![]() ![]() ![]() Any primary school teachers struggling to implement Michael Gove’s English curriculum, with its heavy emphasis on such arcana as the fronted adverbial, might need to stand as I did in front of The Allegory of Grammar, and ruefully contemplate the spoils of time. I like this concept, of grammar as life-giving, affirmative it’s a refreshing palate cleanser for those legions of pupils for whom the word grammar summons vivid mental images of dusty classrooms, even dustier teachers, and a general sense of confusion, weariness and tedium. ![]() The lady is a personification of Grammatica, the flowers symbolic of young minds you get the idea – grammar is the water for young minds to grow. Standing before Laurent de la Hyres’ 1650 painting in the National Gallery the other day I felt I could reach out and touch those petals, those terracotta pots, but despite its naturalism this is no actual lady, those are no actual flowers. ![]() Around her left arm is coiled a scroll, inscribed in Latin: translated, they read “a meaningful utterance which can be written down, pronounced in the proper way”. In her right hand – right being traditionally associated with correctness, orthodoxy, skill, dexterity – the young woman is holding a watering can carefully, attentively, lovingly, she’s watering some attractively flowering plants. Colin Fell Cesare Ripa – Iconologia – page 1 ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |