1 00:00:08,559 --> 00:00:12,080 Oxford University Museum of Natural History is home to an internationally 2 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:16,080 significant natural history collection, including the first dinosaur fossils to 3 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:19,680 be scientifically described and the only surviving soft tissue from 4 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:23,199 a dodo anywhere in the world. But it's also one of the most remarkable 5 00:00:23,199 --> 00:00:27,279 buildings of the Gothic revival; a treasure house of Victorian sculpture 6 00:00:27,279 --> 00:00:31,519 and design. My name is John Holmes. I'm professor of 7 00:00:31,519 --> 00:00:34,399 Victorian Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham, 8 00:00:34,399 --> 00:00:39,360 and an Honorary Associate of the museum. Over this series of podcasts I want to 9 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:41,520 introduce you to the art and architecture 10 00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:45,600 of Oxford University Museum of Natural History and to give you a virtual tour 11 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:49,520 of this extraordinary and beautiful building. In the last 12 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:52,399 episode I described how the museum came to be built 13 00:00:52,399 --> 00:00:56,840 through a unique collaboration between scientists, architects and Pre-Raphaelite 14 00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:00,160 artists. In this second episode I want to begin 15 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:03,760 to show you the museum itself, looking at how the sculpture on its 16 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:08,560 facade encapsulated the messages Oxford University wanted to teach its Victorian 17 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:12,000 students about natural history and natural 18 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,680 theology. The overall design for Oxford University 19 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:19,439 Museum was drawn up by the Irish architect Benjamin Woodward, 20 00:01:19,439 --> 00:01:22,880 but many other people were involved in creating the details of its decorative 21 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:26,400 schema. It was the Diocesan architect for Oxford, 22 00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,200 George Edmond Street, who first proposed that the museum 23 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:34,159 should be built in a Gothic style for two main reasons. Firstly, Gothic 24 00:01:34,159 --> 00:01:38,000 architecture had always been decorated with carvings of plants and animals, 25 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:42,560 so this was a fitting style for a museum which wanted to teach natural history 26 00:01:42,560 --> 00:01:46,399 not just through its collections but through art. 27 00:01:46,399 --> 00:01:50,560 Secondly, while classical architecture went back to pagan Greece and Rome, 28 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:54,000 Gothic had always been a Christian style associated with cathedrals, 29 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,520 churches and abbeys. Both these principles of Gothic architecture can be 30 00:01:57,520 --> 00:02:01,119 seen at work in the decorative sculpture on the museum's façade. 31 00:02:01,119 --> 00:02:04,719 According to Henry Acland, the Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford who led 32 00:02:04,719 --> 00:02:07,920 the campaign to build the museum, the carvings on the windows across the 33 00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:11,599 façade were supposed "to illustrate some part of the fauna and 34 00:02:11,599 --> 00:02:14,959 flora of our planet". The first floor windows on the south 35 00:02:14,959 --> 00:02:18,160 side of the tower were supposedly going to be carved to represent different 36 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:21,599 orders of mammals, starting with humans then other primates 37 00:02:21,599 --> 00:02:25,680 then carnivores, while those on the north side are carved 38 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,599 mainly with birds. But whatever the university and its 39 00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:32,720 scientists had in mind, they had to contend with something they had hoped 40 00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:36,000 for but not necessarily bargained for: they 41 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:41,280 were working with artists of genius. The carvings around the windows of the 42 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:46,560 museum are largely the work of two men. John Ruskin was Victorian England's most 43 00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:49,120 famous art critic, the friend and patron of the 44 00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:53,519 pre-Raphaelites, and an influential teacher and social reformer. 