The British Countryside

The extreme contrast of scale in this tableau reflects a composition by Hieronymus Bosch. Called “The Wedding at Cana”, it shows a table so sparsely spread with feastly viands that no one item of food is seen to be in touch with another. Each object on the table exists in its own halo of white cloth. This diagram-like style was archaic even in Bosch’s day but is still to be found in the work of Dudley D Watkins and Leo Baxendale, both famous illustrators of the “Beano”. I did not know what to call this piece until I had arranged a pile of books in front of it to steady my hand for writing the title. The top book of the pile was “The British Countryside”.