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saraayres.bsky.social
SculpturalMobilities
@saraayres.bsky.social
3.9K followers 1.6K following 170 posts
Art historian. Forthcoming: a critical edition of Prince George of Denmark's travel diary detailing his time in Restoration England, 1669. Danish-British Consort Portraiture, c.1600-1900, Lund Humphries, 2023. Essays in OAJ and JHNA.
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saraayres.bsky.social
A local and friendly Welsh giant has strewn the fields all around with massive Everton mints in time for Halloween.
Massive Everton mints the size of a hay bale wrapped in black and white plastic await the arrival of hordes of excited Welsh schoolchildren celebrating Halloween Massive Everton mints the size of a hay bale wrapped in black and white plastic scattered far across green fields await the arrival of hordes of excited Welsh schoolchildren celebrating Halloween
October 26, 2025 at 11:14 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Here we go! Isn't it gorgeous? And mysterious also.
October 21, 2025 at 3:39 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
Linguists and Arms and Armour specialists: can I ask your advice? This is an object in the Aberystwyth School of Art museum collection; a clasp knife of 412mm when opened. Made of bone (ivory?) and an unidentified metal. Does anyone out there recognise the script? We know next to nothing!
October 21, 2025 at 8:19 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Bloody hell. My work is in this sodding plagiarism machinery :-€
August 29, 2025 at 6:21 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
May I also add to this thread of early modern images of happy student life?
A print, divided into two vignettes, one on top of the other. The upper (naturally) showing a VERTUOUS STUDENT reading happily in a library. The lower showing naughty students carousing in the floral bower of a tavern with "ladies", a fiddler, pipes and a broadsheet? and also Satan. The legend reads SATAN tempteth him from his Study to evil company. I
August 10, 2025 at 7:18 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
20 minutes later
July 21, 2025 at 12:45 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
When you get caught in a thunderstorm on purpose because you just needed the nature
July 21, 2025 at 12:04 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
Looking forward to teaching book illustration next semester. The National Library of Wales has some gorgeous things. Keeping my fingers crossed for a workshop or two in its hallowed art deco halls.
La Morte D'Arthur/The Death of Arthur, illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley. A pic of the edition number, boasting the quality of its paper. Beardsley's illustration, showing HOW SIR TRISTRAM DRANK OF THE LOVE DRINK. Beardsley illustration within gorgeous border, showing ARTHUR AND THE STRANGE MANTLE. Beardsley has taken the form and made it utterly modern, completely his own. Frontispiece, with an illustration of King Arthur witnessing the Questing Beast, and having great wonder thereof, as you would, understandably. Especially if it had been drawn by Beardsley.
July 11, 2025 at 11:00 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Never change, Brummagem
Ozzy et al immortal in brick and spray paint Graffiti in Birmingham around a nail salon, painted across a brick wall and an advertising hoarding. Includes a big blue Brummie bull Gorgeous script graffiti under clouds in Birmingham
July 6, 2025 at 3:19 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
Saw some stunning anatomical illustrations at the National Library of Wales yesterday, and now I will share them with you :-)
Frontispiece of Bidloo's Anatomia illustrated by Lairesse: Bidloo, Govard, and Gérard de Lairesse. Godefridi Bidloo : Anatomia humani corporis, centum & quinque tabulis / per... G.de Lairesse ad vivum delinea tis demonstrata... Amstelodami: sumptibus viduæ Joannis à Someren [etc.], 1685. Print. QM 21 B58(Fol.) Including a portrait of Bidloo in oval frame and on facing page, a thesis print? With a roundel containing the title. A woman's back with the skin gracefully cut away like classical drapery. She sits, as if nothing whatsoever is wrong. Presumably corpses were tied, given this engraving shows just that. The flesh is removed to show the spine, which looks a little like a golden braid. The back of a woman in motion, showing the muscles as she leans back slightly on the weight of one arm, and raises the other.
July 3, 2025 at 3:16 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
I will be doing a little talk about the Grand Tour of Gorgeous George of Denmark in the summer of 1669, at 11.30am on Friday, in case anyone's interested
Wax sculpture by Antoine Benoist of George of Denmark, c. 1668. George's wax wears a bouffant blonde wig, and Roman parade breatsplate over a romantic white poofly shirt. He is caged in a three-dimensional, architectonic frame of gilded wood. This gorgeous George can be viewed today in Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen
June 10, 2025 at 9:52 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
The highlight of my trip to Copenhagen was seeing the incredible masquerade ceiling mural by Benoît le Coffre in the buttermilk yellow Frederiksberg Palace. Was v lucky to see this, since the building is nowadays used as a military college. The spectacular interiors are very well cared for.
Le Coffre came from a family of theatrical scenographers, and it really shows. Look at the musicians, their individuality strongly suggests these are portraits! So many fascinating characters, a global cast. An African female musician grasps the chin of a white female musician, while another looks on. The musicians are both percussionists - are they wearing the same string of pearls? A fascinating group watch a female lutenist serenading a masked man. Is the lady in the centre intended to be read as North American? A gent in a red coat pours wine. Looks like I failed to capture the entire - it's huge! I curse my crap photography skills!
May 21, 2025 at 5:52 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Lovely eighteenth century gown in silk woven in Lyon/Spitalfields. Love the way the label is printed on fabric and cut out with pinking shears. Lovely, playful attention to detail throughout this museum.
