A Resurrection In A Leicestershire Churchyard

[poliphilo]

On second thoughts I don't think 18th century gravestone makers can have had pattern books, because if that had been the case the same designs would crop up all over the country- and they don't. What you get are local and regional styles. For instance, I can't think that crowded figure compositions of the kind I featured in yesterday's post occur anywhere outside the South East- and possibly not outside Kent.

Here's a gravestone featuring resurrection symbolism from Leicestershire- from the churchyard of All Saints, Blaby. It's very different- even though some of the elements are the same.

In Leicestershire they made their gravestones out of slate- which, if not eternal, weathers very much better than friable Kentish sandstone.

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

What beautiful details! Those cherub heads are amazing.

Now there was a mason who knew how to take full advantage of the properties of slate...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a lovely thing. We go to museums and galleries to gawp at art works which are far less interesting.

[kishenehn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love that.

Is the greenish hue caused by some sort of lichen or moss? Whatever it is, it makes it still more evocative ...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that'll be a lichen, I think.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

That's fantastic! Look at the bugles and lightning bolts emerging from the clouds over the woman arising from the tomb.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Pretty dramatic, eh!

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

That's quite amazing. The radiating oval shape on the right - is it intended as a representation of God? It seems to spell out theo, if that's an omikron at the end; I would have thought theos would be the word?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that's meant to be a representation of God.

As for the missing letter, well, it could be that the carver ran out of space or it could be that his Greek was a bit shaky.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

It's very interesting. Have you seen such a thing before on gravestones?
(I looked up the poem - it's from "The Grave" by Robert Blair. There's a couple of words missing, perhaps also for reason of limited space.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Leicestershire's 18th c gravestones are beautifully designed, with elegant lettering, but this is the most elaborate I've come across. I took its picture because it was so out of the ordinary.

I noticed that an unusually large number of the stones in Blaby churchyard had verse epitaphs- and I was wondering- idly- whether the local schoolmaster or curate might have been a rhymester, but your discovery that this verse is from a published work puts a different complexion on things.

[heliopausa.livejournal.com]

Published,and later illustrated by Blake! It's here: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Grave_(Blair)

The selected lines are very close to the end of the poem. :)