Power.

Let us return for a moment to Oxford High Street, to the very spot where Cecil Rhodes now stands (for a while anyway). Look across the road and you will see that statue of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Infant which I mentioned at the beginning, now serene and beautifully restored. But on a June day in 1646, in the midst of England’s Civil War, Anglican Oxford fell to the Puritan soldiers of Cromwell’s New Model Army. And as the victorious Ironsides marched up that glorious street, some especially zealous troopers saw the graven image, cried out with rage at its idolatry, levelled their muskets at it, and opened fire. The scars remained there for centuries. Now we can barely understand why they cared. But the power of rock and metal, forged or hammered into human shapes, is astonishing and disturbing. 

CONNECT

Thank you, Freiherr von Naarenburg.