To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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A novel approach to the myth of the rural idyll
Women writers from the Victorian age on warned that country village life wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, says STEPHANIE PALMER
Cotswold Village Life
[Terry Joyce/Creative Commons]
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THE SEASON of the good old summer “fayre” is here and many will be heading off to eat tea and scones and take part in the tombola at their local village fete.
There, it’s a good bet, they will hear of local people’s concerns that new housing developments foisted on them by the government will ruin the character of their idyllic rural community.
But the myth of tranquil village life was well and truly exploded in the Victorian age when many writers concluded that life in England’s small rural communities was not a simple idyll of tea, vicars and charitable works.
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