How accurate is this painting as an interpretation of the Great Hall during the Middle Ages.

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Question 2: How accurate is this painting as an interpretation of the Great Hall during the Middle Ages

Ivan Lapper is a world-leading historical reconstruction artist, who has worked with English Heritage as well as The Royal Armouries. He drew an interpretation (painting) of the Great Hall, which was published in the Kenilworth Castle guidebook / advertisement booklets. Obviously then people are going to see this picture, and want to see something that will attract them to come to the castle. But where did he get his information? He could have based it on information from other sources or visit the site himself – or both.

The painting clearly shows that the Great Hall was designed to impress guests in the Middle Ages, a prime example being the style of windows. They are perpendicular style and there is also an oriel window in the painting. This proves that they are for decoration, thus to impress guests. There is also a fireplace in the photo, with decorative stonework, as well as a decorative doorway. I think Lapper included these features because they do in fact make the picture seem impressive. (Especially to people with little or no knowledge of what a typical Great Hall would have been like.) The perspective of the painting makes the Hall look significantly bigger than it appears in reality, and the people in the painting are made to seem quite small up to the Hall and again making it look bigger, to make it more impressive. These are exaggerated features, which is similar to being biased which makes Lapper slightly unreliable in that respect.

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Some of these features were not at the site – the people, the tables and food, the flags hanging from wall, the floor, the roof, most of the top quarter of the wall and the glass in the windows. But Lapper’s actual structuring of the building is quite accurate (which I personally witnessed at the site). At the site there were remains of the two left windows, the wall that holds the fireplace, and half of the window third-in. (these things were what I could see from the same viewpoint as in Lapper’s painting.) Thus then, his picture is ...

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