Beast and the Beauty

Dr Jayne Wackett is Visiting Lecturer to the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) at the University of Kent. She is an art historian specialising in works from the medieval period and the Renaissance. Having lived a number of years in Cornwall, Jayne was curator at the Royal Cornwall Museum and lectured in Garden History Design at The Eden Project. More recently she has worked on research projects examining the wall paintings of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals. As well as sub-editor to the Journal for the Royal Institution of Cornwall, Jayne is editor and co-founder of ‘Picture this….’, a collaboration between MEMS and Canterbury cathedral library and archives which publishes monthly articles exploring the content and context of the treasures in the cathedral’s collections. Her publications include an appraisal of devotional images in the printed liturgy in Reformation England. Jayne Wackett will be looking at two pieces from the Beaney Museum and Galleries collection: a Hairy Wildman statuette and a portrait of a Tudor noblewoman. While the stautette is a German Renaissance piece, late C15th or early C16th, the tradition of the Hairy Wildman stems back into medieval history. Also called ‘wodewose’ these beings are generally linked to ‘otherness’ through violence and uncontrolled libido. Appearing in both genders, they are believed by some to be a corruption of the tradition of the green man and even linked to the wild sanctity of saintly hermits. In stories they are the stock ‘baddy’, often the acting as the foil to the hero’s innate goodness. The accomplished portrait of Susan Bertie shows an elegantly attractive young woman attired in Tudor fashion. This oil on canvas work is a new acquisition, and, in the museum’s own words, the sitter has ‘a family history reading like who’s who of Tudor celebrity’.

Website
http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-and-humanities/school-of-humanities/tudors-and-stuarts-weekend/beast-and-the-beauty-at-the-beaney.aspx

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/se000216?id=EVENT570436