TUESDAY CLUB

Next meeting - Midland Aspects of the Saintly Landscape

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 at 2.30pm via Zoom - https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83769990280

Trevor James will talk about the Midland aspects  his new book England's Saintly Landscape.

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'JL Petit: Latest Research’   by Philip Modiano
​​Tuesday May 18th 2021

The Revd John Louis Petit [1801-1868] was Curate of St Michael’s [1825-28]. In retrospect he may be regarded in cultural terms as one of the most significant nineteenth-century residents of Lichfield. He was an accomplished water-colourist, in the impressionist tradition. Posthumous evidence has emerged that, between the 1820s and his death in 1868, he produced about 14,000 water-colours and sketches. His illustrations are international as well as British, extending as far as Syria and much of Europe. He was also a prominent opponent of the trend towards Gothic Revival in English Churches, represented by Pugin and the Gilbert Scott. His book Remarks on Church Architecture was published in 1841 and is regarded as a principal reflection of the alternative view that church design should evolve naturally and not be cast in what was an illusory standard design derived from medieval times. His contemporaries recognised his standing as the principal alternative voice and he was respected, even by his architectural opponents, for his scholarship.

Philip Modiano has placed John Louis Petit firmly in the public eye and demonstrated his national standing in the artistic hierarchy of nineteenth-century Britain. 



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