Andy Marshall's Genius Loci Digest: 24 May 2024
I chuckle at the coincidence that an act of genius of the purest wisdom should find itself settling into a combination of shapes that intimate the face of an owl.
This digest revels in the in-between, the transitional, the presence of absence. My camera with its dials and knobs and sharp focus has taken me into the blur of things. It has taught me that because things can't be measured it doesn't mean that it isn't there. The spirit of things, the essence of our places is as real as my shutter button.
I chuckle at the coincidence that an act of genius of the purest wisdom should find itself settling into a combination of shapes that intimate the face of an owl.
For me, this is a moment of sanctuary: the ragged, ruddy fox against the monolithic west front. I can’t help but wonder how many generations of foxes have graced the curlicue and the curvilinear with their quatrefoil pads.
For a moment, the silence here is broken by a group of visitors. They walk through the threshold and catch my eye. There is a correspondence of awe and wonder; intangible, inexplicable, unmeasurable.
And so, I find myself on the cusp of a street in Winchester that is as much a sensory experience as a route from A to B, as much a passage of rights as a passageway for cars.
If you are bound in any way by your circumstances, I hope that my story and my travels will help you expand your horizons and, if you are not: that your view of these isles might be refreshed through my lens, brush and pen.
I stop and stare and take in a few breaths. I’m in a state of awe, but it isn’t the view here in the crypt that has made me so. I’m here to steady my thoughts - to stop and think about the enormity of something that lies within the presbytery above my head.
It’s difficult to explain, but my eyes seem to act like cruise missiles - spotting a potential target and then locking onto the detail.
In the hope that they help others unburden and renew as much as they have for me it gives me the greatest pleasure to present - in the spirit of Hokusai - my Thirty Six Views of Beverley Minster.
It is the humble hand where all this starts - from the first stone laid at the Roman basilica that lies beneath, through to the final carving of the pinnacles that pin down the grandeur of the Gothic church. This is a story about people.