The White Horse of Uffington, Oxfordshire, England approximately 1000BC The chalk horses that exist across areas of southern England are, in the main, the product of the 18th, 19th and …
The Horse
Wild Horses on Abdon Burf, Brown Clee Hill, Shropshire We had no word for the strange animal we got from the white man – the horse. So we called …
Spring Lamb
I must admit to having conflicted feelings when I see the new lambs in the fields at this time of year. With my urban sensibilities, it worries me that so …
Speaking to the birds
St Francis preaching to the birds- Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337)detail from the Predella of St Francis Receiving the StigmataMusee du Louvre, Paris(The cockerel in the back row seems particularly attentive) …
Sleeping Dogs
A Dog lying on a Ledge by a Genoese Artist (circa 1650-1680)Ashmolean Museum, Oxford This painting caught my eye when I was last in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The …
The Wild Wood
The Ghent Altarpiece – Jan Van Eyck and Hubert Van Eyck-The Holy Hermits, 1432 Ignore, if you can, the procession of hairy men in the bottom half of the painting …
Arms for a maiden – The Hare
Breviary of Renaud and Marguerite de Bar Metz, 1302-1305 Verdun Biblioteque Municipale, MS 107, fol. 89r detail One is hard-pressed these days to wander through any high street without seeing …
The Circle of Animals
Lepus (The Hare) Plate 30, Urania’s Mirror, 1824 by the Rev Richard Rouse Bloxham and Sidney Hall One of the few consolations of winter is having longer to view the stars …
The Magi
The Magi by Herrad of Landsberg (1130-1195) reproduced by Christian Maurice Engelhardt 1818 ‘We Three Kings of Orient are, one in a taxi, one in a car, one on …
Robin Redbreast and the Wren
Robin from the Sherbourne Missal, c. 1400, BL Add. MS 74236 Fascination with birds is something I will admit to, although I am not a bird watcher except in the …