Millican Dalton: A Sublime Midlife Crisis
The relevance of a 20th century cave-dweller to environmental aesthetics.
Wednesday, 23 December 2020
At the mouth of the cave at Borrowdale, May 2020. Photograph: Lewis Eaton.
On a swelteringly hot day in the North Western Fells of The Lake District, the gaping mouth of a cave offered itself as a refuge and swallowed us mercifully into its cool damp interior. Caves are otherworldly places. This particular cave, set into the hillside of Castle Crag, allows you to peer out at the gently swaying trees and glimmering daylight of the outside world from a viewing point void of light and sound. The daytrip itself had been to seek refuge in The Lakes; an attempt at replacing the stagnancy of a locked-down city summer with a more welcome, less claustrophobic, kind of tranquillity. We spent a few minutes scrambling around on the siltstone, marvelling at the height of the cave walls and exchanging the obligatory comments about feeling small in big spaces. On leaving, I noticed a large, flat stone covered in scrawlings. At the centre in neat, deeply-etched letters read ‘Don’t Waste Words, Jump to Conclusions’ with dozens of smaller sections of writing surrounding this. Each gave names and dates, with many faded with age and dissolving back into the stone’s surface. It was from a frantic Googling during the car ride home that I came to find out we had happened across a sort-of pilgrimage place for hikers: the cave in which a man had lived out his summers for over forty consecutive years.
In 1904, at the age of thirty-six, Millican Dalton gave up his life as an insurance clerk in London in order to dedicate himself to The Great Outdoors. Having spent part of his childhood in Nenthead, the North Pennines, he found life and work in the capital stifling in comparison. From then on Dalton split his year, spending the summer months in the cave under Castle Crag and winters in a canvas hut in Buckinghamshire. Far from your conventional hermit, Dalton was an active and sociable member of the community. He organised camping excursions for the outdoors novice which included teaching hiking, rock climbing, rafting and how to forage for food. What I found extraordinary for the time was that these excursions didn’t exclude women, with one of Dalton’s advertisements for a mountaineering course stating his views bluntly: “Ladies are welcome to the camp. There is nothing new in ladies camping, the custom being at least 10,000 years old.” This rare indiscriminate approach led to Dalton forging a long-lasting friendship with geologist Mabel Barker, who over the years consistently recommended Dalton’s courses to women students and friends.
Dalton and Barker atop a needle, 1913. The Mable Barker Collection.
Opinion
Maestro Jacomo: is he the Doria Pamphilj family's Banksy?
by Esme Kroese | 09 May 2022
Who is Maestro Jacomo? Who is this artist who has mastered the depiction of candlelight in a way that many other artists have never been able to? How are his artworks found within the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj and how did they become part of the Pamphilj family’s art collection in Rome?
These are all questions I asked myself when I visited the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome during spring break this year. I was amazed by the range of beautiful artworks and sculptures that were exhibited within. The Palazzo is still functioning as a home for the family’s successors, as well as a museum that contains an extensive art collection which is open to the public.
The Doria Pamphilj family had been a prominent and powerful Italian family for centuries with relatives holding positions of both political and religious power. For example, Pope Innocent X, who was famously depicted in a portrait by Velazquez, was a member of this family. It was rumoured that he was shocked when he saw Velazquez’s painting and exclaimed how it was ‘too real’, yet this magnificent portrait remains a part of the Doria Pamphilj collection in the Palazzo. This prestigious family was able to use its wealth and power to acquire an extensive art collection and to collect unique artworks such as those created by this mystery painter. The origin of these artists could be from anywhere in Europe.
There were many artworks in the collection that were made by the key artists of the Italian Renaissance as well as prominent artists in northern Europe such as Jan Bruegel [ Brueghel the Younger].What really stood out for me was a selection of artworks made by a certain artist labelled Maestro Jacomo. In the very sparse accounts of his works, he was referred to as an expert at creating the atmosphere and visual experience of candlelight in the realistic compositions and everyday subject matter he depicted in his artworks.
We know extraordinarily little about this artist apart from the fact that he had several works attributed to him that are held in the family’s collection. One of his artworks shows a young girl who is in the process of picking fleas from her dress and dropping them into boiling water to kill them. Though this action is not glamorous, it is portrayed with such artistic skill that it makes even such an unattractive task as this, beautiful to the eye. At the time in which this painting was created fleas were commonplace and so they were purposefully killed as they spread diseases. However through depicting the scene in candlelight, with the candle lit in front of the girl so she can see what she is doing, it still fully illuminates her youthful face showing her pale complexion. We can also see how the shadows in the background blur showing the artists’ spatial awareness of the figure and also illuminating the fact that she is the main focus within the artwork. This makes the viewer fully focus on the beauty and youth that is depicted in the young girl which contrasts with the unpleasant nature of the task which she is completing.
Artwork attributed to Maestro Jacomo. Photo taken by writer in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
Other than the young girl who is depicted picking fleas off her nightdress, we also see another artwork attributed to this artist. This painting is of a young boy who is holding a candle which has wax melting down its sides, yet it still illuminates the left side of his face as he reads music while he sings a song or a religious hymn. He looks at us the viewer, so we feel that we have just stepped in on the scene of religious devotion or musical appreciation. He has thick hair and he has no facial hair showing that he is not yet in his late teenage years. The redness of his lips and his jumper are illuminated by the candlelight and unites the colour palette of the composition as the red and white tones of the boy’s clothes are the only vivid colours we can see, with everywhere else painted in a dark blur of shadow.
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Artwork attributed to Maestro Jacomo. Photo taken by writer in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj
Though both of these artworks depict different scenes, one of a musical nature and one of a commonplace practice of doing something that is not pleasant but has to be done to maintain a certain level of well-being, they both maintain the characteristic illuminating factor of a candle. This candlelit nature of the composition creates a different visual experience for the viewer as one feels they are stepping in on something private or a practice of daily occurrence that one would not normally see in victorious history paintings or mythological scenes that were well known by the educated upper class. Even though I have struggled to discover more about the artist himself , I like to think of him as the Italian Renaissance’s version of Banksy, a person unknown but one who’s art still shocks and appeals to the public in their own right.
As well as these two paintings there is a wide selection of other artworks by famous artists such as Velazquez, Reni, Bruegel, Vasari, Raphael, Bernini and many more. Then there is also the magnificence of the Palazzo itself as a building and its richly decorated rooms. The Palazzo Doria Pamphilj and its collection are one of the many treasures of Rome and it is definitely worth a visit. You will not be disappointed.