45 00:02:53,519 --> 00:02:56,560 An old college friend of Acland, he'd been involved in the design of the 46 00:02:56,560 --> 00:03:01,360 museum from the outset. In 1855, Ruskin drew a portfolio of 47 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:05,280 designs for windows, going on to pledge £300 of his own 48 00:03:05,280 --> 00:03:09,280 money – a very substantial sum at the time and one of the largest single donations 49 00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,800 to the museum – to pay for them to be carved. 50 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:15,840 James O'Shea was a working class Irish stonemason 51 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:18,000 whose exact origins remain obscure to this 52 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:22,239 day. Along with his brother John and his nephew Edward Whelan, 53 00:03:22,239 --> 00:03:25,920 he came over with Woodward from Dublin where they'd been working together on a 54 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:30,799 new museum building for Trinity College. It was fundamental to Ruskin's Gothic 55 00:03:30,799 --> 00:03:34,319 credo that, as he explained in the letter to Acland, 56 00:03:34,319 --> 00:03:39,040 "all architectural ornamentation should be executed by the men who design it." 57 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,319 This was exactly how O'Shea preferred to work. 58 00:03:42,319 --> 00:03:46,879 So it is ironic that when his carving upset the University, it was Ruskin's 59 00:03:46,879 --> 00:03:50,400 designs that he ended up executing instead. 60 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:54,720 The story goes something like this: Towards the end of 1859 61 00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:57,920 O'Shea was carving an upper window with figures of monkeys. 62 00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,959 The master of University College, Frederick Plumptre, 63 00:04:00,959 --> 00:04:05,120 accused him of damaging University property, so O'Shea cheekily re-carved the 64 00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:08,879 monkeys into cats, scotching Acland's scientific schema. 65 00:04:08,879 --> 00:04:12,640 Acland told this story as a joke some 35 years later to explain why the 66 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:16,400 carvings around the so-called Cat Window look more like medieval grotesques 67 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:19,759 than natural history illustrations, so it may not even be true. 68 00:04:19,759 --> 00:04:23,199 But it does seem that the University authorities were unhappy with O'Shea's 69 00:04:23,199 --> 00:04:26,160 style of carving as for his next task they required him 70 00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:29,840 to repress the seemingly irrepressible and to carve the window immediately 71 00:04:29,840 --> 00:04:34,160 below the cat window to a design drawn by Ruskin four years 72 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:37,040 before. Where the Cat Window is charmingly 73 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:40,080 exuberant and playful, the Ruskin Window, as it's known, 74 00:04:40,080 --> 00:04:43,680 is elegant and meticulous in its truth to nature. 75 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:47,199 Ruskin's design centres on two strawberry plants growing across one 76 00:04:47,199 --> 00:04:50,560 another from the tops of the window's two central columns. 77 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:54,320 O'Shea's carving follows Ruskin's finished drawing to the letter. 78 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:57,360 After this, their collaboration became more equal 79 00:04:57,360 --> 00:05:01,440 and more in line with Ruskin's own principles. O'Shea moved back up to the 80 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:03,919 first floor and began to carve the window to the 81 00:05:03,919 --> 00:05:08,000 left of the central tower. The theme of this window is birds and 82 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:11,919 O'Shea's carving incorporates several features sketched out by Ruskin in his 83 00:05:11,919 --> 00:05:15,280 early designs. These include the columns of birds up 84 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:18,320 the sides of the window, the bands of oak leaves growing around 85 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:22,720 the main arch, and the two birds who face each other just below it. 86 00:05:22,720 --> 00:05:25,840 The bird at the centre of the tracery has stepped straight out of one of 87 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:30,000 Ruskin's most appealing designs, raising its head to fit the shape of its 88 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,759 new home. If the Cat Window shows O'Shea at his most creative, 89 00:05:33,759 --> 00:05:37,600 and the Ruskin Window shows Ruskin's care and refinement as a designer, 90 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:41,120 this third window combines the vitality of O'Shea's sculpture 91 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:45,360 with Ruskin's eye for architectural detail, beginning a series of beautiful 92 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:49,600 celebrations of bird life across this wing of the building. If the 93 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:52,960 carvings round the windows of Oxford University Museum of Natural History 94 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:57,199 celebrate the natural world, those around its main entrance tell you 95 00:05:57,199 --> 00:06:02,000 how Oxford's Victorian scientists wanted its visitors to interpret it. 96 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,319 In Oxford in the 1850s, when the museum was built, the main aim of natural 97 00:06:06,319 --> 00:06:09,600 history was to reveal the marvels of God's creation. 