There is a famous painting from 1616 of a dream vision of St Paul’s cathedral as it should have been.
The first picture is of it as it was then – before the Great Fire destroyed it.
It was created at a time when St Paul’s Cathedral was in a very poor condition, neglected, dirty and in need of much repair, full of thieves and beggars and even prostitutes.
In 1554, the Lord Mayor proclaimed that that the selling of horses, beer and “other gross wares” was “to the great dishonour and displeasure of Almighty God, and the great grief also and offence of all good and well-disposed persons”.
Called the “Gipkyn Diptych”, the painting is currently on display in this Guildhall Art Gallery exhibition.
Henry Farley, a clerk, felt so strongly about it that he commissioned a painting contrasting the current cathedral with his vision of what it should instead look like.
If you look carefully you can see Angels dancing around the top of the new, clean, glorious cathedral he imagined (with a statue of the King on top!).
The effort was unsuccessful and it instead took the Great Fire to eventually lead to the glory that is the Wren St Paul’s we all know now.
What I realised yesterday is that there is a new artwork right next to St Paul’s tube, which frames the spire of St Paul’s.
On it have been placed angels, this time on little swings, but if you take a photo from the right angle they look very similar to the 1616 painting, celebrating the spire.
I wonder if this was intentional? It’s certainly striking!
Here is more background to the diptych, catch it while you can at the Guildhall art Gallery Architecture exhibition.
https://www.sal.org.uk/museum-collection/unlocking-our-collections/old-st-pauls/
