There are moments when the many threads of Soulton’s story Tudor statecraft, Shakespearian legend, the persistence of the Forest of Arden at our door draw suddenly, satisfyingly tight.
This is one of them.
At the request of a private collector, an exhibition has been timed to coincide with the release of a new episode of The Rest Is History podcast, in which some of the mysteries of Soulton are revealed, we are delighted to welcome back a small exhibition of print work by the Shropshire-based sculptor and artist Jacob Chandler.
The eight pieces in the series are drawn from Chandler’s work exploring “As You Like It” and for those who have followed the long, careful scholarship connecting that play to this house very little introduction is needed.
Chandler’s series takes as its subject the eight characters who marry in the play’s closing scene:
- Rosalind and Orlando,
- Celia and Oliver,
- Phoebe and Silvius,
- Audrey and Touchstone,
rendered as clean, black-and-white studies that seem to capture each figure’s character despite the stillness and monochrome nature of the prints, the characters are vibrant and full of energy.
Jacob Chandler appears at the center of the dancing pavement with one of the As You Like It dancers from his Soulton commission.
It is a fitting approach for characters defined, in the end, by transformation: disguise shed, rivalry resolved, courtship consummated in a single choreographed dance of pairing and repairing.
The choreography of the dance was itself recorded and uncovered here at Soulton, and speaks, as so much on this estate seems to, of peace, harmony, and the business of statecraft conducted through ceremony rather than decree.
The project was commissioned by Tim Ashton of Soulton Hall through the Soden Collection.
Jacob Chandler at a private exhibition of his aAS YOU LIKE IT dancers at Soutlon Hall
The pieces were made in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Globe Theatre, whose archives furnished Chandler with reference imagery for the original designs.
Dr Will Tosh, Head of Research at the Globe, has called the resulting collection a body of work that:
captures the vitality of Shakespeare’s characters in all their edgy, front-footed, dynamic beauty
high praise we agree with.
Sir Rowland Hill, former Lord Mayor of London had Soulton hall built as his coded monument in the safety of Shropshire. He is a cousin of Mary Arden, Shakespeare’s mother.
The scholarship tying “As You Like It” to Shropshire led by Tim Ashton with support from Christine Schmidle and consulted on by James D. Wenn of Byrga Geniht Ltd.
Shakespeare knew the manor and used Thomas Lodge’s book Rosalind as source material for the play.
Thomas Lodge Jr. lived as a boy at Soulton.
James D. Wenn stands in an upper room at Soulton Hall, looking at some of Jacob Chandler’s As You Like It dancers by a window with the best view of the dancing pavement.
With The Rest Is History turning its attention to the Tudor world this house was built to inhabit, a provate collector asked for them to be brought back to be viewed in a rooma where Shakespeare, Shropshire, the Reformation, a Bible transltion, a forest, a wedding dance, could be read the way it was intended: slowly, and in good company.
The limited edition prints are available, framed to requirements alongside the full size editions.
Various framing options remain available for those who would like a piece of the story for their own walls.
For more information please visit https://www.jacobchandler.co.
Jacob Chandler, James Syrette, Tim Ashton, and James Wenn stand in the Epidaurus Court of Soulton Hall near the feretory sculpture over the site of the memory of Erkenwald.
