Mark Culham
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markculham.bsky.social
Mark Culham
@markculham.bsky.social
580 followers 630 following 4.7K posts
Where the bee sucks, there suck I
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markculham.bsky.social
Yes, it's quite a geometric version of a common approach to the nativity/adoration of the shepherds. Lots of angels too, but not quite so regimented, in Botticelli & Burne-Jones.

A glaring flaw for me is that sickly feeling I get at seeing a portrait in stained glass - the baby Jesus, I fear🤢.
Two nativity/adoration of the shepherds scenes, one painted, one in stained glass. Both highly structured but not quite as much as the one in the quoted post.
January 18, 2026 at 1:33 PM
markculham.bsky.social
📷 Annie Leibovitz We see a figure (Diane Keaton) bent over with one leg bent in the air behind her and the other straight. She is leaning against a white wall in a black dress with black hair. She could be anyone. On the left we see a bit of a white step ladder.
January 17, 2026 at 10:16 PM
markculham.bsky.social
😄 it just looks like a bungalow to me!
January 17, 2026 at 10:01 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Yes. Max Oettli is the photographer. He moved to Switzerland but he gave his New Zealand photographs to the National Library (NZ) which I've been going through, although I took a timeout recently with 2000 odd photos of his still to go.
January 17, 2026 at 9:53 PM
markculham.bsky.social
📷 Max Oettli Black & white photograph of a woman and a man. The woman smartly dressed, holding a vase, she is much taller than the man, who is wearing casual clothes probably for the gardening as he holds a rake to his side with its head above them both. He has his other hand on his hip, teapot style. Despite the many differences they are clearly referencing the painting by Grant Wood and indeed Oettli uses the words American Gothic in a brief note. The two stand outside a bungalow with the front lawn between them and it. They look with deadpan expressions at the camera. Their feet are cropped.
January 17, 2026 at 9:46 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Detail from an engraving by Jan Sadeler I of a design (painting) by Jacopo Bassano.
British Museum.
Comparing a detail from the stained glass of the main figures with a similar detail from an engraving. We can see they are the same in design.
January 17, 2026 at 7:58 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Two roundels at St Peter's, Nowton, are similar. The one on the left is a faithful rendition of a design by Jacopo Bassano and on the right, a variation. They share the same annunciation to the shepherds in the background which isn't a feature of Basanno's painting.

📷 @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social
Comparing two stained glass roundels of the adoration of the shepherds. Some of the figures are the same, others different, but clearly they have a strong relationship especially as they share the exact same background scene mentioned above.
January 17, 2026 at 7:49 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Nice to get up close.
A photograph from the quoted post of a detail from a Paul Nash painting held by the Tate showing a range of different surface textures. As a detail it holds its own as a found abstract painting, found within a landscape type painting which included large geometric objects.
January 17, 2026 at 6:55 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Adam naming the animals

Here's the same design by Abraham Bloemaert, this time at St Peter's, Nowton.
📷 @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social
We see a stained glass roundel showing a naked man standing amidst a variety of animals. His right hand rests on the head of a bull.
January 17, 2026 at 6:02 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Comparing a detail of the stained glass with the engraving. We can see that they are pretty identical in detail.
January 17, 2026 at 5:37 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Designed by Jan van der Straet
Engraved by Cornelis Galle I
Rijkmuseum
'John the Baptist as a child, carrying a banner of the cross, walking through a landscape, accompanied by two angels beside him and three above his head. The lamb walks before him. Below the image is a Latin verse.'
January 17, 2026 at 5:31 PM
markculham.bsky.social
A second roundel to the same design by Jan van der Straet at St Peter's, Nowton.

John the Baptist as a child accompanied by angels.
📷 @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social
A stained glass scene of a young boy walking just behind a sheep in a wooded area, accompanied by two angels, one on either side of him, and three more flying above his head.
January 17, 2026 at 5:30 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Another (right) early 16th century stained glass scene in a tall single light I can compare with W. F. Dixon.

collégiale Notre-Dame de Vernon
📷 Denis Trente-Huittessan
Both stained glass scenes are of the resurrection. Very similar. We see Jesus standing holding a thin tall cross with his right hand in its typical position (two fingers raised, two folded). Beneath him two soldiers are asleep. In the French glass two further soldiers are behind. As with all these pictures all the figures are brought close to the picture plane, very little depth to the compositions, and the figures also take up most of the space.
January 16, 2026 at 10:28 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Coincidentally, I have just come across this (right) early 16th century deposition/entombment scene so can compare the two. Similar tall, narrow, single light challenge.

