Alan Rankle
Untitled Painting XXII (Bodiam) 2017 oils, pigmented ink jet on canvas, 135x150cm
Untitled Painting XXII (Lindisfarne) 2017 oils, pigmented ink jet on canvas 150x135cm
Castles summon up the stuff of fairy tales, fortifications and fabrications, standing tall in their designated aims to be both offensive and defensive at the same time. They are symbols of power from where raids are launched and they exist as secure depositories of stratagems and secrets. The word ‘castle’ comes from the Latin castellum, a diminutive of castrum meaning ‘fortified place’. The word entered the English language, with somewhat unfortunate timing for the English, just before the Norman Conquest.
Since the 19th century many castles, large and small, have raised funds as tourist attractions, selling postcards and tea towels. Bodiam Castle was built on the spoils of mercenary souvenir hunting in France during the Hundred Years War between England and France in the 14th Century. Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, former Knight of King Edward III, used the cash he raised from pillage and plunder in France to build Bodiam in 1385 in Sussex, ostensibly as defense against invasion by the belligerent French. Dalyngrigge’s real motives can only be guessed at since Bodiam is landlocked, surrounded by trees, over 10 miles from the coast, as Rankle suggests in this painting. This self serving Knight built Bodiam Castle not only to make a grander statement than the Dalyngrigge manor house it replaced, but he made every effort to suppress the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381, which erupted not least in opposition to the high taxes levied to pay for the war from which Dalyngrigge had handsomely profited.
Lindisfarne embodies themes of border control and religious bans both of which galvanise us today, and Rankle alludes to these contemporary fears in this work. Lindisfarne Castle rises out of Holy Island in the North Sea close to where England and Scotland meet. In 635 CE St Aidan founded a monastery on Holy Island and it would remain a holy site through Viking invasions and the Norman Conquest. In the mid 16th Century the English, under King Henry VIII, protected the border against the hated Scots, and when the King took against Catholics the site was fortified and rebuilt as a castle using stones from the dismantled priory.
“These paintings are part of an ongoing series of works about castles and their iconic relevance to modern times,” states Alan Rankle. “I first addressed this theme working in a studio at St. Quentin la Tour, a 12th century ‘maison forte’ in the region of the Cathars in South West France in 1986. These recent subjects Bodiam and Lindisfarne are, like many castles, built to dominate stunningly beautiful landscapes, which to contemporary observers provide a reassuringly picturesque context to the barbarism enacted within and without their walls.”
Judy Parkinson