Statue of an enigma

In the Castle Gardens, Leicester, stands a wonderful statue of Richard III. The commission was carried out by James Butler, RA, and was erected in 1980. Repeatedly vandalised in the early days, it was transferred from its initial site to a less exposed part of the Gardens. This turned out to be an inspired move, for the interference ceased. From the new location, only yards away from Bow Bridge, it now directly overlooks the very route on which Richard led out his army westwards from the city on the morning of August 21, 1485, to locate and do battle the following day with the usurping forces of Henry Tudor.

This striking piece of work encapsulates so much of the drama and desperation associated with Richard III. It depicts the king on the verge of defeat, his clothes torn from his unprotected arms as he stands with his dagger gripped in one hand and his battle crown raised in the other. The face, a picture of searing anguish, searches to the heavens in this final moment of regal defiance.

There is no hint of deformity in this sculpture. Nor is there any evidence of Shakespeare's 'bottled spider'; no 'ugly and unnatural aspect' to furnish it. Those who wish to see such time-honoured peculiarities must look elsewhere. Here is the portrayal of a man with strong, regular features; here stands the warrior king, courageous to the last in his spirited defence of the realm. It might be argued this is how Richard himself would have hoped to have been remembered by the world at large. We know, these many years after his brutal death at Bosworth Field, that such a hope has not been fulfilled.

Shakespeare's play, Richard III, is the riveting masterpiece that brought the poet popular acclaim. Alas for Richard, it almost certainly cast its subject into eternal damnation. Posterity had been served up the epitomical arch-villain and it wasn't going to let it go. The great actors of succeeding generations faithfully rallied to the Shakespearean cause, right through to the 20th century when Laurence Olivier's stupefying interpretation gave the world the definitive article.

It is faintly ironic - some would say fitting - that the Leicester statue not only oversees Richard's path out of the city to battle, but also his awful and ignominious return in death and defeat. Perhaps in the irony we can see a kind of balance of the noble and ignoble aspects of this enigma. Perhaps, if we look hard enough at the statue and have the inclination on the day, we might even sense something of the heart-rending nature of the human condition.

Pic: (c) P Taylor