{"id":101964,"date":"2016-05-08T08:23:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T08:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/08\/laclefdescoeurs-hull-docks-at-night-john\/"},"modified":"2018-09-02T07:37:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T07:37:36","slug":"laclefdescoeurs-hull-docks-at-night-john","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/08\/laclefdescoeurs-hull-docks-at-night-john\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-101964 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/08\/laclefdescoeurs-hull-docks-at-night-john\/attachment\/101965\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tumblr_o6nunb7xqO1soqrhbo1_1280-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tumblr_o6nunb7xqO1soqrhbo1_1280-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tumblr_o6nunb7xqO1soqrhbo1_1280-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a class=\"tumblr_blog\" href=\"http:\/\/laclefdescoeurs.tumblr.com\/post\/143963957487\" target=\"_blank\">laclefdescoeurs<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><i>Hull Docks at Night<\/i>, John Atkinson Grimshaw<\/p>\n<p><i>\u201c \u2018The work of Atkinson Grimshaw is valuable and unique in several<br \/>\nrespects. He made a great popular success out of that amalgam of<br \/>\nPre-Raphaelite sentiment, nature and industry that dominated the culture<br \/>\n of northern England in the later nineteenth century. His work is our<br \/>\nonly visual equivalent to the great epics of industrial change, the<br \/>\nnovels of Gaskell and Dickens.\u2019<\/i> (David Bromfield, <i>Atkinson Grimshaw 1836-1893<\/i>, exhibition catalogue, 1979-1980, p. 5)<\/p>\n<p>John Atkinson Grimshaw celebrated the age of industry, commerce and<br \/>\nconspicuous wealth in a series of paintings in which moonlight and<br \/>\nlamplight contrast with one another and skeletal trees or ship\u2019s rigging<br \/>\n are interchangeable. In the present picture of the docks at Hull with<br \/>\nthe sailed-barges and steamers, horse-drawn hansoms make their way along<br \/>\n the wet cobbled road which reflects the gaslight of the shop windows<br \/>\nthat face the dock. A young woman and her child are hurrying across the<br \/>\nroad whilst on the opposite pavement another woman stops to talk to an<br \/>\norgan-grinder silhouetted against the glow of a street-lamp.<\/p>\n<p>Bromfield has interpreted Grimshaw\u2019s port scenes as<i> \u2018icons of<br \/>\ncommerce and the city. They are remarkable in that they record the<br \/>\ncontemporary port\u2019s role within Victorian life; they appealed directly<br \/>\nto Victorian pride and energy. They also show that same darkness, a<br \/>\nmysterious lack of complete experience of the subject which one<br \/>\nassociates with large cities and big business, which Dickens recounts so<br \/>\n well in Bleak House and Great Expectations and for which Grimshaw\u2019s<br \/>\nmoonlight became a perfect metaphor.\u2019<\/i> (ibid Bromfield, p. 15). The<br \/>\nnumber of ships-masts visible in the present picture demonstrates how<br \/>\nbusy Hull\u2019s docks were in the late nineteenth century when it was one of<br \/>\n the busiest ports in the country. The imposing three-domed building in<br \/>\nthe present picture was the Dock Offices (it now houses Hull Maritime<br \/>\nMuseum), the headquarters of the Hull Dock Company in Queen Victoria<br \/>\nSquare. This magnificent example of Victorian architecture was built in<br \/>\n1871 and was relatively new when it was painted by Grimshaw which<br \/>\ndemonstrates the modernity of his cityscapes. The monument to the left<br \/>\nis that of William Wilberforce, the Yorkshire MP and anti-slavery<br \/>\ncampaigner. The monument, built in 1834 comprised a ninety foot Doric<br \/>\ncolumn upon which stood a twelve foot statue of Wilberforce. It stood<br \/>\nfor almost a hundred years at the edge of Princes Dock until the 1930s<br \/>\nwhen the dock was closed and the monument was moved. On the left of the<br \/>\ncomposition, behind the skeletal rigging of the sail ships is the<br \/>\nsilhouette of St John\u2019s Church, now demolished. \u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/auctions\/ecatalogue\/2011\/victorian-edwardian-art-l11132\/lot.8.html\" target=\"_blank\">S<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>laclefdescoeurs: Hull Docks at Night, John Atkinson Grimshaw \u201c \u2018The work of Atkinson Grimshaw is valuable and unique in several respects. He made a great popular success out of that amalgam of Pre-Raphaelite sentiment, nature and industry that dominated the culture of northern England in the later nineteenth century. His work is our only visual &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/08\/laclefdescoeurs-hull-docks-at-night-john\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[109,12668,12593,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101964"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101966,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101964\/revisions\/101966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}