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Peter Connolly
#46
He was the first ancient illustrator I knew by name.
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
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#47
Quote:Tuesday May 15th, 1.30pm at Peterborough Crematorium.
That's tomorrow. Anyone going?
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#48
Quote:
mcbishop post=312186 Wrote:Tuesday May 15th, 1.30pm at Peterborough Crematorium.
That's tomorrow. Anyone going?
I went. The crematorium was filled with family, friends and colleagues; I don't think that many more could have got in. Members of the Ermine Street Guard acted as pall-bearers and Chris Haines, centurion of the Guard, delivered the eulogy. It was an altogether fitting farewell to a well-liked and highly-respected man.
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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#49
Even today, I try to read any ilustrated History book in the "under 16" section of the libraries hoping to find good ones...they may not be the most prestigious History books, but a good work can inspire a great number of people.

I remember well how I enjoyed reading some of his books for the first time, seeing how real made the seem the past. Real tools, real weapons, real houses...very different from some fancy drawings or XIX century archive images seen everywhere too many times. Probably I started being critical with the drawings (and their sources) thanks to him Big Grin
-This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how
sheep´s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
[Image: escudocopia.jpg]Iagoba Ferreira Benito, member of Cohors Prima Gallica
and current Medieval Martial Arts teacher of Comilitium Sacrae Ensis, fencing club.
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#50
Osprey put this blog post up today: Peter Connolly, Artist and Scholar. Here, here.
posted by Duncan B Campbell
https://ninth-legion.blogspot.com/
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#51
Just saw this post, and it's very sad news indeed. A great artist and scholar. Commiserations to his family and friends.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
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#52
To me, Peter was the Force, pulling me into our most glorious hobby. My first book at the age of 12 I think ( now 38 years ago) was The greek Army, in Dutch of course, published 1978. It was enchanting, showing me perspectives I could never have gotten from any other written source. Peter was beyond fabulous at that. I just HAD to get me a 5th Cty BC Corinthian helmet...The real problem was the how. Styrofoam finally provided the rough shape and strips of cardboard glued on with expanding glue brought me a helmet as tough as could be. Limited painting skills made it come to life and the result -in brass- is worn by Greek re-enactors around the world today. so, for what it was worth, it brought some good to the world. Naturally the remainder of the hoplite equipment followed rapidly. Being supernatural back then, I decided to do the 10 Mile run from Amsterdam to Zaandam, which I managed in a clean 1.27 hrs. Of note is the fact that I had an add on my shield for a local Greek restaurant awhich earned me a dinner for 4.

Inevitably his The Roman Army had a similar yet greater effect on me,leading to the founding of Gemina, to day the eldest living history group in the Netherlands and recenlt using his artwork of the houses at Pompeii as a guideline to the reconstruction of a Roman Domus.

So, in a sense, it all his fault really. I had the privilege of meeting him many times, my life feels enriched in many ways and he will continue to be an inspiration to me.

So here's to you Peter, may the Gods lighten your path wherever it may lead you.
Paul Karremans
Chairman and founding member
Member in the Order of Orange-Nassau, awarded for services to Roman Living History in the Netherlands

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.gemina.nl">http://www.gemina.nl
est.1987
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#53
Obituary here: http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/community...-1-3941793.
posted by Duncan B Campbell
https://ninth-legion.blogspot.com/
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#54
Quote:Obituary here: http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/community...-1-3941793.
Also a good one (whole page) by Simon James, using some of the material deployed by Chris Haines in his eulogy (along with PC's cavalry charge painting), in The Times on Saturday (16th June 2012, p.83). It is probably online behind the Murdoch paywall, but since that is somewhere I will not venture on principle, I cannot vouch for the truth of that assertion and can only report the existence of the dead-tree version.

Mike Bishop
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles

Blogging, tweeting, and mapping Hadrian\'s Wall... because it\'s there
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#55
Quote:Also a good one (whole page) by Simon James, using some of the material deployed by Chris Haines in his eulogy (along with PC's cavalry charge painting), in The Times on Saturday (16th June 2012, p.83).
Pulled this off the Infoweb server:

Peter Connolly - Author and illustrator of popular history books especially about the military life and times of the Greco-Roman world (Times, The (London, England) - Saturday, June 16, 2012)
Quote:Peter Connolly was an author, an illustrator, an historian and an experimental archaeologist. He was most widely known for meticulously researched, full-colour popular history books which were translated into many languages. These were written and illustrated in his highly characteristic style, packed with immensely detailed paintings (normally gouaches) of original artefacts and reconstructions of life and action.

His volumes ranged from the Holy Land in the time of Jesus to Pompeii, Athens and Rome, and (his final book, with Hazel Dodge) the Colosseum. But his special passion was the military history and archaeology of the Greco-Roman world, its neighbours and antagonists, presented in a succession of books exploring armaments, strategy, battles and battlefield tactics, siege warfare, forts and fortifications. A pair of slim volumes explored many of these themes through the life of a real Roman legionary turned cavalryman and decorated hero, Tiberius Claudius Maximus, known from a tombstone.