A close up of the silk pattern - a conch with a built in fountain resting in a tree! The overdress in its entirety. The state of preservation is quite extraordinary. The label. This is part of a special display on patterns. A very clever and fascinating idea for a show, ranging widely chronologically, global but intimate at the same time.
May 21, 2025 at 5:20 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Very impressed with the innovative interpretation at Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen
This gorgeous hope chest, made in Schleswig Holstein in the late sixteenth century, is overlaid/surrounded by a film which gives you the context for its genesis and history and draws attention to its details and the modes of its past display. Super engaging! I watched it 4 times. Japanese sword guards or tsuba presented on a glass table. The light above throws patterns on the floor beneath, doubling the display. Beautiful! A display of lacquered objects from Japan with wall text discussing the vogue for Japonisme, the driver for the collection of these objects by the museum. Lacquer's materiality is explained in a text printed on the glass. A whole room of cases like this presented as a Wunderkammer, each case focusing on a different material. Gorgeous! Less is a bore - Robert Venturi. Great background colour for a room full of gorgeous postmod and pop design objects
May 21, 2025 at 5:06 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Spring has sprung at Aberystwyth School of Art!
The (steep) path up to the School, sprinkled with cute white flowers I don't know the name of and also bluebells. The early morning sun is peeping through the Scots Pines (are they?) and scattering sunbeams on the grass Super cute little white flowers, thrusting up out of the grass. Have no idea what they are called, 9 or 10 white oval petals around a pale yellow fluffy bit in the middle that bees like (so not a botanist) Gratuitous sea picture of some rocks visible at low tide off Aberystwyth prom. Sea is celadon in the shallow foreground, waves are frothily white, sea gets darker blue towards the horizon line.
April 30, 2025 at 8:15 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
SAVE THE DATE! 6 MAY is a Student Takeover at Aberystwyth University School of Art and everyone is invited!
April 24, 2025 at 9:14 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
PINK
Pink horizon, pale blue sea and a foreground of rocky sea shore with teeny blue pools of water, probably full of tiny creatures minding their own business
March 20, 2025 at 8:58 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
This morning's constitutional was rudely interrupted by TWO (2) licorice allsorts lurking on the path. A sweet so abominably disgusting that even seagulls refuse to eat it.
A horrible licorice allsort on a path. It looks v Mondrian but don't be fooled. A horrible licorice allsort on a path. ABOMINATION
March 18, 2025 at 10:09 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Dickensian seaside towns squashed between hills and sea cannot be beaten on charm
A teeny old town built on a wee bay with hills in the background. Sea and sky are blue! Viewed from atop a hill. Loads of sea and a bit of gorse in the foreground, viewed from up high
March 17, 2025 at 9:12 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
March 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Sunshine blessing the Aberystwyth University School of Art Visitor Day!
The somewhat neoclassical stone facade of the School of Art. Apparently it used to be the Chemistry faculty and was purpose built as such *raises eyebrow in a teacherly fashion*
March 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
More pics as we prepare for students, mums, dads and other interested parties who may decide to study with us this coming academic year...!
Student ambassadors' briefing as viewed through the first floor oculus. The Venus de Milo (or at least a plaster reproduction) stands watch by the entrance to currents students' studio spaces A view into the studios! Paintings on the stairwell, including a beautiful Kyffin Williams landscape
March 15, 2025 at 9:51 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
We're having a Visitor Day for prospective students and their mums and dads today at Aberystwyth University School of Art and the sun is shining!
My office is suitably messy and ready for ASK AN ART HISTORIAN! A painting by the Head of School, Catrin Webster, is hanging on the wall. The window shows a distant view of the sea. Otherwise loads of books A view of one of the exhibition galleries at the School. This one is showing a collaboratively curated (with the Slade) exhibition about text in art, and the book in art, called Spineless Wonders! Seminar room 206 is set up for an introductory talk. Paintings from the School's collection line the walls Plaster busts watch over the entrance to the illustration studio and the oculus!
March 15, 2025 at 9:46 AM
saraayres.bsky.social
Dear and erudite friends and colleagues: can I show you this beautiful tile? Not much is known about it. Apparently the translation is something about going to Ibrahim...? Could anyone please point me in the direction of literary sources or things I should read? I am starting from zero!
Tile, dated 1650-1799, geographic source designated as "the Middle East." 228 x 320 x 20 mm. Materials are "stoneware." The tile has an olive green ground, decorated with a garland of white, blue and black flowers and foliage. Overlaying this is beautiful islamic calligraphy in a dark grey-blue colour, whose script extends into a framing device that splits the upper and lower halves of the tile in two. Gorgeous and mysterious. Any help with it would be much appreciated! A cream exhibition label, stating Tile/Middle East/1650-1799
March 11, 2025 at 1:55 PM
saraayres.bsky.social
This weekend's reading and lecture writing
The front cover of the exh cat The Paston Treasure: Microcosm of the Known World. It shows a cropped image of the painting by an unknown artist called The Paston Treasure, showing objects from the kunstkammer of the Paston family of Oxnead Hall (is that right? I need to read the book actually. Stand by for alt text which is more informed!) The image shows, left to right, a young, gorgeously dressed Black boy bearing a silver monkey on his shoulder, carrying a ewer, a table on which shells, some worked and mounted, musical instruments, fruit, flowers and a lobster (!) are almost carelessly strewn, Each of the objects, and the boy, are lit in such a way that they seem to emerge from the picture plane on entirely their own terms. Odd AF. Fascinating.
March 8, 2025 at 7:40 AM