing mainly to a great vacation trip I recently took to London. It was a family vacation, not a business trip, but as always I kept an eye out for great examples of folk art that would be useful and interesting comparisons to the traditions we have here in the United States.

I was not disappointed. Although the majority of the art shown in London museums reflects the voracious collecting of the British Empire (including cultures from across the span of recorded history and from around the globe) and in particular the enormous decorative arts collections of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the 19th century (mostly in the Victoria and Albert Museum), there were examples of folk art to be seen.

Only not in museums. Londoners, unlike Americans, live with their folk art in plain sight every day. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is the stunning array of gilded weathervanes that grace the skyline of the capital. Anywhere you happen to be in London, all you have to do is point your camera skyward and the chances are pretty good that you will catch a glint of sunlight (yes, we had great weather all week!) reflecting off a large weathervane.

You can find these vanes on churches, public buildings, row houses, and businesses. Since I was not able to see any up close I could not tell how many of them were old, but my guess would be that a good number are at least 19th-century examples. This is very different from what you would expect in an American city. It is also a reminder that the weathervane tradition is European in origin, and the weathervane industry in the United States followed the industrial model of England in particular.

So I hope you enjoy these snapshots of the beautiful artworks that may seem incidental to Londoners, but were remarkable integrations of art into everyday life when seen through my American eyes. In the coming weeks I’ll post more of what I saw on vacation, including some wonderful sculptures tucked away like prisoners in the Tower of London.