The C12th porch at Malmesbury Abbey is like a time portal. The exterior orders depict scenes from creation to ascension including David and Goliath, Samson and the Lion and Noah and the Ark.
Inside the observer is set up in a theocentric virtual reality depicting Christ in Majesty on the tympanum and the apostles on the side walls. The apostles are beautifully carved with swags and swirls depicting their clothing.
Visually, I’m reminded of David Hockney’s Joiners' works of art which, through a montage of photographs, combine several perspectives to make an image that embraces a scene. Hockney’s work reveals a truth that is hidden in plain sight: the things we see and experience aren’t from one fixed perspective. Hockney has spent a lifetime trying to create a work of art that defines that truth and replicates the nuance of our visual experience.
But here, at Malmesbury, several hundred years before Hockney, they did it with stone and mortar and space and light.
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