The vital underpinning to Connolly's success as a popular author-illustrator was his ability as a scholarly researcher, bringing authority and authenticity to his books. His growing academic reputation led to an honorary research fellowship at University College London and culminated in his election as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1985. These were notable honours because Connolly had no formal qualifications as archaeologist or historian; he was entirely self-taught.

Peter William Connolly was born in Surbiton, Surrey, in 1935. He was one of six children of an artist father. After boarding school Connolly relieved the boredom of National Service in the RAF through commissions to paint officers' portraits, and reading about the ancient world. He then trained as a commercial illustrator at Brighton College of Arts and Crafts, but his burgeoning passion for antiquity led to a more multifaceted career.

From the early 1970s his interest in the Roman army brought him into contact with academic specialists, who came to respect his meticulous studies of battlefields and weaponry. He became a regular participant in Brian Dobson's annual Durham University "Roman Army School". A key early collaboration was with H. Russell Robinson, curator of the Tower Armouries, who was preparing his seminal Armour of Imperial Rome (1975). Robinson worked out how the famous iron-strip armour was constructed, and Connolly prepared technical drawings of the new reconstructions for the book. These, the colour paintings of legionaries on the cover, and simultaneous publication of Connolly's own first book, The Roman Army, marked the real start of his career as an archaeological reconstruction illustrator.

Unlike Alan Sorrell, who built on the work of Amédée Forestier to popularise the genre of archaeological reconstruction painting in Britain, Connolly did not regard himself as an artist, but always described himself as an illustrator, emphasising the craft skills needed to convey academic information and ideas clearly and compellingly, in aesthetically appealing ways, through visual means. For him the techniques and aesthetics of image-making were, like those of composing text, critically important, but illustration was more the medium for his messages than an end in itself.

What also distinguished Connolly from other well-known illustrators of historical topics such as Ronald Embleton and Angus McBride was the depth to which he researched every detail of his pictures. This was manifested not just in the extensive library of classical sources and archaeological books he built up, but in the long trips he undertook, with academic friends such as Margaret Roxan, to survey battlefields and examine museum artefacts.

His own craft skills allowed him to go one step further: not satisfied simply with making clear and elegant drawings of his interpretations, he also made 3-D scale maps and models of buildings. To understand how ancient artefacts were made and how they worked, he would make full-scale replicas and experiment, thus becoming a skilled experimental archaeologist.

His greatest achievement in this regard was recovering the secret of a fundamental piece of ancient technology: the Roman saddle. Since Victorian times it has been widely assumed that, before the early medieval introduction of the stirrup, horsemen must have been prone to falling, and so cavalry could not have been very effective. No complete Roman saddle survives, but leather saddle covers do, along with ancient depictions. Building on earlier Dutch work, in collaboration with the archaeological leather expert Carol Van Driel-Murray, through dozens of experiments Connolly evolved a full-size reconstruction replicating and explaining every stitching hole, stretch and wear mark on the leather fragments, and corresponding to the ancient images. The resulting four-pommel saddle looks strange to modern eyes, but proves highly effective, offering a secure seat even without stirrups, as Connolly demonstrated by riding it himself.Reconstructing the Roman saddle was just one of Connolly's many contributions to understanding the past, going beyond communicating ideas to generating original knowledge.

Because of his exceptional combination of skills (rigorous academic learning and talents with brush and pen are rarely combined in a single person), at the height of his abilities from the 1970s to the turn of the century he was in great demand from museums and heritage bodies to paint reconstructions of people and places to grace exhibitions and for posters and postcards. Connolly was a lively speaker, sought by television companies needing a "talking head" for documentaries. He had a profound impact on a popular aspect of the heritage industry: "living history". The many Roman military re-enactment societies across Europe and beyond owe a great deal to the detail and authenticity of Connolly's books. He worked especially closely with the oldest and most respected group, the Ermine Street Guard, becoming their president.

Today his books are found in schools and libraries, and his work has inspired not only historical re-enactors, but also a new generation of archaeological researchers, especially those studying the Roman military.

Connolly was twice married and twice divorced, but in his latter years remained close to his second wife, Barbara, who supported him through his long final illness.

He leaves a son and two daughters by his first marriage.

Peter Connolly, illustrator, author, historian and archaeologist, was born on May 8, 1935. He died on May 2, 2012, aged 76.
posted by Duncan B Campbell
https://ninth-legion.blogspot.com/
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#56
Quote: . . . using some of the material deployed by Chris Haines in his eulogy . . .
Chris Haines' eulogy can be found here:
http://erminestreetguard.co.uk/Peter%20C...Eulogy.htm
Michael King Macdona

And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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