The ‘artisan mannerist’ style in British sculpture: a bawdy fountain at Bolsover Castle

Abstract

Seventeenth‐century English sculpture is often described as 'artisan mannerist' in character. The term implies that native craftsmen (artisans rather than artists) felt the influence of the classical ideals of the Renaissance, but that they were capable of producing only an inferior version of continental Mannerist originals. This article reconstructs and deconstructs a bawdy fountain at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, exploring both its classical and its native influences, and showing that the so‐called 'artisan mannerist' style had a social function that could be the result of a deliberate choice by a patron. The fountain's patron William Cavendish (first Duke of Newcastle, 1595‐1676), was informed and sophisticated, well aware of Renaissance sculpture of Giambologna and others available in Italy. Yet British influences such as references to his family property in Northumberland also appear is his fountain and in other figurative sculptures at he new‐built Castle at Bolsover. Furthermore, the icono‐graphic references to lewd behaviour and the fountain's possible use as a recreational swimming pool can be read as a justification to his household of his personal interests and amorous behaviour, just as much as its classical features indicate his knowledge of classicism to visiting social equals. Far from being a debased version of Italian Renaissance styles, then, the British 'artisan mannerist' style could have positive, local meanings in the British Midlands.

Review of periodical literature published in 2005

“…Haynes describes how English Protestant observers overlooked the explicitly Catholic subject matter of European Baroque art, by judging it according to new secular criteria of ‘taste’. Meanwhile, Worsley’s account of the ‘Venus’ fountain at Bolsover Castle in the seventeenth century explains its uneasy fusion of classical European and vernacular English styles.…”