Paean to Whitby, 2012
'Paean to Whitby' was created in 2012 after one of the annual Whitby Goth Weekends (WGW). It began in this way. I had seen a young woman dressed in long, flowing, beautiful Victorian dress. After asking her permission, I photographed her and later, started to draw the image which was to become the lady in the lower right of the artwork. So began 'Paean to Whitby'. Incidentally, this was also how WhitbyGothic, the sister site to AnthonyHodgsonArt, began.
'Paean to Whitby' is a personal homage to my hometown and I have included many of the characters and themes which make this small, seemingly insignificant northern port such a giant from a literary, cultural and historical perspective : the famous abbey, where the date of Easter was decided under Saint Hild’s watch in 664AD; Caedmon, the father of English poetry, who lived here; the Vikings, with the hammer of Thor and their drakkars; the amazing art of the Anglo-Saxons; the shipping and fishing industries, represented by Captain Cook's Endeavour and the humble coble; the jet industry; steam engines and the Goth Express; Dracula and his creator Bram Stoker who holidayed here, and of course, the Whitby Goth Weekend as epitomised by the above-mentioned lady in the bottom-right corner.