{"id":54386,"title":"The Liver Birds","description":"A love letter to Liverpool and their most famous birds.","content":"

\"xnn0rnfrvkduldu6lqnoqpx6na23wkh2soscpqpry2b1fwo8.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"The following is an excerpt from an essay I\u2019ve written, reflecting on my journey with Remember Nature,<\/u><\/a> you can read the whole thing in my beautiful PDF, download it here.<\/u><\/a><\/p>

FYI: it\u2019s easier to read the PDF on a computer or iPad rather than a phone.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

From my earliest meetings to discuss my contribution to Remember Nature, it was clear that The Pansy Project<\/u><\/a> would be the primary focus. However, given the title of the curatorial framework and my more recent work with birds, it felt necessary to find a way to bring this relatively new methodology into the conversation. I was only half-joking when in those first meetings I suggested that I might \u2018do\u2019 a cormorant. I wasn\u2019t entirely sure whether I was remembering correctly that Liverpool\u2019s mythical Liver Birds were modelled on cormorants, though the images included here reveal that I was at least partly right.<\/p>

\"0is1ta2mzjgplfcrub5p88csv5hlnn4e03neqqryblsukupu.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"The Liver Bird belongs to Liverpool\u2019s modern folklore rather than its ancient past. Writing in 1774, Liverpool\u2019s first historian William Enfield described the Liver Bird as existing only in \u201cfabulous tradition,\u201d comparing it to mythical creatures such as the phoenix or griffin.\u00a0<\/p>

This was reinforced in 1911, when the Royal Liver Friendly Society crowned its waterfront building with two large sculptural birds. These figures, which resemble no real species, helped fix the idea of the Liver Bird as a fantastical creature in the popular imagination.<\/p>

Earlier evidence tells a more ambiguous story. A bird appears on Liverpool\u2019s earliest surviving corporate seal, dated 1352, (below) with later impressions from the fifteenth century. The bird itself is indistinct, suggesting its maker was neither an artist or knowledgeable about birds.\u00a0<\/p>

\"fw4tnmr9yvc0rzif9lzlicmprny9bbm6syals34cfawubnkt.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"Scholars turned to the medieval seal\u2019s symbols and lettering for clues about the original bird. Evidence suggests the bird was intended to be an eagle; the symbol of St John, patron saint of King John, who granted Liverpool its first charter in 1207. The presence of accompanying symbols such as a star and crescent, and a sprig of broom (a badge of the Plantagenet dynasty), further ties the seal to King John\u2019s authority and era.<\/p>

Over time, the original eagle-like bird became gradually reinterpreted, and by 1611 civic records describe a bird resembling a cormorant, a species common in the Mersey estuary.\u00a0In 1797 the College of Arms formally granted Liverpool its coat of arms, depicting a cormorant holding a sprig of seaweed called laver, and from that point the cormorant became the official Liver Bird.\u00a0<\/p>

\"jfvjzbwydhxidv9zrr4tbut0hqhmi7cvrfvkg8rff6ripwdx.jpeg.jpeg?w=1140&v=2\"The most famous Liver Birds, known as Bertie and Bella, sit atop the Royal Liver Building. Made from hammered copper plates fixed on internal steel armatures, they stand about 18 feet (5.5 metres) tall with wingspans of around 24 feet (7.3 metres) each. The Liver Birds do not only crown the Royal Liver Building; they appear throughout the city in architectural details and civic imagery. The Liver Bird is also the emblem of the Liverpool Echo and of Liverpool Football Club, as sentinels they are woven into the fabric of the city and its lore.\u00a0One bird is said to look out to sea, guarding sailors, while the other watches over the city and its people. In a local echo of the ravens at the Tower of London, legend has it that if the Liver Birds were to ever fly away, the city will fall.<\/p>

\"lh7d5djnxvjbbaqrnzfom6i6juy1mvpkct5tr9pf5dkkhbwb.jpeg.jpeg?w=1140&v=2\"The making of the Liver Birds have an interesting history too. In the lead up to 1911, The Liver Birds were designed and sculpted by Carl Bernard Bartels, a German born artist who had won an international competition for the commission.\u00a0He had become a naturalised Briton, after falling in love with the country on his honeymoon in 1887 and moved to London in his early twenties. Despite the civic honour bestowed upon Carl Bernard Bartels he was arrested in 1915 at the height of anti-German feeling during the first world war, he was imprisoned in an internment camp on the Isle of Man.\u00a0<\/p>

At the end of the war, he was forcibly repatriated to Germany, separated from his wife and children. Eventually Bartels managed to return to the UK and continued to work as a sculptor. During the second world war he even helped create artificial limbs for servicemen.\u00a0<\/p>

With post war xenophobia still rife, The city began to credit the foundry or sometimes the architect of the Liver building; Walter Aubrey Thomas as the makers of the Liver Birds and chose to ignore the originator of the design. Sources vary on what happened to the original drawings and blueprints for the sculptures, they were either lost or destroyed. And so it seemed his association with what became the iconic symbols of Liverpool would be lost forever, until a campaign began in 2007 to credit the sculptor appropriately.\u00a0<\/p>

In the lead up to the centenary celebrations of the Liver building the city of Liverpool acknowledged the injustice and welcomed Carl Bernard Bartels descendants back to the city. So over fifty years after his death in 1955, Tim Olden, the great grandson of Bartels received the Citizen of Honour Award on behalf of Carl Bernard Bartels at a ceremony in Liverpool Town Hall in 2011.\"9fiu2sapakpmegzgbecuup7efqcyrkoheavcnc1smgmssswg.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"My initial assumption that the Liver Bird was based on a cormorant was almost correct. The original bird may have been an eagle, or perhaps a hybrid of eagle and cormorant, though it now feels fair to say that the Liver Bird has settled into its cormorant identity. The posture of the birds atop the Royal Liver Building appears to confirm this reading.<\/p>

Cormorants are unusual birds. Despite spending much of their time diving for fish, their feathers are not fully waterproof. After diving, they must outstretch their wings to dry, a familiar sight along rivers and estuaries. I went to study cormorants in person at Victoria Park, which has a healthy population, and was pleased to see them drying beside the pond, even in the winter sun.<\/p>