98 00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:13,440 By understanding nature we could understand the mind of God, 99 00:06:13,440 --> 00:06:18,840 as a designer, but also, in Acland's words, as "the Everliving, Everworking, 100 00:06:18,840 --> 00:06:22,560 Artist". Natural history was natural theology, 101 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:26,240 and the museum was to encapsulate what another of its founders, Richard Greswell, 102 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:31,440 called "God's own museum, the physical universe". 103 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:36,080 As you entered it, you were to be in no doubt that this was a Christian building. 104 00:06:36,080 --> 00:06:39,600 The first artist who was asked to design the carvings above the arch was Thomas Woolner, 105 00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:41,759 the one member of the original 106 00:06:41,759 --> 00:06:44,880 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood who was a sculptor by trade. 107 00:06:44,880 --> 00:06:48,240 Woolner drew a design illustrating the fall of Man reminiscent of 108 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:50,560 Michelangelo's depiction of the same scene 109 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:54,560 on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Given that according to the story 110 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:57,759 Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden for eating the fruit of the Tree of 111 00:06:57,759 --> 00:07:00,160 Knowledge, this would have been frankly an odd 112 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,680 emblem for a museum promoting knowledge of the natural world. 113 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:06,960 The contract for the design passed to another artist with Pre-Raphaelite 114 00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:10,240 connections, John Hungerford Pollen, who chose to 115 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:14,720 focus not on the Fall but on redemption. Pollen's design still 116 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:18,479 illustrates the biblical story, with the different days of Creation up 117 00:07:18,479 --> 00:07:22,800 the sides of the arch, and Jesus and an angel above it, but the 118 00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:25,919 Tree of Knowledge has been replaced by the Tree of Life. 119 00:07:25,919 --> 00:07:29,520 Eve is present but Adam oddly absent, though he is reinstated in the final 120 00:07:29,520 --> 00:07:32,960 carving. Pollen's design was only partly carved 121 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:35,919 before the funding for the art at the museum ran out. 122 00:07:35,919 --> 00:07:39,520 The days of Creation were left off which gave Acland the freedom many years 123 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:42,960 later to reinterpret the beautiful geometrical arrangement of plants 124 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:46,960 growing up the arch itself as a symbol of evolution. The most 125 00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:51,120 striking change to the symbolism though is in the carving of an angel above the 126 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:55,280 arch. In Pollen's design he holds two books: 127 00:07:55,280 --> 00:07:58,240 the Bible, or the Book of God, and the Book of 128 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:01,680 Nature itself, implicitly written in God's hand. 129 00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:04,800 In the carving, the Book of Nature has been replaced by a disc 130 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:09,840 showing dividing cells. Cell theory was absolutely cutting-edge science when the 131 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,280 museum was built, bringing together botany, zoology and 132 00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:17,120 medicine, as well as the technology of the microscopes which had first enabled 133 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,560 scientists to see cells barely 20 years before. It is a 134 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:23,680 remarkably fitting image for the museum's purpose, 135 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:28,639 teaching modern science at the heart of a Christian university. 136 00:08:28,639 --> 00:08:32,399 In the next episode we will cross the threshold to see how Oxford's Victorian 137 00:08:32,399 --> 00:08:36,479 scientists working with Woodward, the O'Sheas and the Pre-Raphaelites 138 00:08:36,479 --> 00:08:42,500 used art to turn the museum's interior into an object lesson in science. 139 00:08:42,500 --> 00:08:50,560 [Outro music]