IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

This paper speaks to an interdisciplinary project with the National Trust UK that investigates the seventeenth-century plaster ceiling at Lanhydrock, Cornwall UK: an unparalleled and understudied property, using digital scanning, as an example of how technology can communicate to audience’s new perspectives of the UK’s heritage at the westernmost periphery of Europe. The National Trust is restoring the ceiling presenting the unique opportunity to digitally record and analyze it before, during and after the restoration: New digital scanning technology has revealed previously unknown detail. Combining art history and heritage with cutting edge digital analytical methodologies, the paper will examine of the extensive imagery through 3D scanning, that has offered an opportunity for an interactive display during the restoration with enhanced immersive visual experiences. The paper explores how technology can bring focus to the imagery and combines iconography with critical analysis. It traces the ways that preexisting models may partially determine the creation of an image and at the same time allow engagement with contemporary concerns. This methodology is particularly relevant for Lanhydrock, since the ceiling is based on a set of earlier iconographic sources, which are innovatively reshuffled to reflect on questions of family and gender. The ceiling stretches along an uninterrupted barrel-vault, thirty-five meters long and six meters wide, and is potentially one of the most significant sites for post-Reformation imagery. The scanning has acted to enhance access, and the reinterpretation of the visual material provides pathways to the understanding of the imagery for broader audiences in new contexts.