All Men are the Same

The title of All Men are the Same ( a two plate woodcut with hand painting) is taken from an aria in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte which Glyndebourne are reviving in their 2021 Festival. While the music is sublime I have always felt uncomfortable with the sexist and rather pernicious narrative in this opera where Fiordilidi's and Dorabella's loyalty towards their lovers Guglielmo and Ferrando are meanly tested and eventually bound to fail. So using this title, All Men are the Same, seems appropriately head on and combative. The woodcut is a very simple arrangement of figure and ground relationships, almost like an Indian miniature painting where the four main protagonists are set in front of the backdrop of the sea. Each man is looking at his friend's partner and in this simple symmetrical geometry of vision I have tried to allude to the complexities of the wife swopping plot — TH

As with all the work made in response to Tom’s two years, as Associate Artist at Glyndebourne, a donation is made to Glyndebourne’s Young Artist programme from the sale of this woodcut.