The tale of how Magna Carta was signed here has been told many times already this year, and it will be told even more over the next two months. This is because this strange treaty which has become one of the most famous and influential documents in the history of Western civilisation is about to be 800 years old.
There are huge celebrations surrounding the anniversary with events taking place worldwide. I am delighted to say that as the contemporary painter perhaps most local to the site of the signing of the treaty I am taking part and holding an exhibition to coincide with festivities in conjunction with Royal Holloway, University of London.
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| Both of these are essentially medieval views |
The initial brief was simple - celebrate the landscape of Magna Carta - but the work has become far richer and I will be presenting a series of paintings which show the landscape as it is today in all its complexity and variety but highlight how easy it is to imagine how it looked at different times in the past including 800 years ago. The title, Runnymede Ghosts, simply draws attention to the way one can see the past through the present. Making the work has revealed a subtle and complex story which is as much about the environment as it is about history and has revealed Runnymede as ancient, fragile, resilient and above all man-made.
The thing I want to talk about is the final painting, which really ought to be well advanced already. All the prep work was done and I was just waiting for the bluebells to come out so I could finalise my palette when my subject was hit with some unexpected drama. There has been an encampment of protestors in the woods above Runnymede for the last two or three years. They initially tried to resurrect the spirit of the Diggers and have styled themselves more recently as an eco-village. My original plan was to show one particular part of the camp where there are still signs that the top of the hill was once parkland. The old, broken fence was to wend its way and guide the eye through the painting.
Over the last week or two, the landowners have given the protestors a writ to attend court with a view to eviction and have started to repair the boundaries. I'm waiting to see how it pans out before starting the painting. It has had a dramatic impact visually and is also interesting in the context of Magna Carta. The protestors' spokesman suggests this is a Magna Carta issue - he sees the court action as an act of oppression. I want to play Devil's advocate here. Magna Carta came about in part because the King was out of control and was seizing land from the nobility whenever he felt like it so the Barons made it clear that the law could be used to hold him to account. The protestors saw some land and they didn't like the way the owner wasn't using it so they seized it. The landowner is now trying to demonstrate to them that they are not above the law. So which side of this conflict is in the King's role and which in the Barons'? It is a Magna Carta issue, but not the way the protestors claim. Magna Carta enables landowners to evict people because it reinforces the status of law. I don't know how all this will creep into the painting yet but I find it interesting - just as the paintings reveal that the difference between good and bad environmentally is complex, blurred and often counterintuitive, so the eviction shows that the same can be said of issues relating to liberties and rights.
Realistically the fence and eviction are too complex for one painting so for the Ghosts series I will almost certainly stick to my original composition but using the half-built new fence in the same way as the old one. I will try retain BBC levels of neutrality as I haven't decided where I stand yet. It does tell me I'm on the right track though - if my work wasn't changing my opinions and challenging my preconceptions then to my mind I'd just be making pictures not art.
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