Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

Watson and the Shark.

A reminder for you :



I seem to remember the canvas having acquired a large hole at some point .....

It seems to be in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. :

http://www.nga.gov/feature/watson/watsonhome.html

Let's hope the school got a few quid for it then!

Great Plum wrote:Oh well, I guess the need of the pupils must come above paintings!

And, as usual, it's the Yanks that get our treasures !

I seem to remember when I first saw the painting, being a bit of a naturalist, (NOT naturist, Mary), that I had never seen a picture of such a shark with a blunt nose ! Was it possible the artist didn't measure his subject out onto the canvas when he started ?

J.R. wrote:Was it possible the artist didn't measure his subject out onto the canvas when he started ?

well, it's hardly a realistic painting is it?!

J.R. wrote:

Great Plum wrote:Oh well, I guess the need of the pupils must come above paintings!

And, as usual, it's the Yanks that get our treasures !

I seem to remember when I first saw the painting, being a bit of a naturalist, (NOT naturist, Mary), that I had never seen a picture of such a shark with a blunt nose ! Was it possible the artist didn't measure his subject out onto the canvas when he started ?

and what pray is wrong wih that?

englishangel wrote:

J.R. wrote:

Great Plum wrote:Oh well, I guess the need of the pupils must come above paintings!

And, as usual, it's the Yanks that get our treasures !

I seem to remember when I first saw the painting, being a bit of a naturalist, (NOT naturist, Mary), that I had never seen a picture of such a shark with a blunt nose ! Was it possible the artist didn't measure his subject out onto the canvas when he started ?

and what pray is wrong wih that?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, (As Edwin Starr said when singing 'War' !)

............. but it has been snowing here this afternoon !

I dimly remember one of those waffles that one would snooze through in wednesday chapel being all about this painting. I think we got an alright price for the painting, but nothing compared to what its worth now.

Cor. If I'd known the story behind the painting, Watson's "personal triumph over adversity" might have served as a "most usefull Lesson to Youth."

As it was, I remember taking part in some junior girls' choir concert in the Court Room one evening in the Michaelmas term. It would have benefitted from better lighting so that one didn't turn around in the semi-darkness to be faced by a shark...

I thought that one was in the library - was it moved or am I mistaken???

Talking of paintings - anyone remember the visiting rubgy player who chucked a knife into the Verrio in Dining Hall. I remember that even as teenage boys - we were pretty horrified by the act of vandalism.

Rory wrote:I thought that one was in the library - was it moved or am I mistaken???

Talking of paintings - anyone remember the visiting rubgy player who chucked a knife into the Verrio in Dining Hall. I remember that even as teenage boys - we were pretty horrified by the act of vandalism.

I remember - I was surprised that our knives were so aerodynamic!

marty wrote:

Great Plum wrote:I think that in the first term the squits aren't allowed mobile phones...

Mobile phones?!! Bl**dy luxury! In my day you weren't even allowed to speak unless your leg was falling off, we lived on a diet of coal sandwiches (without bread) and horse urine, got up before we went to sleep and every night the housemaster would come round and murder us in cold blood, just for good measure. And youngsters these days say they have it tough!

Thats nothing, in my day we were woken up before we went to bed, and had to work 28 hours down't Lag without any food and then go to lessons. After that we would have a meal of sand.

Sand?

Luxury! We had to eat in the Dining Hall.......

Richard Ruck wrote:Sand?

Luxury! We had to eat in the Dining Hall.......

marty wrote: In my day you weren't even allowed to speak unless your leg was falling off,............. And youngsters these days say they have it tough!

and when did you leave? We didn't even have access to phones.

As for the leg business I got into sh.tstreet one night. On parade into dining hall I felt a stone and a mass of slime in my shoe and asked permission to fall out. Request refused. In dining hall I removed the offending shoe to pour out the accumulated liquid - it took a fork to lever out the length of broken glass.

A few days later I got hauled into Mr Jones' (Prep A) office and given merry hell for getting my socks so dirty - I had been reported by matron. Treatment - you must be joking, but at least I didn't get beaten for that offence. The scar is about an inch and a half long even now.