Godwin Bennett Art

The Great Fire of London in September 1666 was one of the greatest disasters in the city’s history. The City, with its wooden houses crowded together in narrow streets, was a natural fire risk, and predictions that London would burn down became a shocking reality. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane, an area near the Thames teeming with warehouses and shops full of flammable materials, such as timber, oil, coal, pitch and turpentine. Inevitably the fire spread rapidly from this area into the City. Our painting depicts the impact of the fire on those who were caught in it and creates a very dramatic impression of what the fire was like. Closer inspection reveals a scene of chaos and panic with people running out of the gates. It shows Cripplegate in the north of the City, with St Giles without Cripplegate to its left, in flames (on the site of the present day Barbican). The painting probably represents the fire on the night of Tuesday 4 September, when four-fifths of the City was burning at once, including St Paul's Cathedral. Old St Paul’s can be seen to the right of the canvas, the medieval church with its thick stone walls, was considered a place of safety, but the building was covered in wooden scaffolding as it was in the midst of being restored by the then little known architect, Christopher Wren and caught fire. Our painting seems to depict a specific moment on the Tuesday night when the lead on St Paul’s caught fire and, as the diarist John Evelyn described: ‘the stones of Paul’s flew like grenades, the melting lead running down the streets in a stream and the very pavements glowing with the firey redness, so as no horse, nor man, was able to tread on them.’ Although the loss of life was minimal, some accounts record only sixteen perished, the magnitude of the property loss was shocking – some four hundred and thirty acres, about eighty per cent of the City proper was destroyed, including over thirteen thousand houses, eighty-nine churches, and fifty-two Guild Halls. Thousands were homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the subsequent fire of 1676, which destroyed over six hundred houses south of the Thames, changed the appearance of London forever. The one constructive outcome of the Great Fire was that the plague, which had devastated the population of London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. The fire was widely reported in eyewitness accounts, newspapers, letters and diaries. Samuel Pepys recorded climbing the steeple of Barking Church from which he viewed the destroyed City: ‘the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw.’ There was an official enquiry into the causes of the fire, petitions to the King and Lord Mayor to rebuild, new legislation and building Acts. Naturally, the fire became a dramatic and extremely popular subject for painters and engravers. A group of works relatively closely related to the present picture have been traditionally ascribed to Jan Griffier...

Artist: G. Rhumont Title: The Harvest Medium: Oil on Masonite Dimensions: 6.5 x 12" unframed, 18 x 12" Framed G. Rhumont was a turn of the century German landscape artist of romantic style with realistic scenes as seen here in “The Harvest”. This bucolic scene of harvesting hay depicts two farmers working in tandem loading the horse-drawn hay wagon in a field just outside their homestead. This early autumn painting...

Jack Lorimer Gray, 1927-1981, was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Scottish parents. His talents as an artist were spotted by E. Wyly Grier while Gray was still a child. He attended t...

Oil Painting, Landscape "Winter Skating Scene" by Anton Doll (1826-1877) ...

'Agay, le château et le Sémaphore'. Oil on canvas. +/- 1922 Signed lower right Measurements : 60 x 73 cm. This painting will be recorded in the second volume of the Catalogue Raisonn...

Artist: Bernhard Buter (1883-1959) German Title: Rhinish Landscape Medium: Oil on Canvas Dimensions: Framed 19” x 21” , Unframed 11 x 13” Bernhard Buter paints agrarian landscapes i...

Artist: John Frederik Hulk II Title: Grazing Sheep Medium: Oil on Wood Panel Dimensions: Unframed 13.5" x 13.5" Framed 19.5" x 16" Frederik Hulk II paints a rural landscape. His careful brushstrokes create the fluffy, wool coats of the sheep as well as the detailed facial features in the foreground. These farm animals are dusted with bright and light. Behind them, Hulk’s forest provides a dark contrast as trunks and boughs crisscross and entangle. Hulk’s oil painting is both a playful and realist representation of 19th century Dutch landscape...

Atlantic Enclosure 58x58cm including Black wooden Frame A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Brander gained a BA (Hons) in 2011 Early on, Garry discovered an interest in old buil...

Cloudy landscape. Oil sketch on cardboard. Unsigned. This work will be recorded in the catalogue raisonné of the work of the artist currently in preparation. Jules Van Biesbroeck was the son of Jules Evariste van Biesbroeck, a painter of Ghent, but was born in Italy, in Portici, near Naples, while his parents were staying there. (In the 19th century many artists made educational trips to Italy). It was a long visit: the child was two years old by the time the family returned to Ghent.[1] After a short period of practice with his father, van Biesbroeck was enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. His first painting, "The Shepherd" (French: Le pâtre), was sold at the Triennale in Ghent. In 1888, when he was only 15 years old, he made his debut at the "Salon des Champs-Elysées" in Paris with his monumental work "The Launch of the Argo" (French: Le lancement...

Artist: Heinrich Weckauf (1885 -1963) German Title: Gathering Wood in Winter Dimensions: Framed 19.5 x 23.5 inches, Unframed 16.5 x 20.5 Weckauf’s oi...

Rene Genis (French 1922-2004) “Les Falaise Normande” / The Cliffs of Normand. A sea scape with high cliffs, the beach, and two fishermen. The cliffs are in browns, tans and olives a...

Flat Ledge Quarry is one of the many granite quarries in Rockport MA, which actively produced granite for cobblestones until the early 20th century, when asphault became the preferre...