The Novocastrian Bridges And The Art Of John Coatsworth

Introduction

I've always loved The Art of John Coatsworth and you can see a lot of it by clicking on that link. I have this book of his work in my front room.

I love that he turns my adopted home city into beautiful cartoons often twisting them into impossible perspectives, but they are items of beauty that you can spend a lot of time enjoying.

This is about the four bridges over the Tyne in the main painting although including rail and footbridges, there are twenty-six bridges over the river Tyne. There are seven between Newcastle and Gateshead,

The Bridges Over The River Tyne

I remember seeing the album "Five Bridges" by The Nice when I was at secondary school, and taking a little interest in the album because it was Keith Emerson's first band where he destroyed (in the most impressive way) various classical pieces, which he continued with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I still think the "Five Bridges Suite" is pretentious guff that takes up the first side of the album, but side two was great fun. I am listening to that album as I write this as it is sort of appropriate.

I didn't know what the title referred to, but little did I know that in another thirty years, I would be driving over the bridge on the cover of that album.

From top to bottom, the John Coatsworth painting shows:

• The High-Level Bridge
• The Swing Bridge
• The Tyne Bridge
• The Millenium Bridge

The full list of the bridges from east to west is:

• The Redheugh Bridge
• King Edward VII Bridge
• Queen Elizabeth II Bridge
• The High-Level Bridge
• The Swing Bridge
• The George V Bridge (or Tyne Bridge)
• The Gateshead Millennium Bridge

I was in the Pitcher and Piano when The Millenium Bridge was installed by a huge floating crane. The ones in bold are the ones installed since The Nice album was released.

I love the clarity that Coatsworth's painting gives but I am going to share a few of my photographs of the bridges that I have taken on my walks.

Sorry to start you off with a selfie of me on the Tyne Bridge, just to prove that I do walk over it sometimes. I actually once did a free abseil off the bridge for charity. That was a bit scary as I thought abseiling was against some solid object, but I did survive it.

This is a photograph of a photograph that I took at a local clinic when seeing a specialist for my cancer treatment (I think I am clear now). I just thought this looked incredible.

I think this was taken on a train journey south. The first one is the Swing Bridge, the second is The Tyne (or George V) Bridge and then the Millenium Bridge next to the shiny Sage.

This is taken from The Sage, and you can see the Tyne Bridge, then The Swing Bridge and the little curved bits you can see under The Tyne Bridge are The High-Level Bridge.

This is a pedestrian walkway on The High-Level Bridge. We do have a lot of choices to walk over the Tyne to Gateshead.

This is my friend, the comedian John Scott, talking about Newcastle's Bridges.

This is a short timelapse of the Millenium Bridge opening and lit up and below are all the bridges lit up at night.

Conclusion

I was unable to find a website for John Coatsworth but the images in his book are wonderful. Just search him on Google for a lot more of his work or check out the book.

I hope my pictures have shown you what he based his wonderful artwork on.

Thank you so much for reading.