Église Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc de Rouen
📷 Denis Trente-Huittessan
Comparing two similarly designed scenes of Jesus being carried to his tomb. Both scenes are tall and narrow and the makers have deliberately diverged from conventional perspective drawing, flattening the space, bringing everyone forward towards the picture plane.
January 16, 2026 at 9:36 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Did he catch it?
January 16, 2026 at 9:15 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Creusa didn't make it. If memory serves we don't know why, only that when they eventually turned round she was no longer there and when Aeneas went back to find her he only found her ghost. I fancy, she's just about to fall.
A detail from the painting in the quoted post showing a woman running, but there is all sorts of stuff in front of her on the floor. Her left hand is stretched out.
January 16, 2026 at 7:49 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Comparing the carrying of the cross. Tavistock with Aswarby.

Tavistock 📷 Michael J Barritt
Comparing two stained glass scenes of Jesus carrying the cross. Both scenes are long and thin with soldiers at the top, Jesus with the cross in the middle, and Mary and Mary Magdalene at the bottom.
January 16, 2026 at 7:32 PM
markculham.bsky.social
He did similar in Tavistock. Instead of the nativity there is the agony in the garden but the other three scenes are of the same subjects but with different designs, each long and thin. Carrying the cross, deposition and the resurrection.

St Eustace's, Tavistock
📷 Rex Harris
January 16, 2026 at 7:16 PM
markculham.bsky.social
W. F. Dixon
I don't know if it is in Pevsner but on Flickr it's unrecorded. Unmistakably, W. F. Dixon. I collect him.

📷 JJ Lincolne
St Denys, Aswarby
A large complex stained glass window with four scenes - nativity, carrying the cross, deposition and resurrection.
January 16, 2026 at 6:55 PM
markculham.bsky.social
In case you are not aware of this engraving by Dirck Volkertsz Coornhert from a design by Frans Floris (Rijkmuseum). 1557 - it's only a couple of years before. The similarity in general design, and the absence (so far) of similar engravings, strongly suggests to me they tweaked it.
Comparing two complex scenes of the Queen of Sheba standing before King Solomon who is sitting. Many figures in both. Similarity in general design and poses but differences in details.
January 16, 2026 at 6:01 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Split up into four teams of two. Each team to be given one of these to emulate. Take photographs to compare.
Four details from the two stained glass windows in this thread of the soldiers in their highly staged angular poses.
January 16, 2026 at 9:10 AM
markculham.bsky.social
The above can be compared with Alexander Gibbs. Here the three Marys and two male disciples frame a resurrection. Beneath we have the startled soldiers in frozen, angular, melodramatic poses. Again, flat, picture plane, decorative backgrounds.

St Margaret's, Abbotsley
📷 @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social
A stained glass window that again combines scenes. Two male disciples probably at the empty tomb on the left. The three Marys on the right. Jesus standing on the tomb with his cross and banner. Beneath four soldiers, two either side.
January 16, 2026 at 8:53 AM
markculham.bsky.social
I've not thought much about Frederick Preedy, but he too, was enjoying the abstract freedoms of the mid 19th century. His resurrection soldiers, frozen in angular melodramatic poses, frame a more curvy 'he has risen' scene. Flat - up against the picture plane.

📷 Rex Harris
St Leonard's, Bretforton
Stained glass window showing four soldiers, two either side, in shocked poses that are reminiscent of a resurrection scene, but in the middle we have two of the Marys (a bit of the halo of a third Mary can just be made out) with an angel pointing to the sky. The background is decorative.
January 16, 2026 at 8:34 AM
markculham.bsky.social
In the painting the two women furthest left both have one hand raised and the one on the right has her hand by her side. The photograph of the stained glass is not sharp but we can make out that the hands are in the same positions.
Comparing the three Marys. They are the same design.
January 15, 2026 at 10:08 PM
markculham.bsky.social
Identical. Note feet and hands.
Comparing the angel between the two. They are the same.
January 15, 2026 at 10:03 PM