Prometheus
Detail of Portland stone relief sculpture (1954-9) in Coventry City Centre by Walter Ritchie, representing 'Man's Struggle to control the World inside himself'
The subjects include the struggle for enlightenment and the conflict between good and evil, using images from mythological and religious sources (including a graphic representation of evolution, with the primitive humans ascending to the point of becoming angel-like beings!)
These panels (there is a companion relief) were originally featured dramatically as a central focus in Coventry's precinct in the late 1950s, situated at either end of a of a long fountain basin with a walkway above them (that left them for the most part in shadow).
This was how I first encountered them as a child in the 1970s, and the dramatic images combined with the roar of rushing water from the fountain captured my imagination and left a lasting impression on me.
In the early 1990s the precinct was modified and the fountain basin and reliefs were swept away (the fountains had been dry for some years before) and the two panels were repositioned adjacent to each other on the end wall of the Herbert Art gallery & Museum a few blocks away where they remain today. They look very striking there with much more daylight falling on them than before, but somehow they look rather tacked on here. I miss their old location, and I can still hear the rushing water of those fountains when I look at them
Prometheus
Detail of Portland stone relief sculpture (1954-9) in Coventry City Centre by Walter Ritchie, representing 'Man's Struggle to control the World inside himself'
The subjects include the struggle for enlightenment and the conflict between good and evil, using images from mythological and religious sources (including a graphic representation of evolution, with the primitive humans ascending to the point of becoming angel-like beings!)
These panels (there is a companion relief) were originally featured dramatically as a central focus in Coventry's precinct in the late 1950s, situated at either end of a of a long fountain basin with a walkway above them (that left them for the most part in shadow).
This was how I first encountered them as a child in the 1970s, and the dramatic images combined with the roar of rushing water from the fountain captured my imagination and left a lasting impression on me.
In the early 1990s the precinct was modified and the fountain basin and reliefs were swept away (the fountains had been dry for some years before) and the two panels were repositioned adjacent to each other on the end wall of the Herbert Art gallery & Museum a few blocks away where they remain today. They look very striking there with much more daylight falling on them than before, but somehow they look rather tacked on here. I miss their old location, and I can still hear the rushing water of those fountains when I look at them