City of Oxford

“Dreaming Spires”

Title: City of Oxford; “Her Dreaming Spires”

Artists’ notes: I painted this after making several sketches and taking a number of zoomed photographs from Chilswell Field, Boars Hill. It depicts the dreaming spires of Oxford made famous by Mathew Arnold’s poem. I have enlarged the city buildings in this image, as if seeing the spires through binoculars. Arnold is reputed to have walked here often.

“This winter eve is warm, humid the air; leafless, yet soft as spring, The tender purple spray on copse and briers: And that sweet City with her dreaming spires, she needs not June for heightening…”

Matthew Matthew Arnold (first published in Macmillan’s Magazine April 1866)

Medium: Oil on board

Original: SOLD /gifted to a close friend of the artist

Prints: Giclée prints in various sizes AVAILABLE to order, message me via the contacts page to make a purchase.