William Turner Art & Artist

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Turner: Stonehenge, 1825, watercolour, 28 x 41 cm Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum

stonehenge

Constable: Stonehenge, 1836, 28 x 59 cm Victoria and Albert Museum, London,

stongehenge

This very remarkable, and on the whole, unique monument of British antiquity, has been the subject of so much antiquarian research and learned discussion, that it would far exceed our limits even briefly to notice the variety of opinions, theories and suppositions which have been published concerning its origin and purpose. It consists of a great collection of stones of immense size, which from their positions appear to have formed one great building. Their present appearance is that of a complete ruin, a confused heap of standing and fallen stones; but by attentively considering their relative situations, the shape and dimensions of the original structure may still be traced. The most probable opinion is that it was originally intended for a Druidical temple, but its founders, the date of its erection, and the means by which these enormous masses of stone, were brought to this desolate spot and raised to their respective situations, are circumstances all which are buried in obscurity. The whole building appears to have consisted of two circular and two elliptical ranges of upright stones, with horizontal stones lying on the outer circle, in a continued order all round, and five imposts, or horizontal stones; on ten uprights of the third row. The whole is surrounded by a ditch and valium of earth connected with which are three other stones; the valium does not exceed fifteen feet in height, and is interior to the ditch. The diameter of the whole area within the valium is about 300 feet. The ditch is 369 yards in circumference, and about fifteen feet in the slope on the scarp side. The entrance through this line of circumvallation is on the N. E., and is marked by a bank and ditch called the avenue. The total number of the stones which composed Stone Henge in its complete state seems to have been 109, via, thirty in the outer circle, forty in the inner circle, fifteen in the first ellipsis, and nineteen in the second. The remaining five are, one in the centre of the whole called the Altar stone, fifteen feet in length; one immense rude stone in the avenue, now in a leaning position, and sixteen feet in height, called the Friar’s Hee4 and three others within the valium, one of which, exactly 100 feet from the friar’s heel, amid the same distance from the outermost circle, is twenty-two feet two inches in length. Seventeen stones of the outer circles are still standing, but there are only six imposts, each of which has two mortises to correspond with two tendons on the tops of the vertical stones. The uprights are from thirteen to fifteen feet in height, and eighteen in circumference. Of the second circle, eight feet three inches within the other, and consisting of smaller and more irregular stones, only eight are now standing. The grandest part of Stone Henge is the outermost ellipse, consisting of five separate pairs of trilithons, or two large upright stones with a third on the top as an impost. These stones are more regular in their shapes and more carefully formed than those of the outer circle. The interior oval consisted of nineteen upright stones without imposts. At a distance this extraordinary monument appears a trifling object, its bulk and character being lost in the vastness of the plain by which it is surrounded, and even on a nearer approach it often disappoints the expectations of strangers who visit it with preconceived and exaggerated ideas. But its vast extent, its peculiar character, quite distinct from the temples of upright stones found in various parts of the British islands, and other countries of Europe, and even on the Asiatic coast of the Black Sea, justly entitle it to be considered as one of the wonders of antiquity.

Stonehenge, 1999, Douglas Carpenter

Stonehenge, small w/c by Douglas Carpenter

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Old England: A Pictorial Museum

2.-Stonehenge. - Restored Plan.
Dr. Stukely’s drawing; the shaded stones were the ones remaining in the early 1840s when this plan was prepared. more...]

3.-Stonehenge. - Perspective Elevation, restored.
“The external appearance which the whole work would have if restored, is shown in the perspective elevation. (Fig. 3.)” (p. 3)

58.-British Coracles.

“The primitive inhabitants of all sea-girt countries are fishermen. It is impossible not to believe that the people of Britain, having at their command the treasures of wide æstuaries and deep rivers, were fishermen to a large extent. The Britons must always have [...]Severn and the Wye have still their coracles-little boats so peculiar in their construction that we may readily conceive them to belong to a remote antiquity. Gibson, the translator and best editor of Camden, has described these boats upon the Severn: [ more...]

4.-Stonehenge: section 1 to 2 (Restored Plan, Fig. 2), 105 feet.
“The internal arrangment is exhibited in the section.” (p. 3)

5.-Stonehenge.
“The present arrangement of the ruin [of Stonehenge] is shown in Figs. 5 and 6.” (p. 3)

65.-Shield in the British Museum.
“It is equally difficult to determine the date of those valuable relics which have been found in various places, exhibiting a taste for symmetry and nice workmanship in the fabrication of their weapons, offensive and defensive, and the ruder decorations of their persons. Such are the [...] Flintshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. 64). Such are the shields (Figs. 65, 66, 67), of one of which (Fig. 67) Sir Samuel Meyrick, its possessor, says, “It is impossible to contemplate the artistic portions without feeling convinced that there is a mixture of British ornaments with such resemblances to the elegant designs on Roman works as would be produced by a people in a state of less civilization.” (p. 22) [ more...]