THE BROADCAST this afternoon will trace the history of British sculpture from days before the Conquest down to the present time. Pre-Norman sculpture had amongst its examples figures and reliefs in bone and ivory, and larger reliefs built into walls. Norman decorations were bolder and rougher ; then in the thirteenth century, a period when good stone and wood were abundant, figures and ornaments were carved ' on the job '. Later, shops started at quarries and in busy centres,
I supplying figures for tombs and so on for several centuries, and even exporting them. The listener will hear how the craving for foreign style dealt a death blow to the native tradition of English sculpture, which remained moribund down to recent times.
Mr. R. M. Y. Gleadowe will also discuss drawing, which is the basis of sculpture and all other crafts. The British genius is for line rather than tone, and English drawing and design today seem to be reverting to tradition.