1 00:00:09,120 --> 00:00:12,559 Oxford University Museum of Natural History is home to an internationally 2 00:00:12,559 --> 00:00:16,320 significant natural history collection, including the first dinosaur fossils to 3 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:19,760 be scientifically described and the only surviving soft tissue from 4 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:23,359 a dodo anywhere in the world. But it is also one of the most 5 00:00:23,359 --> 00:00:25,599 remarkable buildings of the Gothic revival, 6 00:00:25,599 --> 00:00:29,039 a treasure house of Victorian sculpture and design. 7 00:00:29,039 --> 00:00:33,120 My name is John Holmes. I'm professor of Victorian Literature and Culture at the 8 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:37,200 University of Birmingham, and an Honorary Associate of the museum. 9 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:40,160 Over this series of podcasts I want to introduce you to the art and 10 00:00:40,160 --> 00:00:43,200 architecture of Oxford University Museum of Natural History 11 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:48,000 and to give you a virtual tour of this extraordinary and beautiful building. 12 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:51,920 In the last episode we looked at how the carvings on the museum's façade 13 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:55,680 illustrate natural history and taught the lesson that nature was the work of 14 00:00:55,680 --> 00:00:58,239 God. In this episode I want to take you into 15 00:00:58,239 --> 00:01:01,359 the museum itself, to show you how Oxford's Victorian 16 00:01:01,359 --> 00:01:04,640 scientists worked with some of the most gifted artists of their day 17 00:01:04,640 --> 00:01:08,240 to create a unique physical model of the natural world. 18 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:11,760 The central court of Oxford University Museum of Natural History is not just 19 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,880 one of the most visually striking pieces of Victorian architecture, 20 00:01:14,880 --> 00:01:18,479 with its colorful marble columns and beautiful sculpture and ironwork, and its 21 00:01:18,479 --> 00:01:23,200 magnificent Gothic iron vaulting supporting its tiled glass roof; every 22 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:26,000 one of these details is part of a decorative schema designed 23 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:30,799 to turn the building itself into an object lesson in natural science. 24 00:01:30,799 --> 00:01:35,280 Henry Acland, at the time Lee's Reader in Anatomy at Christ Church, 25 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:38,880 explained the logic of this schema to the Oxford Architectural Society in June 26 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:42,079 1855, a few days before the foundation stone 27 00:01:42,079 --> 00:01:45,200 was laid. "Oxford", he said, "was about to perform an 28 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:49,600 experiment. It was about to try how Gothic art could deal with those railway 29 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:53,280 materials iron and glass; and he was convinced, when 30 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:55,600 the interior court of this museum was seen – 31 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,880 with its roof of glass supported by shafts of iron, 32 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:02,000 while the pillars and columns around were composed of variously coloured 33 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,000 marbles illustrating different geological strata and ages of the world, 34 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,679 and the capitals represented the several descriptions of floras – 35 00:02:09,679 --> 00:02:13,599 that it would be felt that problems had been solved of the greatest importance 36 00:02:13,599 --> 00:02:17,040 to architecture." So the roof would show what engineering 37 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:20,480 could achieve by combining the structural ingenuity of the Gothic arch 38 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,319 with modern materials. The columns would teach geology through 39 00:02:24,319 --> 00:02:28,239 their materials and botany through their carving, and the 40 00:02:28,239 --> 00:02:33,519 whole exercise was to be an experiment designed to solve problems 41 00:02:33,519 --> 00:02:37,040 in imitation of the scientific method itself. 42 00:02:37,040 --> 00:02:40,879 The roof of the museum was subcontracted by the architect Benjamin Woodward 43 00:02:40,879 --> 00:02:44,319 to Francis Skidmore, an ironworker from Coventry 44 00:02:44,319 --> 00:02:47,840 who worked with many of the leading architects of the Gothic revival. 45 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,040 Skidmore was deeply influenced by the writings of John Ruskin, 46 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:55,680 who as we saw in the last episode also worked on the design of the museum. 