New book! Dr Kathryn Davies - Artisan Art: Vernacular wall paintings in the Welsh Marches 1550 – 1650
Dr Kathryn Davies, Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College has recently released her latest publication – Artisan Art: Vernacular wall paintings in the Welsh Marches, 1550 – 1650. Kathryn is an independent Consultant for planning and historical environmental issues, including contractual work for Historic England.
During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, many everyday individuals decorated their homes with art—not the prestigious easel paintings, but simpler artworks painted directly on their walls, offering valuable insights. This short-lived but widespread phenomenon offers rare insights into the lives of ordinary people, the visual culture of the time, the nature of art and design in the domestic context, and the messages that house owners wished to communicate through the commissioning and displaying of wall paintings.
The book analyses the different types of decoration found in wall paintings, the costs involved in such project and the local craftsmen of whom are likely to have created the paintings. This thorough and expansive study, built on years of research, examines the nature of these decorations, the methods used to create them, and their significance for those who commissioned them. A detailed gazetteer, covering a broad sweep of the Welsh Marches, ranging from Gloucestershire through Monmouthshire and Radnorshire to Cheshire.
Kathryn has kindly donated a copy to Kellogg library, available to read.
