Craquelere & The Universal No, Aylesford

We've had yet more miserable weather here over the past few days. I can't remember a wetter or greyer winter for many years. Today was no exception as it absolutely launched it down from early morning, only lightened with brief periods of sunshine and the occasional hint of blue sky. Despite this we decided to head out to get our Friday night ready meal and then quaff a pint at the Red Bull in Eccles before heading back home.
Luckily, as we left the pub the sun reappeared so we decided to head to The Friars just outside our village to try and get a blip and this is when I came across this sign on the outside of their boiler house. The cracks in the enamel reminded me so much of the craquelere (these are a fine pattern of dense cracking formed on the surface of materials and can be the result of drying, shock (e.g. a sudden increase or decrease in temperature) and/or ageing) I have often seen in some of the paintings that I photograph for work. Here's some very interesting facts that I didn't know about it:

Characterisation of craquelure morphology

There are seven key features used to describe craquelure morphology:
Local and global direction of cracks
Relationship to weave or grain direction of support
Crack shape
Crack spacing
Crack thickness
Termination of cracks
Organisation of crack network

These seven criteria have been used to identify "styles" of craquelure, which relate crack patterns to various historic schools of art. This links the crack patterns with specific time periods, locations, and painting styles.

Italian paintings on panel (1300–1500): cracks oriented perpendicular to wood grain with jagged lines and distinct secondary networks of thin cracks
Flemish paintings on panel (1400–1600): cracks oriented parallel to wood grain with smooth, straight segments; uniform thicknesses and small, square islands observed
Dutch paintings on canvas (1600s): cracks oriented perpendicular to major axis of painting with jagged lines and square junctions; cracks tend to follow weft and warp of canvas support
French paintings on canvas (1700s): non-directional cracks with smooth, curved lines in random distributions; newly-developed, stiffer sublayers tended to delocalise tension from the support and remove the connection between crack direction and canvas weave

I also thought the sign looked almost exactly like the Japanese flag, called Hinomaru, which means disc of the sun. Apparently the white stands for purity and integrity and the red for sincerity, brightness and warmth. Last but not least, a diagonal line from top left to bottom right represents the universal no or to put it in plain English, a prohibition or restriction of some sort or another.