47 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:59,920 Ruskin hated mechanization, championing instead the craftsmanship of the 48 00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:04,000 individual worker. For this reason he embraced wrought iron, 49 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:07,440 which was worked by hand, but rejected cast iron, which was 50 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:11,360 manufactured without any creative input from the labourers in the foundry. 51 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:14,800 Woodward initially proposed a roof structure combining wrought and cast 52 00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:17,280 iron but Skidmore produced a cheaper quotation 53 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:21,680 for a roof made entirely of wrought iron and glass. The University snapped up the 54 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,159 bargain and work began on Skidmore's preferred 55 00:03:24,159 --> 00:03:28,959 design. Though his ideological commitment to wrought iron held firm, the material 56 00:03:28,959 --> 00:03:31,360 itself was not strong enough to support the 57 00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,799 glass roof, which collapsed partway through construction in February 1858. 58 00:03:34,799 --> 00:03:38,480 Skidmore had to fall back on Woodward's 59 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,920 original proposals. The finished roof retains the original 60 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:44,959 wrought iron spandrels for decoration and extra support, 61 00:03:44,959 --> 00:03:48,239 but with curved cast iron girders taking the weight. 62 00:03:48,239 --> 00:03:52,239 Acland noted ruefully that the museum's first experiment in engineering had not 63 00:03:52,239 --> 00:03:55,680 been a complete success, but to me the cast iron arches are the 64 00:03:55,680 --> 00:03:58,879 perfect combination of gothic architecture with "those railway 65 00:03:58,879 --> 00:04:02,480 materials iron and glass". The effect is 66 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:05,280 inspirational, as the iron girders carry your eyes 67 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:08,799 upward to the light shining through the glass roof. 68 00:04:08,799 --> 00:04:11,840 Acland explained to the Oxford Architectural Society how the museum's 69 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:15,840 columns would teach geology and botany, but it was his colleague John Phillips 70 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:19,519 who put this into practice. Phillips was a career geologist who had 71 00:04:19,519 --> 00:04:21,919 cut his teeth working with his uncle William Smith, 72 00:04:21,919 --> 00:04:25,840 the creator of the first geological map of England and Wales. 73 00:04:25,840 --> 00:04:29,520 Philips had been director of the Yorkshire Museum, taught at universities 74 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:33,840 in London and Dublin, and worked for the Geological Survey. 75 00:04:33,840 --> 00:04:38,160 In 1853, he joined Oxford University as the Deputy Reader in Geology, 76 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,600 before being appointed as the first Keeper of the new Oxford University Museum. 77 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:44,720 Phillips mapped out which types of rock 78 00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:48,400 and plant were to be shown where on the colonnade which runs around the central 79 00:04:48,400 --> 00:04:51,360 court. The columns themselves were made of 80 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:55,199 polished limestone marbles, each a sample of a different rock. 81 00:04:55,199 --> 00:04:59,280 Together they form an encyclopaedia of the geology of the British Isles. 82 00:04:59,280 --> 00:05:02,960 They're still used to this day by lecturers at Oxford to teach their 83 00:05:02,960 --> 00:05:05,759 students about the composition and formation of rocks from different 84 00:05:05,759 --> 00:05:09,280 geological epochs, while the variations in the colours, 85 00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:13,039 patterns, textures, even the temperatures of the columns, 86 00:05:13,039 --> 00:05:16,160 create a unique and beautiful aesthetic experience. 87 00:05:16,160 --> 00:05:19,840 To accompany his geological encyclopaedia Phillips planned out a botanical 88 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:22,479 equivalent, this time covering not just Britain and 89 00:05:22,479 --> 00:05:27,039 Ireland but the whole world. Oxford University's Botanic Gardens are 90 00:05:27,039 --> 00:05:30,639 on a different site from the museum, so to complement the museum's zoological 91 00:05:30,639 --> 00:05:34,320 collections the capitals of the columns were carved with plants showing their 92 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:37,919 characteristic forms, the stages of their growth and even the 93 00:05:37,919 --> 00:05:41,440 animals that might live among them. The capitals surrounding the ground 94 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:44,960 floor were carved by the brothers James and John O'Shea and their nephew Edward Whelan. 