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Dr Lydia Hamlett’s new book, Mural Painting in Britain 1630—1730: Experiencing Histories, was published by Routledge last month. Here, Lydia shares her close-up perspective of the Baroque period’s painted architectural interiors – and shares some fine examples to admire from the comfort of your own home.
 

While the word comes from the Latin for "on a wall", murals can be found on any architectural boundary – including ceilings and floors – painted directly onto the building’s surface or onto a canvas that’s inserted into a dedicated space.

Art in the Baroque period is characterised by a greater realism and emotional pull that connects the work with its audience. For British murals, this expression begins with Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ stunning ceiling canvases in the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace and closes with Sir James Thornhill’s epic, 19-year-long commission at the Royal Naval Hospital in Greenwich. It’s a time when ceilings and walls frequently became part of a single artwork or narrative.

From grand beginnings to disrepair – and recent salvation

There can be a tendency to view such pieces as static objects, but in presenting modern interpretations of British life, murals were far more than simply wallpaper. Audiences understood them within the context of the time, and many murals were grand talking points for groups of elite friends to experience together, conjuring up distant battlefields, mythological landscapes or even apotheosis, as ceilings ‘opened up’ to heavenly vaults.

Yet mural painting has a history of being undervalued. Largely painted by European migrants and therefore not seen as part of the British story, murals were frequently disregarded. In comparison to the grandest works at European palaces such as Versailles, Britain’s murals were sometimes considered second class, and in later years became divorced from their original setting or covered over with more fashionable design.

Now though, that’s beginning to change as appreciation of their worth grows. After often falling into centuries-long disrepair, Baroque murals are now the subject of much conservation work – Thornhill’s art at Greenwich has recently been gloriously restored, for instance, and a major project to renovate Rubens’ canvases at Whitehall is also upcoming. Works such as these provide outstanding opportunities for us to learn about our past, religion and classical mythology, as well as insights into the patrons who commissioned them.

For example, Sarah Churchill, famously portrayed in the film The Favourite as Queen Anne’s confidante, was a highly significant commissioner of mural paintings at her homes. Her hires included the Versailles-trained Louis Laguerre, despite the apparent contradiction of Laguerre being one of Louis XIV’s godchildren while Churchill’s husband, the Duke of Marlborough, led Allied armies into battle against the French King.

Appreciating murals in their place

Murals regularly adorn the stately homes and palaces that, in more normal times, we have the chance to visit, but they can be harder to view than the paintings hanging in galleries because of their size and location. Very often, decorative artists guide viewers through a space in concert with the building’s architecture. So as you enter a room, your eyes naturally guide you through the images in the structured way the painter intended.

While, in general, there’s still huge, untapped potential for enhancing visitor experience, organisations preserving the nation’s landmarks are increasingly finding more innovative ways of helping us engage with murals. Some put mirrors on the ground for us to view ceiling images in close-up, while others arrange bean bags on the floor, giving time and comfort with which to pause and reflect on the works above us.

Discover some of our greatest works from your sofa

In lieu of being able to visit in person, some excellent online resources allow a more detailed perspective of our Baroque masterpieces. Why not take a closer look at ‘Britain’s Sistine Chapel’ in Greenwich (complete with smartphone-enabled VR, if you wish!) or the 360° panoramas of magnificent 17th and 18th-century paintings in the State Rooms of Lincolnshire’s Burghley House?

To access more online resources about British murals, visit: www.britishmurals.org

To find out more about upcoming ICE courses in History of Art, including an Undergraduate Certificate in Early Modern to Contemporary Art and a range of short courses, visit: https://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/courses/courses-subject/visual-culture

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