95 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:48,320 They worked from living specimens taken 96 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:52,160 from the Botanic Gardens themselves. The carvings they produced are some of 97 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:56,000 the loveliest pieces of decorative sculpture from the whole Victorian age. 98 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,919 Their precision and vitality is extraordinary. The plants are cut from 99 00:05:59,919 --> 00:06:04,639 stone yet they seem alive, their fronds unfurling before our eyes. 100 00:06:04,639 --> 00:06:08,319 Birds tread carefully through them, picking up the forms of the leaves themselves. 101 00:06:08,319 --> 00:06:12,240 There are even snakes hunting the birds, as the birds 102 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:16,240 themselves are hunting insects. And all this with meticulous scientific 103 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:20,560 accuracy of observation. Acland said that the O'Sheas' brief for 104 00:06:20,560 --> 00:06:24,000 their carvings at the museum was inspired by the precise observation of 105 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,880 nature in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 106 00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,319 The Pre-Raphaelites themselves were given the job of completing the museum's 107 00:06:30,319 --> 00:06:33,840 scientific decorative schema by carving the first statues for a 108 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:37,759 pantheon of pioneering scientists to stand around the central court. 109 00:06:37,759 --> 00:06:41,360 On the recommendation of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Thomas Woolner, 110 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:45,120 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's resident sculptor, and their friend and 111 00:06:45,120 --> 00:06:48,720 mentor John Lucas Tupper received the contracts for the statues 112 00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:52,319 of the founders of empirical philosophy, Sir Francis Bacon, 113 00:06:52,319 --> 00:06:57,759 and modern biology, Linnaeus. Another associate of Rossetti's, Alexander Munro, 114 00:06:57,759 --> 00:07:02,479 was asked to carve no fewer than seven more statues, including Galileo, 115 00:07:02,479 --> 00:07:06,319 Newton, and Hippocrates. The Pre-Raphaelite statues at Oxford 116 00:07:06,319 --> 00:07:09,919 University Museum are remarkable partly for their fine detail – 117 00:07:09,919 --> 00:07:13,360 Bacon's ruff for example, or Linnaeus's fur suit – 118 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:16,639 but even more for their animation. These are scientists 119 00:07:16,639 --> 00:07:21,440 in the act of doing science. Bacon's hand gesture shows that he's making a point, 120 00:07:21,440 --> 00:07:25,280 teaching us how to study the world around us; Linnaeus is gathering 121 00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:29,039 specimens; Galileo is shown not holding a telescope, 122 00:07:29,039 --> 00:07:32,800 but inventing the telescope by working out how to use two different 123 00:07:32,800 --> 00:07:36,400 lenses together. What these statues show us is that the 124 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:39,520 scientists' greatest tool is their imagination. 125 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:44,960 These are scientists as artists, repaying Acland's compliment that Pre-Raphaelite 126 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:48,639 art matches up to the standard of science. 127 00:07:48,639 --> 00:07:51,280 Charles Daubeny, professor of Chemistry and Botany at Oxford, 128 00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:55,199 imagined the central court of the museum as the sanctuary of the temple of 129 00:07:55,199 --> 00:07:58,080 science. With its Gothic vaulting and glass 130 00:07:58,080 --> 00:08:01,759 ceiling, its celebration of natural forms and materials, 131 00:08:01,759 --> 00:08:06,400 and its pantheon of scientists doing science, it is exactly that. 132 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:10,800 It is also simply the best place in the world to appreciate the brilliance of 133 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:15,120 Pre-Raphaelite sculpture. In the next episode we will move beyond 134 00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:18,560 the central court to look at how art and architecture were used to shape 135 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:21,680 distinctive spaces for the new scientific disciplines of 136 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:27,840 the 19th century at the museum.